So one of the things that is important about social media is that you can use it to really broaden your exposure to lived experiences out side of your own.
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So one of the things that is important about social media is that you can use it to really broaden your exposure to lived experiences out side of your own.
One of the many reasons this is important is because sometimes your life changes. And those lived experiences that used to seem far away from you suddenly become your own actual life.
For me, this was hearing people talk about disability.
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I used to be a person who didn't have many thoughts about disability. Like many relatively healthy and able-bodied people, I had a narrow view of disability. When I heard the word, I thought about people who's disabilities were very debilitating and very visible.
But as I started to listen more, I got introduced to the understanding that disability is a very wide spectrum. And we may all find ourselves there at some point in our lives.
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The more important lesson for me was understanding that many of us won't understand what's happening to us when it does. Americans especially have weird traumas around health. Because our system makes being unhealthy incredibly expensive. And our culture often stigmatizes people for being anything other than fully able-bodied. This often results in people being in denial when their health starts to deteriorate. And it's worse when it starts to threaten their livelihood.
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Why am I talking about this right now? Mostly because I'm in pain as I'm sitting here trying to type. I've been dealing with increasing stress injuries in my arms and hands for a few years now. After I got done being cranky about at how we talk about sustainable software, I wanted to be constructive and work on one of my projects.
But I realized that I can't. My arm hurts, and I've just about reached the limit of how much computing I can do in a day.
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It has been strange and scary coming to terms with what's happening. Not being able to use a computer effectively puts me out of work. And not just regular computing. It requires me to be a power user and to be on the computer a lot. I spent a lot of time trying to power through it and thus making the problem worse. But eventually I had to come to terms with the fact that I'm developing a disability. And it was important for me to have language to name that and understand it.
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I also had to spend a lot of time thinking about whether I can continue to talk shit to people about changing how we approach building software. I know I can sound like a know-it-all and kind of an asshole sometimes. I try to make up for that by at least practicing what I preach. I want to be experimenting with a lot of the things I'm talking about. But I keep running into this barrier. I can only do so much.
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Anyway, one of the reasons social media matters in my life is that it allows me to get these things out of my head. Even though I understand it's not reasonable, I'm still battling a certain amount of negative feelings about this. Naming these things and saying them out loud is part of my process for reconnecting with reality. Instead of getting stuck in the stories we tell ourselves inside our heads. It's not good to stay in that place.
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Aaron Brick — אהרן בריקreplied to Marco Rogers last edited by
@polotek Marco, these are wonderful reflections. Speaking as someone with a slight permanent disability in both wrists, have you had a professional ergonomic evaluation? Often there is a lot for us to learn about using computers more safely. Good luck.
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Marco Rogersreplied to Aaron Brick — אהרן בריק last edited by
@aarbrk yes I have. It's the only reason I'm even able to do this much.
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This whole thread was about giving myself permission to not keep trying to work on my project. I'll get back to it another time. And forgiving myself for forgetting to do my physical therapy exercises. I'm gonna do them now and then find something else to do the rest of the evening. Thanks for listening.
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@[email protected] great thread as always, sorry to hear you're having to deal with this. And +1 for giving yourself permission and forgiving yourself!