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[ernmark]

I spotted a reply to one of my posts:

And my knee-jerk response was "no, you should hear my friends talk about their lives--"

And it made me remember something.

Back in high school, my IB class did a lock-in-- where the group of students gets locked into one part of the school overnight on a weekend-- and after junk food and video games lost their appeal, we got to talking.

Only I didn't really know anything about almost any of them. They were all friendly enough, but I kept to myself for the most part, so we didn't have much to talk about once standard small talk ran out.

So I asked one of the other people sitting with me: "what's your story?"

Your life story.

And he told me. Sixteen years or so condensed into maybe a half hour. And it was the most fascinating life I could have imagined: the places he'd been, the things he'd done, the experiences that defined him. It boggled my mind.

When he finished and turned the question around to me, I thought mine sounded really boring in comparison, but he listened open-mouthed to the entire thing. Other kids were gathering around us by now, listening in. And when I finished mine, I turned to another one of them and asked the question to them.

And just like before, my mind was blown. A completely different life, completely different focal points, defining experiences, goals the likes of which were deserving of an anime. And the same happened with the next person we asked, and the next.

By the time each one of us had finished telling their story, it was time to go home for the morning. The video games had been abandoned hours ago. None of us had slept. We were too caught up in each other's lives.

All of which is to say:

Thank you. I do lead a very interesting life.

So do you.

[kaijuno]

Even when people have Alzheimer’s or dementia they don’t ever lose their humanity. My grandma had really bad Alzheimer’s in the end and even though she didn’t know any of her family anymore she was so kind and gentle with my baby nephew. It means something, I think, that caring for others is so ingrained in our psyche that not even disease could make us lose that

[pleasanttrashsheepies-deactivat]

One of the most profound moments of my life was when I was walking with one of the Alzheimer patients through the gardens at the assisted living home I worked at a few years ago. He was a scientist, he was from out west. He'd done foundational research on the aftermath of the Mount St. Helens eruption. He looked up at one of the pine trees and misidentified it, thinking it was a California pine tree (yeah, apparently there are east coast/west coast variants) and as we got closer, he sort of frowned and said, "No, that's <insert scientific name here>." And he looked at me and asked, "Wait, am I in the South?" And he looked so confused and scared and I nodded and said, "Yeah, you moved here a couple years ago." And his face got all serious and he didn't say anything else for a minute. I could see the panic and the dread and the embarrassment starting to rise.

So I asked him about the plants, about their scientific names, about what role they played in the ecosystem, what the shape of their leaves said about their evolution, what kind of bugs lived on them, whether or not small animals made nests and homes in them. And he just talked and talked, told me everything I wanted to know.

If he forgot something, he didn't get embarrassed because he was just thinking about some old plants, just some old plants, who can keep track of all those latin names anyway? He'd think of it later.

And it didn't teach me to "respect everyone no matter their mental ability," and it didn't make me realize that "all people deserve respect," because I was already there, I already believed that. But, as he started smiling, telling me all he knew, rolling his eyes when I didn't understand something, thinking carefully about how to explain in lay-terms, as the stress and fear that threatened to crush him evaporated as quickly as it appeared, I received an absolutely critical life lesson like a ten-ton epiphany:

We were made to help each other.

As cheesy as it sounds, the absolute true meaning of life, outside of religious beliefs, scientific theories, political movements, outside of all of it, the only thing that matters at all is whether or not you made a real, tangible difference for the better in someone's life. Big or small. Permanent or brief.

Make a difference, be the change you want to see in the world; it doesn't make you Gandhi, but it might help someone have a better day, and isn't that nice?

[don-tmakemepoisonyourfood]

If I had a nickel for every time an ethereal being realized they're in love with the person they've been dating for centuries but still refuse to acknowledge as their friend, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that Neil Gaiman did it twice.

[unofficial-sean]

crab uber

[unofficial-sean]

!!!!!

[briarpatch-kids]

Disability tips and ideas from abled people: "buy a robotic hand that will flex for you so you can open and close your hands" "stair climbing wheelchair!" "Here's a robot that will use AI and complicated technology to feed you"

Disability tips and ideas from other disabled people: "get a bidet hose so you can freshen up when full showers are too hard" "stick the fork handle in a piece of pool noodle so you can actually grip the damn thing, if that doesn't work, tape it!" "you can totally tip your chair back on the anti-tip wheels and recline if you need to, just don't try and propel like that."

The difference is low vs high tech, cost, and general usability. Disability tech and aids need to pass a certain line of "is this more help than hinderance?" before they become useful. Cost, ease of use, need, and a couple other things all influence that.

[dralthon]

As someone who works with assistive technology (AT) for my job, and especially AT for interfacing with a computer, it is a nightmare figuring out how some of that stuff is supposed to work. My disabilities don't affect my ability to use a computer, and I have a decent amount of IT experience, and it often takes me hours to get these things to work. For a joystick to simulate a mouse, required installing and configuring two different pieces of obscure software. For a single button switch (designed to allow a user with limited mobility to control a computer solely by pressing one large button repeatedly), required not only multiple pieces of obscure software, but also a series of tiny switches to be set in a certain pattern using a pair of tweezers. AT made by non-disabled people is barely accessible to the technicians setting it up, let alone the people who actually need to use it. There is very little AT that I've worked with which could actually be set up and configured by the people who actually need it.

I guess to kind of get back to the point, at least tangentially, even if the high-tech solution is actually necessary, the lack of consideration afforded to simplifying it, unlike basically any other consumer computer peripheral, means that these solutions are often largely inaccessible to those who would benefit the most from them.

[othert]

The technology adds so many points of failure, too

[soberscientistlife]

Your daily reminder of what Democrats are fighting against in 2022 and 2024

[ceevee5]

[theconcealedweapon]

"But helping poor people should be voluntary."

And even when it is, people still have a problem with it.

[liberalsarecool]

We must reframe the narratives/dialog.

#LanguageMatters

[catchymemes]

[liberalsarecool]

White terror enjoys a systemic double standard.

[liberalsarecool]

.0015 recidivism. We need prison reform.

[wilwheaton]

(via gtrupd50zsd91.png (PNG Image, 960 × 896 pixels))

[liberalsarecool]

[the-real-numbers-deactivated202]

Nothing fills me with rage quite like seeing "no overnight visitors" on an apartment advertisement, like, who the fuck do these random landlords think they are, to deny someone the ability to host a friend or a sibling for the night, to even feel comfortable dictating the terms of a paying tenant's sex life, like seriously fuck off all the way to hell

[manfrommars2049]

I agree via antiwork

[liberalsarecool]

'Give back the wealth you stole' by paying your corporate taxes. No more corporate welfare.