Archive for May, 2010

your dreams will be reduced down to breathing, and you will be grateful

The thing about not-being-a-person is: They will say those people and the price of being a person is to nod and agree that yes, those people aren’t people at all. They will have no idea who they are talking to. You yourself will start to forget, too. They will say a million small things that sow the seeds for violence done against you, and you will smile and let them. You will do math, constantly. How much do I want to be a person today? How much do I want this project to succeed? How much honesty can I afford? How much dishonesty will kill me? What is the cost of coming out? Is there a way to delay, soften, transmute? How long can I survive as half a person? Ever since the world ended ... I don't go out as much. People that I once befriended, just don't bother to stay in touch. Things that used to seem so splendid, don't really matter today. It's just as well the world ended -- it wasn't working anyway. Your dreams will be reduced down to breathing. [Read More]

on 03/5/12 | 2 Comments | Read More

The Last of the Wild Autistics

I've said it before and I'll say it again — my generation is the last of the wild autistics.  Many of us were never given any autism-related diagnosis as children.  Those of us who did recieve cli...[Read More]

on 05/31/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

The Unbroken Spectrum: Projection

Years ago, long before I had any familiarity with psychological jargon, I remember running across the phrase “egodystonic homosexuality” and being highly amused at what an absurdly clinical term i...[Read More]

on 05/28/10 | 5 Comments | Read More

Staring Diversity in the Eye

The French Parliament has passed a resolution condemning the wearing of veils, as reported by feminist blogger Aimee Sea in an article pointing out the tremendous irony in the idea that women must be ...[Read More]

on 05/26/10 | 2 Comments | Read More

The Unbroken Spectrum: Ridicule

Having come full circle back to the assertion that there is no clear dividing line between the autistic population and the “non”-autistic population, this seems like an apt time to have a closer l...[Read More]

on 05/24/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

Randall Munroe Gets It

Minutes before I was going to post what I’d had prepared for this morning, I ran across today’s xkcd web comic, and will likely not be able to get to sleep without writing about it. It features th...[Read More]

on 05/21/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

The Post-Consumer Workforce

As the free sharing of information and creative endeavors on the Internet moves the economy away from a focus on consumerism, we can expect that the careers of the future will differ in many ways from...[Read More]

on 05/19/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

The Post-Consumer Age

As economist Tyler Cowen discusses in his book Create Your Own Economy, today's digital media are causing society to develop in what he characterizes as a more autistic direction.  Instead of passive...[Read More]

on 05/17/10 | No Comments | Read More

See Seven States!

There’s an implicit perspective behind most of what I write here at Shift, and I think behind much of what others contribute, a perspective that’s not exactly a secret, but one that I don’t thin...[Read More]

on 05/14/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

Prosperity

On top of my bookshelf I keep a Prosperity Tree, which is by far the most ridiculous gimmicky item I own.  It's about the same height and width as my open hand and has pale blue silk flowers, a white...[Read More]

on 05/12/10 | No Comments | Read More

Lili Marlene discovers the cause of autism in between bringing the laundry in off the line and washing some dishes

I was recently perusing some back issues of science magazines, and I came across an article about an aspect of human genetics that is interesting but is not currently connected with any “cutting edg...[Read More]

on 05/10/10 | No Comments | Read More

Mountain Goats of the Uncanny Valley

Now that the subject of autism and the uncanny valley has been laid on the table, I’d like to draw on that metaphor by sharing some further imagery that offers new ways to think about autistic pe...[Read More]

on 05/7/10 | 1 Comment | Read More

Strong Women and Social Change

Theory of mind, as Andrew Lehman explains, can be understood as a modern cognitive style that contrasts with the tendency of ancient matrifocal societies—and autistics—to engage in primary process...[Read More]

on 05/6/10 | No Comments | Read More

Is misandry relevant to autism?

Is misandry relevant to autism? [This is a recycled enhanced question that I posted a while ago at an online autism discussion.  It attracted an answer, but I don’t think it addressed the full s...[Read More]

on 05/5/10 | 7 Comments | Read More

A Changeling’s Alternate Reality Story

A tale of becoming, in others' eyes, something not quite human... You ought to have known better than to walk out of your house, late at night on Halloween, while dark wisps of cloud were briskly blo...[Read More]

on 05/3/10 | No Comments | Read More