So, those of you who followed me may have noticed that my blog spiked and then slowed a great deal. There’s more than one reason for this, and it seems like that might be something worth talking about.
The main thing, I think, is that I do have a pretty busy life! I was excited to have this new platform so I went a bit intense at it at first. Things are now settling down to the level that I think will be sustainable: one or two posts a week, plus a few smaller bits and pieces from time to time like the double dactyls. I’m very definitely not quitting, I have two drafts for bigger posts partly done and a whole raft of things in the pipeline.
What I have noticed, however, is that blogging is a pretty vulnerable act, for me at least. Not only does it involve putting one’s thoughts and feelings out there to be picked at, but FtB has always been a principled network that attracts detractors, people for whom the cruelty is the point as much as any MAGA-hat-wearer, people who enjoy taking pieces out of anyone who exists here. Now, I knew that when I applied and have no regrets about it, but it really does take a toll, at least enough of one that it adds an extra layer of emotional cost to creating blog posts.
I expect practically everyone who sees this will be familiar with “spoon theory“, the popular metaphor coined by Christine Miserandino about how chronic illness affects one’s ability to do daily tasks. I don’t have the sort of illness she was discussing, but the principle holds for more than that; really, it’s a good way to talk about having limited energy or personal resources for many things, and one thing it definitely applies to is resilience to abuse. Come to think of it, it might be even better to describe this in game terms – you only have so many life points, you can heal them, but damage drops them, and when they’re 0 it’s game over. Or you have another guy, but the metaphor only stretches so far…
All of this is to say that writing, particularly in public, is an emotionally and mentally costly endeavor, and lately there’s been a lot of stuff going on that saps my energy. Twitter is basically a constant stream of abuse directed at all trans people but especially trans women. Everything Shiv writes about*, which I usually don’t because I don’t want that to be my ‘beat’ or be thought of as ‘just that’, and also because actual journalists like Shiv and Katelyn Burns** do a better job than I would. Interpersonal conflicts and spending the night being Extremely Outgoing And Friendly For Networking(tm) even among people who don’t want me around. Also the opposite of that: supporting loved ones through their own emotional crises.
Sometimes no matter how much I love this place and love having the opportunity to contribute, it just gets crowded out by big priorities or just having nothing left in the tank. And at this point I’m sure I’m just talking about something everyone in the world deals with at least from time to time.
Hey, that brings an interesting question to mind: is there anything that, based on what you’ve seen so far, folks here might like me to write about? I’m not short of ideas or plans but I’d be super interested to know if there’s something you’d specifically look forward to reading.
* This is in my city. Canada, especially Canada’s most liberal cities like Vancouver and Montréal, might possibly be the safest place in the world right now for trans people… but that’s relative, and there is never a cessation of reminders that there is always a population that wants to eliminate us from the world, be it by social opprobrium, legislation, or outright murder.
** Katelyn Burns has expressed that same worry: “I felt like their token. I’ve struggled with being labeled “the trans writer” for awhile now. While I’m blessed to have had my work on my own identity open so many career doors, it’s also difficult to be continuously pigeonholed into writing only about that identity.”
I hear ya.
I’ve participated in some on-line “debates” about the validity of being transgender (mostly of being trans female), but I can only do it for a few rounds before I can’t make myself post or even look. Every time I read a comment or a reference to a public statement denying my identity or, in many cases, denying my humanity altogether, it bites a chunk out of my ability to go forth and do what needs to be done, and I have a lot to do in my life that isn’t “proving” to the ineducable that I exist, that I’m not just a psychotic fantasy.
It’s made harder because, due to childhood trauma (such a nice neat package of a word to describe an ungodly, painful mess!), just overcoming the feelings of defectiveness and hopelessness enough to get out of bed in the morning takes a lot of what grit and determination I have, and some days I don’t have a lot left over.
That’s why I have so much admiration for the people who can get up and rebut, day after day, the malicous nonsense that gets thrown at us. They’re (you’re?) doing what I can’t. And often I can’t even bear to watch it. Just having to be aware of how my existence is seen as a legitimate topic of debate takes too much out of me.
@1 Allison
Been there. For years, in and out, mostly in. Not so much now, but…
I used to. I still try from time to time, but at this point it usually hurts too much to try and I have to save those resources for… well, frankly, for less futile things.
Yep, same here. The difference is that I have a bunch of drafts about ideas I want to write about written over the last months, so I still have stuff to post for now.
If I argue against transphobes about the rights I believe I should have, then that’s emotionally draining for me. If I instead write about neutral stuff, like art or my dogs, then that’s just fun and not tiring at all.
How does it feel to be trans and autistic? More importantly—how to cope with these issues?
I guess I’d like you to write at least some posts about things you enjoy, I’m always
nosy aboutinterested in what other people like, and it would give you a break from the more serious stuff besides the double dactyls. Plus if it’s written people can always avoid it if it doesn’t interest them, so you can rave all you want without feeling you are at risk of boring people.I went through the same thing when Melby handed me a set of keys to Sinmantyx, and to a lesser extent when I popped up over here. Firing off new posts held a higher priority than it should have, taking time away from things I should have been doing instead. I’ve since established a much better balance, but the long and technical posts I love to write have been starved of the time they need to properly mature. Without lengthy blocks of uninterrupted time, I can’t gather the momentum I once did and as a result posts take longer to finish.
It doesn’t help that I’ve gotten into “meta-posting.” When I was writing about Rationality Rules, for instance, I had a broad outline of a dozen or so topics I wanted to cover, each of which would occupy one blog post. That meant I could rely on assertions I hadn’t defended yet, because at some point I would get around to writing them out. On the flip side, it kind of locked me into that topic for a while, which made it tougher to gather the motivation to write. I’ve still got roughly two more Rationality Rules posts in me, but in the meantime I’m teeing up another round of posts to defend arguments I’ll need to rely on in a future post. The long game can be annoying to play, but when it all comes together it’s oh so satisfying.
Which I guess is a long-winded way of saying: don’t worry about the blog. Focus on the things you need to, and only come back to writing posts when you’ve got the time and energy for it. Don’t let that initial flood of posts be your reference point.
Well, it’s my personal passion of mine (one of many!) and no idea if you are interested in the area at all – but I’d love it if you’d write about some astronomy stuff including especially exoplanets, stars of the various spectral classes including brown dwarfs, neutron stars and others and Pluto which is still my favourite planet. Yeah, I think the IAU called it terribly wrong there for a long list of reasons starting with the fact that if a dwarf star is still a star then surely the same applies for planets and ciontinuing with the fact that the Earth would lose its status as a planet if it orbited where Pluto does and the whole orbital clearance issue rasies as many problems as it supposedly solves and .. okay, okay I’ll shut up now! 😉
Almost, have you ever seen and tried these Ken Croswell Pluto questions?
http://kencroswell.com/PlutoQuestion.html
&
http://kencroswell.com/PlutoQuestion2.html
Oh and other personal passions I’d love to see you write about though some of them would surprise me if you did – which is okay of course – include cricket, history broadly speaking, SF novels & writing, Star Trek & Wars, old SF / fantasy cartoons including especially StarBlazers a.k.a. Space Battleship Yamato which took the idea of a spaceship rather literally, the wonderful and different Mysterious Cities of Gold (still being broadcast on NITV in Oz FWIW) which was set in the 16th century mainly South & Central America with ahero called Esteban based very loosely on the hero of Scott O’Dell’s The King’s Fifth novel based somewhat less loosely but still quite different from the original mysterious,remarkable and fascinating historical Mustafa Azemmouri better known by his “slave name” of Estevanico (“Little Stephen”) a.k.a. Esteban de Dorantes, Estebanico, and Esteban the Moor. Oh and the Battle of the Planets cartoon /manga / anime with the Phoenix and the G-focre that first got me absolutely hooked on SF cartoons as a boy!
I’ll second what Jazzlet & HJ Hornbeck said above too and note that on his old Discover version of the ‘Bad Astronomy’ blog Phil Plait would do what he called a “palate cleanser”* following a heavy political or tough and controversial post with something fun and light and simple like an animal picture or suchlike.
Oh and music eg posting links to the songs you love is always good too. Art and sport and other aspects of life that help balance out and distract from all the heavy stuff can be excellent if you want breaks and other things to discuss so, yeah.
* I tried to find one of those to link you too so you could see him better explain it in his own words but the old blog Iuse dtoreally love there is now behind a paywall (yegods I hate those things!) and more of his old site(s) seem to have disappeared. They say the internet never foregts but looks like a lot of it becomes inaccessible or erodes over time too. Sigh. Afraid my google-fu has failed here. Closest I could get to what I hoped to find easily was :
https://twitter.com/BadAstronomer/status/867143156378124288
Some of links for ease of reference for folks – didn’t want to put too many in the one comment to avoid moderation which, sigh, I haven’t ..Anyhow :
On Mustafa Azemmouri the original Esteban and first man into the “Zuni” / A:shiwi city of Hawikku thought then to be one of the fabled Cibolan “Seven Cities of Gold” :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estevanico
For the King’s Fifth novel based on that historical expedition to New Mexico see :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King%27s_Fifth
Which is an excellent coming of age and adventure novel with a Spanish map-making teenage Esteban also exploring in southern North America during the Conquistadore era & then the different cartoon series with a younger still and fantasy hero Esteban who can control the Sun and explores South & Central America – and in later sequels China, Japan, India and Southwest Asia here :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Cities_of_Gold
Kind of interesting to see the evolution of the character and contrast the three “Estebans” here I reckon though maybe that’s just me and another of my obsessions.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone!
@3 Andreas
Funnily enough I’m not sure I’d be properly qualified to talk about that. I could discuss my own personal experiences of course, but like they say, if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person. For me the two things don’t seem to have anything at all to do with one another… but since my perspective is by definition the only one I can experience, then for all I know they’re utterly intertwined and I can’t really see the separations.
@4 Jazzlet
Thank you. I think my most recent post – about how I think of movies – is mostly that. Certainly I was thinking of your comment here and going ‘OMG A NORTH KOREAN KAIJU MUST GET’ all the while I was writing it.
@5 Raymond Luxury-Yacht
Thank you. I will try to take that advice and not worry but try to use the platform for whatever seems fun and/or important.
@6, @7 StevoR
Ah, yeah, perhaps I can turn down the intensity on that moderation filter? Still, I wouldn’t worry. I am here at LEAST to read several times a day and your comments will at worst languish only until the next time I wander by. I know it’s not as satisfying than to see it appear instantly; If I encounter a pattern of getting lots of substantive posts with a sheaf of links then I’ll see what I can do about loosening it.
Astronomy… I probably won’t write about this, simply because I don’t know nearly enough. Astronomy is definitely Extremely Cool but it never wound up being one of the things I learned anough about to speak with any sort of competence on. That said (and I know this is probably not nearly as fun as reading), if you were of a mind to write up something on some astronomical phenomena you found particularly interesting and email it to me, I’d be happy to put it here as a guest post.
I’ve actually heard of practically nothing out of what you posted (I think I’ve heard of StarBlazers and that’s it) but all of it sounded fascinating.
@ ^ abbeycadabra : Thanks and no worries and apologies for all my typos!
FWIW. They actually made a non-cartoon movie of Starblazers too :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Battleship_Yamato_(2010_film)
Which put a whole other new twist on that classic 1980’s series.. Interestingly given recent Star Wars & Ghostbusters developments, the movie version :
Which, as far as I’m aware (admittedly not very far & could be mistaken) caused no complaints &, in my view, was an improvement.
Another suggestion if it suits you & you’d like obvs – a cartoon / quote of the day / image of the day on, well, anything really?