Independence - Blog Posts

I realized the other day that the reason I didn't watch much TV as a teenager (and why I'm only now catching up on late aughts/early teens media that I missed), is because I literally didn't understand how to use our TV. My parents got a new system, and it had three remotes with a Venn diagram of functions. If someone left the TV on an unfamiliar mode, I didn't know how to get back to where I wanted to be, so I just stopped watching TV on my own altogether.

I explained all this to my therapist, because I didn't know if this was more related to my then-unnoticed autism, or to my relationship with my parents at the time (we had issues less/unrelated to neurodivergency). She told me something interesting.

In children's autism assessments, a common test is to give them a straightforward task that they cannot reasonably perform, like opening an overtight jar. The "real" test is to see, when they realize that they cannot do it on their own, if they approach a caregiver for help. Children that do not seek help are more likely to be autistic than those that do.

This aligns with the compulsory independence I've noticed to be common in autistic adults, particularly articulated by those with lower support needs and/or who were evaluated later in life. It just genuinely does not occur to us to ask for help, to the point that we abandon many tasks that we could easily perform with minor assistance. I had assumed it was due to a shared common social trauma (ie bad experiences with asking for help in the past), but the fact that this trait is a childhood test metric hints at something deeper.

My therapist told me that the extremely pathologizing main theory is that this has something to do with theory of mind, that is doesn't occur to us that other people may have skills that we do not. I can't speak for my early childhood self, or for all autistic people, but I don't buy this. Even if I'm aware that someone else has knowledge that I do not (as with my parents understanding of our TV), asking for help still doesn't present itself as an option. Why?

My best guess, using only myself as a model, is due to the static wall of a communication barrier. I struggle a lot to make myself understood, to articulate the thing in my brain well enough that it will appear identically (or at least close enough) in somebody else's brain. I need to be actively aware of myself and my audience. I need to know the correct words, the correct sentence structure, and a close-enough tone, cadence, and body language. I need draft scripts to react to possible responses, because if I get caught too off guard, I may need several minutes to construct an appropriate response. In simple day-to-day interactions, I can get by okay. In a few very specific situations, I can excel. When given the opportunity, I can write more clearly than I am ever capable of speaking.

When I'm in a situation where I need help, I don't have many of my components of communication. I don't always know what my audience knows. I don't have sufficient vocabulary to explain what I need. I don't know what information is relevant to convey, and the order in which I should convey it. I don't often understand the degree of help I need, so I can come across inappropriately urgent or overly relaxed. I have no ability to preplan scripts because I don't even know the basic plot of the situation.

I can stumble though with one or two deficiencies, but if I'm missing too much, me and the potential helper become mutually unintelligible. I have learned the limits of what I can expect from myself, and it is conceptualized as a real and physical barrier. I am not a runner, so running a 5k tomorrow does not present itself as an option to me. In the same way, if I have subconscious knowledge that an interaction is beyond my capability, it does not present itself as an option to me. It's the minimum communication requirements that prevent me from asking for help, not anything to do with the concept of help itself.

Maybe. This is the theory of one person. I'm curious if anyone else vibes with this at all.

She tastes like the metallic burn of blood.

She smells like the pop of wood as the fire consumes it.

She feels like the static that clings to your clothes.

She looks like lightning as it cracks the sky.

And he fancies himself Zeus.

@thefluffyvillain-fluffmaster Fanart for Fluffmaster’s fanfic “Independence”, one of my favorites. This was also an excuse to draw KamiDeku/DekuKami. First time posting on this app. Yay

Radicalisation, Hate, and the Great Die Out.

I didn’t write for a while, it is hard work using my brain to the extent that I do so time off is necessary, as any hyper vigilant person may already know... and for the record, I am playing with this “great die out” in the title. You should know that I classify those using phrases like “the great reset, the great bla bla, etc” as radicalised people.

I want to write about our ongoing, and in my view, dangerous journey that is deepening into the world of single mindedness.

By single mindedness, what I mean is the one track, intolerant, anti diversity that our brains appear to be being trained into, by what often traces back to source as social media.

It doesn't only track back to social media, it also tracks back to certain public speakers, those of which who rightly so, hold their own beliefs and value set in the world, but instead of keeping those various laundries at home on the drying rail amongst friends and family sharing a cup of tea and a biscuit, they are taken out in front of great audiences both in person and online, with the intention of letting people know that their view is the only one that matters.

The problem with that is where some people in the audience have a tendency towards hate, and in many ways would like to act out that hate as a form of completion in their lives to please a specific person, being, or god. They really just want to please themselves.

Beliefs of people are one thing, but when they are pushed upon others as the “right” way above others personal will, then what we are dealing with is a person who wants to radicalise others into their own ideas about how life is to be lived.

Most of the obvious people who do this in the public eye are acting under the guise of religion. They are permitted to be there because they tout the religion as the reasoning behind their thinking, but looking at them all it is easy to see they are simply incredibly old fashioned. They, powerless in a rapidly changed, and still changing world, are struggling to grasp with the realities that they now find themselves in and perhaps have deep, survival based needs to make the modern world that they now find themselves in even more evil than it ever has been.. even though we come from a time where the iron age was probably as gruesome as it gets, and open incest is catalogued in their written histories.

Despite all of our efforts to be beautiful in the world, inclusive and if we like, engaging in of all of our individual, creative worlds, hate will preside both in the overground and the underground, but at least in one projection I can see high potential for the old fashioned overground to simply die out as the arrow of time continues to direct us all ever onward, and onward’s :)

Public speakers who preach hate trickle down their one track ideas to the next generations, but the beauty is that each generation waters it down before the hate it becomes nothing, non existent.

May you all be beautifully blessed, and sending extra massive love to the trans community and all those creating with genders, non genders, roles, and identities right now.

🇨🇺 #Cuba #VersosSencillos Issued 1991 | #JoseMartí was a poet, writer and thinker in the 19th century. He was also exiled for wanting #independence from the #Spanish crown. "Rights are taken, not asked for or begged." -JM In current times, he would have been also an activist and dissent in #Cuba under the #communist regime. | José Martí, un pensador independentista y parte del exilio cubano en el siglo 19. Una de mis frases favoritas: " Los derechos se toman, no se piden, se arrancan, no se mendigan." #AbajoCastro #postagestamp #sello #stampcollection #philately #filatelia #instalike #instamood #instagood #tgif #derechoshumanos

I became so much more delicate

when I was with you—

in body

in spirit

Some days,

a strong gust of wind could’ve scattered me

over the globe

like ashes in an ocean

You taped HANDLE WITH CARE on me and

ignored your own warning

And when I was shattered on the floor,

when I was left sewing together

what was left of my soul

Without you,

That’s when I woke up

and finally realized how much better I am

Without you

So t h a n k y o u

for teaching me

I don’t need anyone but

Me

— Yushan C.

The woman you are becoming will cost you people, relationships, spaces, and material things. Choose her over everything.

The House on Mango Street was the first book that put what I wanted when I grew up into words. I hyperfixated on the shoes especially. They symbolize Esperanza's sexuality, and then her inner conflict between that sexuality and her desire for independence. I had similar struggles, particularly when I was 15. Quinces are a huge event in a Cuban girls life. Everyone in the extended family comes to ogle at the garish decorations while talking smack about the girl's dress and body in between bites of ropa vieja and croquetas. At the end, they exchange the little girl shoes she has for a high heel. Symbolizing her "ascension" into womanhood. This terrified me. I was still growing into my body. My feet still clumsy and my hands too small to hold onto to the ridiculous bouffant skirt of the dress which would inevitably lead me to trip even more in front of judging relatives. More than anything, I wasn't ready to be a woman, even symbolically. The questions of when I would get married, have children, would increase in their seriousness as they did for my first cousin. Under this pressure, she then had her baby at 17 with a man who constantly cheats on her to this day. They will tell me to go to university so I can find an educated man. Not to worry about about an education from myself. That I already study/read too much and men don't want overly smart women. This was the picture I had of "becoming a woman" since I transitioned from baby to child shoes. I told everyone the Christmas before my Quince in September that I would not be having one. The adults laughed and my cousins jeered at me at the kids table thinking I was loca and "antisocial". My mother, told me it would be my choice, but that the family would like to join me in this joyous occasion. I was shaking beneath their eyes, but again I said I did not want one. As September drew closer, the questions for when the invites were going out started to grow numerous. I again told them I would not be doing a quince. My aunt cried and called me selfish. That she never had a daughter, only sons, and she wanted to help me plan it. For the first time in my 15 years, I refused to give in. No amount of crocodile tears would get me to budge. I'm glad I did. It was the first step in MY path to becoming a woman. No high heels needed. Now, I keep my heelless "child shoes" near my bed in my own apartment where I live alone with my dog. Comfortable and free.

YOU decide what it means to be woman. Do not let anyone and their outdated traditions tell you what to do.

The Message that goes unheard

Science and scientists are not the enemy. We're on the same team.

We scientists are servants to society. We are here to serve you. We're supposed to find, share and defend the truth. We're supposed to listen to your concerns and investigate them rigorously. It's our job to serve you. We are your servants, not your enemies.

Policymakers and government officials are supposed to consult us, scientists and experts so that when they're making decisions they do so in ways that benefit society that protect you. That doesn't always happen and it wouldn't be the first time in history that we scientists have had to take governments to task for their failure to protect you, for their failure to take decisions that benefit society.

The scientific community, independent academic scientists are completely distinct from pharmaceutical companies who hire scientists, they need people with scientific training, but they are distinct. The independent academic scientific community is its own thing. We, scientists. Regulators.

We are here to protect you from those companies. Think about Francis Kelsey in the 1960s who refused to approve thalidomide because there was a lack of evidence to support its safety. Think about the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 when the Soviet state tried to hide the scale and danger of the incident, not just from its own citizens but from the world. It was we scientists, independent scientists, both in and outside of the USSR, who exposed the truth. We gathered data, generated evidence and shared it so that the global community could respond to the crisis and contain the destruction to the best of our ability.

We academic scientists spend most of our early career earning less than a minimum wage. And we do not benefit financially from producing one outcome over another. Private companies do. Politicians and policy makers do.

Science, like all human institutions, is not perfect and it is not entirely immune from corruption. However, the scientific method and the academic system is built such that it's pretty well insulated from corruption. Much better than private business, politics, which are environments in which corruption not only happens freely, but is specifically rewarded. The system is stacked such that those behaviours are rewarded.

Scientists are your servants. We stand with you. And this is precisely because we are among the most powerful weapons you have in your armoury to push back against corruption and exploitation.

It's precisely for that reason that you are being led to believe that you cannot trust scientists and experts. That was deliberate.

Dr. Rachel Barr

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdYxJSW8/

My independence

Freedom for me……

Is freedom from those eyes and minds who continuously judge me.

Is freedom from expectations.

Is freedom form strings of hope and hopelessness

Is freedom form all types of threats.  

Is freedom from wants and demands.

Is freedom form sense of what others think.

Is freedom from boundaries within human minds and on earth.

Is freedom from all sorts of comparisons.

Is freedom for hunger, thirst and all sorts of illness.

Is freedom from violence, hatred and miseries.

I think the day will come

On that day I will declare my independence

Till then Happy Independence day for you all

I’m waiting for mine

I will wait till my eyes shine.

[ 쏘-스 5호 ]

개개인의 취향을 존중하고 더 좋은 취미 공유 문화를 만들어가고픈 독립잡지 ‘쏘-스’에 5호부터 참여하게 되었습니다. 텔미 독립프로젝트 지켜봐주세요!

‘쏘-스’ 에 대한 정보는,  http://teru8378.blog.me/ 를 참고하세요.

‘Sssource’ respects individual’s hobby and their character. They’re always welcome whoever would like to share their stories and hobbies and I’m happy to be part of it. Check out my drawings on issue 5.

http://teru8378.blog.me/

100 years of Finland

Even though I left my country in hope to make a home for myself in somewhere else I am still inspired and fascinated by Finland’s character, history and beauty. Finland has been discussed widely this year because of our 100th anniversary of independence. Lonely Planet recently ranked Finland as the third best travel destination and the country gets credits for safety and education among others.

Below I’ve listed some destinations which I haven’t yet seen but would love to someday. Leaving out most of the capital Helsinki, charismatic and growing Tampere and snowy landscapes of Lapland (you’ll find your way there anyway), doesn’t mean I wouldn’t appreciate them but I just wanted to add here some less known attractions. They don’t come in any particular order.

YYTERI BEACH

When you think about the beach destinations or even warm travel destinations, Finland might not pop in your mind. However in the city of Pori, west coast of the country, there lays the longest beach (6km) of Finland and Nordic countries. The dune area stands out with its size in the whole of Europe.

KOLI NATIONAL PARK

There are 40 national parks in Finland situated in different parts of the country. Many of them which I’d like to visit. But to choose one I reperesent the one in North Carelia, near the city of Joensuu. Koli has a heavy cultural heritage background and despite of its beautiful landscapes its purpose is to protect the traditional agricultural heritage. This area in particular has been inspiration to famous Finnish artists such as Jean Sibelius and Eero Järnefelt.

OLD RAUMA

One of the Finnish Unesco World Heritage Sites (7 in total) Old Rauma is located in west coast of Finland. The wooden city center represents a typical nordic city with its buildings going back for 200 years. For the same atmosphere or a city scene, there’s also Old Porvoo which is somewhat smaller but still a worth a visit and probably easier to reach within one hour drive away from Helsinki.

ÅLAND

Åland islands are almost 7000 islands conisting archipelago at the Gulf of Bothnia. It’s an autonomous and the only monolingually Swedish-speaking region in the country. It has only one town, Mariehamn. This is a popular destination for cycling and boating but having been situated between Finland and Sweden it has also interesting historical sights regarding the two nations. We did a school trip here when I was twelwe years old but clearly I was too young to appreciate the oppurtunity.

OLAVINLINNA

Olaf’s Castle, built on an island, is one the several castles from Middle Ages in Finland. It’s located in the city of Savonlinna in the eastern part of the country. Today it’s the northernmost medieval stone standing being founded in the 15th century. The site is famous for hosting annually Opera Festival since 1912. The location is handy because you can add to your trip a visit in the lake Saimaa (the biggest lake in the country) and in the national parks near by. Similar destinations would be the Castle of Turku and Häme.

 PETÄJÄVESI CHURCH

Also one of the Finnish Unesco World Heritage Sites, is the old wooden church situated in Petäjävesi in the central part of the country. It’s a masterpiece of what comes to buildings made out of wood being built in the 18th century. It was forgotten for decades since the new church being built in the area but today the church is a popular site among tourists and weddings. Represents typical eastern Scandinavian but it has details containing gothic style also. We visited once here with my folks when I was a kid but the church was closed so couldn’t get inside. So still on my bucket list!

TURKU

Turku, the oldest city of Finland, founded on the 13th century on the southwest coast of the country. Once a capital during the Swedish era is a still significant center of growth in Finland. Praised as the official Christmas city and summer city with a great atmosphere and ferry connections to Stockholm and Åland islands. The former European Capital of Culture (2011) is a venue for several events for all sizes and tastes. Famous for its riverside, mediaval sites the church and the castle, also the achipelago is worth of a visit! Despite of all these merits I just haven’t got in to the Turku mode and haven’t seen its uniqueness besides the medieval attractions so Turku is definitely on my bucket list!

ISLANDS OF HELSINKI

Many tourists only see the most famous attractions such as the city center and Suomenlinna but the city has these great island destinations which I just adore! Some of them being opened pretty recently and offer get aways from the busy city life with their beaches, restaurants, charming cafes, sport facilities, nature and sea landscapes.