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Yesterday marked my 1700th post, and so, I will have to edit the tags accordingly. When ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
siriaeve set me up with the invite code almost six years ago, I certainly never thought my foray into the blogosphere would last as long as it has. In fact, it nearly didn't. Bloggy here went fallow for several months that first year, from June to late August. I don't know why I went back, but I did, and boy, am I glad. I've 'met" very interesting folks through LJ, and though I haven't actively presented myself as a face of disability--frankly, the idea of reducing myself to a talking head in the hopes that some thick-headed, entitled, able-bodied cunt might "get it" for ten seconds appalls me. I don't want to be a symbol. I want to be me--I think I've let folks connect with the humanity behind the abstract symbol of "the disabled." I don't think everyone has liked what they saw, but that's okay. Everyone is an asshole sometimes, even me. Being an asshole doesn't lessen a person's humanity. In fact, our base flaws and our attempts to overcome them are what define it.
We're not human because we're perfect, but rather because we're imperfect.
That doesn't mean I don't wish that the world had fewer assholes in it, because I do. My life would be a lot easier if most folks didn't operate on the assumption that my intellectual capacity was one rung above plankton on the evolutionary scale, or that my life had a value less than that of a fryer chicken because of that presumed idiocy. It just means I don't hate people who are imperfect. I hate people who refuse to accept that they are and turn their festering inadequacies on the rest of us because they can.
Being on LJ has allowed me to see the many facets of people, the good, the bad, and the unconscionably stupid. I've gotten a glimpse into the lives of lesbians, interracial couples, bisexuals, parents of autistic children, single parents, lay monastics, and folks struggling with chronic illness. I haven't always understood their perspectives or agreed with their politics, but I've been awed by the human capacity for adaptation and boggled by the depths of rationalization in the human mind. Both are necessary for survival, and before anyone seizes their truncheon and demands to know what gives me the right to lord over others, listen. I'm not.
I'm just as flawed. I've justified some absolutely asinine things in my time. I've quit when I shouldn't have and stayed too long in bad situations. I've mistaken dependence for love. I've been petty and judgmental and spoken without thinking and spoken without caring even when I did think. I still look at some of the things my flisters write and wonder what in the hell they're thinking. I'm not better than the next guy with a keyboard. I'm better for them. Exposure to people who don't share my politics or my worldview has helped me better define who I am and who I want to be. And who I don't want to be, and who I never could be. It's been an awesome experience, and not bad for what started as a half-assed hobby by which to pass the time.
Wow. I didn't mean to write all this. All I meant to say was that yesterday was my 1700th post. The end. I guess this one isn't bad for 1701.
And now, I really should finish my grape juice and get cracking on "Detail Man".
siriaeve set me up with the invite code almost six years ago, I certainly never thought my foray into the blogosphere would last as long as it has. In fact, it nearly didn't. Bloggy here went fallow for several months that first year, from June to late August. I don't know why I went back, but I did, and boy, am I glad. I've 'met" very interesting folks through LJ, and though I haven't actively presented myself as a face of disability--frankly, the idea of reducing myself to a talking head in the hopes that some thick-headed, entitled, able-bodied cunt might "get it" for ten seconds appalls me. I don't want to be a symbol. I want to be me--I think I've let folks connect with the humanity behind the abstract symbol of "the disabled." I don't think everyone has liked what they saw, but that's okay. Everyone is an asshole sometimes, even me. Being an asshole doesn't lessen a person's humanity. In fact, our base flaws and our attempts to overcome them are what define it. We're not human because we're perfect, but rather because we're imperfect.
That doesn't mean I don't wish that the world had fewer assholes in it, because I do. My life would be a lot easier if most folks didn't operate on the assumption that my intellectual capacity was one rung above plankton on the evolutionary scale, or that my life had a value less than that of a fryer chicken because of that presumed idiocy. It just means I don't hate people who are imperfect. I hate people who refuse to accept that they are and turn their festering inadequacies on the rest of us because they can.
Being on LJ has allowed me to see the many facets of people, the good, the bad, and the unconscionably stupid. I've gotten a glimpse into the lives of lesbians, interracial couples, bisexuals, parents of autistic children, single parents, lay monastics, and folks struggling with chronic illness. I haven't always understood their perspectives or agreed with their politics, but I've been awed by the human capacity for adaptation and boggled by the depths of rationalization in the human mind. Both are necessary for survival, and before anyone seizes their truncheon and demands to know what gives me the right to lord over others, listen. I'm not.
I'm just as flawed. I've justified some absolutely asinine things in my time. I've quit when I shouldn't have and stayed too long in bad situations. I've mistaken dependence for love. I've been petty and judgmental and spoken without thinking and spoken without caring even when I did think. I still look at some of the things my flisters write and wonder what in the hell they're thinking. I'm not better than the next guy with a keyboard. I'm better for them. Exposure to people who don't share my politics or my worldview has helped me better define who I am and who I want to be. And who I don't want to be, and who I never could be. It's been an awesome experience, and not bad for what started as a half-assed hobby by which to pass the time.
Wow. I didn't mean to write all this. All I meant to say was that yesterday was my 1700th post. The end. I guess this one isn't bad for 1701.
And now, I really should finish my grape juice and get cracking on "Detail Man".
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