I realize that there’s a lot going on right now that doesn’t fit anywhere in my comfort zone. It has made me outrageously uncomfortable. Through it all, I have taken solace in the fact that I have taken chances I don’t think I would have ever taken.

I’m not a big fan of moving out of my comfort zone. I eat my candy a specific way, groups of two or three every time. I eat Chipotle as a burrito turned upside down made in a bowl with a knife and a fork. Even the concept of writing usually had me putting out one article a month.

Nowadays my comfort zone is radically uncomfortable. I write up articles almost weekly and have just started doing it by speech like I’m doing right now. I recorded myself doing video for an autism conference. I gave out a quote that was featured in the Washington Post. I did my first podcast. (Just in case you were wondering, I still eat my candy and Chipotle the same way. I’m not a monster.)

I want to clarify that I everything I have previously mentioned was outside of MY comfort zone. Sometimes I do things and they’re not big wins. Some fill me with regret. Sometimes all I can take away from some experiences is that I tried. Some days I think I did great and I failed horribly. Other times I think I did horrible and did great. A lot of times I look calm and I’m internally screaming.

So maybe someone has something that is daunting or terrifying that they must do in this vastly shifting world. From me, I offer nothing but support. I continue to stand by an old saying: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

• The relational nervous system of open knowledge flows between human societies
  In an effort to “be the change”, in the industrial era, many Autists end up being sand in the gears of busyness as usual. Luckily, thanks to the Internet, this is not the end of Autistic people. The open question is how humans will treat each other and our non-human contemporaries on the journey towards being composted and recycled. Experiences may vary depending on the human scale cultures we co-create on the margins.
• My family’s autism services are working for us, so we will probably lose them
  If accommodations or services are working and “challenging behaviors” are not as obvious or frequent, they’re often removed as “no longer needed.”
• Autistic mutual aid – a factor of cultural evolution
  The diagnostic criteria for autism obscure the Autistic lived experience of toxic cultural norms that are ultimately detrimental for all people. Depathologisation of Autistic people as demanded by Autistic rights activists does not negate being socially disabled, and need not prevent anyone from gaining access to appropriate means of communication and other forms of social support.
• The possibilities and limitations of human agency
  We are part of the web of life, including our imagination. As agents of the human cultural immune system we can expand the language of life and (re)imagine cultures that reconnect us to biological life and local biological ecosystems. This article can serve as a resource list for an education course on human cultural evolution, with a focus on the current human predicament.
• Hypernormative Culture Awareness Month
  April is Hypernormative Culture Awareness Month. Please spare a moment for all culturally well adjusted people, who are unable to speak about their many fears and the many sources of cognitive dissonance in their lives.

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Emmanuel

Voiceover Artist and Writer at Freelancing

I am an Atlanta native and I found out that I was autistic with ADHD at age 27. I write/do voice work for a living and an individual self-advocate. I am a former employee of Ventures ATL and a graduate of Dunwoody High School, the Life Behavior Consulting PEERS program, the LEAP program of Eaton Academy, GSU's GaLEND and My Voice, My Participation, My Board. If you like my work, you could buy me a coffee.

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Latest posts by Emmanuel (see all)

• Poetry: AuDHD - November 9, 2022
• A Letter of Support - July 14, 2022
• The Performance of April and Autism Awareness Month - April 27, 2022