Well, actually i know ... but i need some time to express it in words. π I'll do it my way, which means that i will just keep editing this text as i get inspired.
I'll be happy about inspiration, questions, and feedback!
-- carbon based --
This place asks us for some "feeling into it". The pure mental approach, of reason-assembling a list of dos and don'ts will just not work here. It was an idea that came to me -- as in, "*the Universe is asking me to go for a divergent approach at the ways neurodiversity is commonly displayed in the spaces provided. It came while i was browsing other "autist" forums, when i sensed some certain dissatisfaction in me, with the things people were bringing on there. It was the usual "I am an autist and let me tell you how hard it is to constantly be misunderstood" and "we are different so let's celebrate the hardships by procreating self-ironic-but-deprecating meme cartoons" and "how do I get the right mental treatment", etc. -- the kind of pathology that results from a pathologising social paradigm.
I'm not saying that such is a completely wrong approach, because people need some place to vent their frustration or ask for advice upon all the trauma they endure. Yet for me, that remaining the only approach, looks very much reminescent of those same ill societal paradigms that we are made to suffer from, in the first place.
We are incapable because we were made incapacitated. That illness of a society, in the sense of a collective organism, is essentially a loss of connection to its finer sensory organs. Not all societies are like that; we dare to bet that in pre-historic as well as present-day indigenous cultures and also in some philosophies, neurodiversity is being given its natural function and its required place in order to enable it to do its task within that society as a whole.
Soooo ... much of what i see as my own work involves "seeing the essence" and "projecting the outcome", and then -- as It calls me up for a prophet's task -- help "preparing the space".
I have no idea how to do that. π
Here i first made a draft about the idea: Creating a neurodivergent playground and art collection
The how we do things is more important than what we do.
penguins fly underwater
What are your eccentric personal traits and in which way do you use them? -- You do not know what to do with them -- what to do with the way how you do?
You may be taking words by their literal meaning and therefore often take a while to process figure of speech and especially jokes, so how on earth would you make that benefitting?
Your mind may go in kind of fractal ways, and you've been told that's part of an "executive dysfunction", so how is that to give you value?
You like tinkering with simple things, so you find yourself "re-inventing the wheel", so who would actually buy such a thing? --
One answer i would have, is that it doesn't actually matter what you produce but it's about the way in which you do it. It may seem crude and naΓ―ve, but your speciality is not just that you put meticulos effort into something ... which at other places is being mass-produced -- but it's your mindfulness that gives it a special value. You may be attentive to detail, you may have a sense of disharmonies and imperfections, see similar patterns repeat in the essence of things, and you may be capable of intuitively foresee the future outcome of such things. Believe it or not, most people do not as naturally have such capabilities!
I am not the first one who believes that divergent people of now are to be pioneers in that which is going to be leading the new people. We will have to strenghten each other, see in which ways the essential patterns of the old paradigm are disabling us, and participate in mutual enabling.
[Note from the author: at this moment i feel like this is going to be a manifesto. ... Whatever. π ]
-- carbon based --
NAQ (Never Asked Questions)
Q: Are there any rules in this community?
A: There are guidelines that i tried to outline in the sidebar note. Those do imply a lot, but i don't know how much of a rulemaker i want to be. Trolls will ignore them anyway. Plus, i expect this place to stay pretty niche, and attract a mannered folk, who should get by largely without much intervention. If explicit rules should ever be required, then i'd suggest it might be a subset of the rules from !autism@lemmy.world (asking for feedback on this).
Q: You say, no memes?
A: Yes. A meme (Wikipedia), as defined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, is a way certain ideas populate our mindscape, and the basic building block in the mechanics of cultural evolution. They reproduce and have mutated offspring, just like physical genes have, and the ones that fit the environment of our simple minds the most will pervade our culture. In Dawkins' idea, the gene acts as the only reproductive thing, and all the complex organisms the genes create are just the means of genes reproducing.
Seeing it as such however, will inevitably lead to the question if certain memes are not in fact mental parasites that constantly steal our attention and make themselves attractive to our minds and egos (even though they want to suck!), so that we are willing to spend our time helping them proliferate. Irrespective of subscribing to Dawkins' ideas or not, he for sure did talk about ideas and cultural heritage rather than image-jokes. Mass-posting jokes leads to more fleshed-out stuff being pushed out of sight in places where memes are encouraged. If that happens, we should try to nicely tap such people to make them aware.
That said, i don't mean that people should not post cartoons etc. at all -- if that is the way they can best express their divergence, so be it. Surprise everyone!
Q: Is this place only for posting about my own divergent creativity, or can i also link to stuff that i find damn divergent?
A: Yes please, let's gather that stuff! It will be nice though, if you don't only just post a link but also comment with some of your own thought, if you can.
Q: So, only stuff i have produced and not just generally chatting about stuff?
A: Haha, chatting about stuff can be hilariously divergent and productive!
Q: Name checks out, huh! Did you create your account specifically for the domain name?
A: Yep! π Appreciate the appreciation!
My main account is @DivergentHarmonics@sopuli.xyz
Q: Will you always be the only moderator?
A: No please not! I was the one catching the idea from the collective field, and i went to action. I will not constantly be around, and at some point i might be gone completely. We'll see how this develops, and if there is mod activity required then i will ask for people to raise hands. I'd expect most mod work here to be just nicely talking to people.
Q: I like sarcasm. Can i be sarcastic here? Or will i be forced to be "nice", like in other places?
A: While sarcasm is a bit of a condescending form of communication, if done well it is the more dark form of irony. And irony will be very much appreciated, i think. It will very much depend on your level of understanding, and being sarcastic at neurodivergents can easily get you burned. So watch your moral backing because ND people often have the better one.
