August 27, 2023
Anti-inspiration porn
I think most people are familiar at this point with the concept of “inspiration porn,” or the tendency to treat disabled people with disproportionate admiration or praise for accomplishing fairly mundane things or going about their lives with a disability. I’m going to try something here I’m calling, for the moment, “anti-inspiration porn.”
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This thing happens to me now and again where someone–usually younger than me but sometimes not–will get like really disproportionately admiring or awestruck at stuff I’ve done or stuff I can do. I’m not talking about, like, occasional compliments or telling me something is cool or congratulating me for something that by any measure was actually a huge achievement…but truly disproportionate praise for stuff like the books I’ve read, the things I’ve written, the hiking I’ve done, the places I’ve been, my clothes, my food, the stuff I know, etc. etc. etc. etc., with this edge of “oh, I could never” or “you’re so much cooler than me/your life is so much more impressive than mine…”
(And sometimes part of what I think is going on might be that people are mistaking me for someone closer to their own age, when…the reason I have the experience or knowledge of someone 10-15 years older than they are, is because I am.)
And from the bottom of my heart…
Almost none of this is out of your own reach.
It really isn’t. And absolutely none of it is magic. Admittedly some of it is a lot easier if you don’t have kids. You just have to do stuff. You get more skilled and comfortable at doing stuff the more you do stuff.
Do stuff you want to do. Try stuff you want to try.
Fuck what Yoda says, honestly; there is try.
Do stuff and try stuff and keep doing stuff you like doing.
That’s truly all this is.
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If you want to be a person who’s read books, you have to read them. If you want to have written stuff, you have to write. If you want to have gone places, you have to get on a train and go there.
If you want to try that restaurant? Try it.
Want to take good pictures? Go out and take pictures.
Want to get better at cooking? Cook.
Wear clothes you like. If you don’t know what you like, figure out what you like. Take a stroll. Go window shopping.
If you want to like poetry? You have to read it. If you want to write it, you have to write it.
There’s no special virtue to any of this–I really am out here just doing stuff and trying stuff.
Pay attention to things you care about. Be willing to be bad at stuff the first time you try. Be willing to do stuff that can seem really tedious. So, like, I do a lot of hand sewing while I watch TV. I listen to baseball or listen to podcasts and cook.
I’m good at the job I do because I have been doing it for over half my life. I have done a lot of making mistakes at it and fucking up at it and wishing I’d handled something better than I did, and just…internalized those lessons and kept doing it.
I’ve had a blog for 13 years because I just kept using it…for writing practice and for things I couldn’t get published somewhere else but mostly just as an outlet so that I do not annoy the people around me with strong opinions they did not ask for constantly. That’s it. That’s all. Thirteen years later, I’ve had a blog for thirteen years.
This person is right about not weeding your parsnips too soon.
My favorite singer/songwriter has written some great posts about making a plan to do things you want to do, and letting envy drive you instead of discourage you. I saw a Tumblr post once about how it’s okay to write STUPIDEST VERSION at the top of your page, just to allow yourself to get words on the page without worrying if they’re good enough, and since I read that, it’s not just how I write; I go through life with STUPIDEST VERSION written across my brain now, pretty much constantly (not when it really counts that I do as good a job as possible, but when I’m trying something for the first time, or trying something just to try it).
It’s a lot of fun, and it’s a great antidote to both inertia and to the kind of anxiety and perfectionism probably drilled into a lot of us as G&T kids with undiagnosed neurological disabilities. Not only do you not have to get something right or do it perfectly the very first time you try, to develop genuine, lasting, talent at something pretty much requires embracing the fact that you will not!
And there are people who are probably going to accuse me of being dismissive or ignorant about disability or financial limitations, but… I am autistic. I suffer from a lot of inertia and anxiety, I am very clumsy, and my job is erratic and often leaves me exhausted. I spend a lot of time frustrated at the amount of time it takes me to do normal things, and what I can’t do that it seems like other people just can. A whole lot of me being this capable at what I’m capable of has involved accepting what I am just flatly not capable of, and therefore not giving undue energy to it.
It is okay to start small.
But just start.
Laura Hersey said “You get proud by practicing,” and unfortunately, you also get good at other shit by practicing.
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