post-panel conceptuality answers!

[mackerelgray]

Hi, this is Jude! We JUST got out of the impromptu post-Othercon conceptfolk discussion hour a bit ago and it was GREAT, kudos to you Julian for facilitating the conversation! I typed out some of my answers to the discussion questions in chat, and I thought it'd be helpful to repost them more publicly here for other people to check out! Generate some conversation, maybe!

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The common thread

[idonttakethislightly]

Hi, I'm Jay. (He/him.) I had a biiiiiiiiiig conceptual realization right at the end of the (amazing!) conceptfolk panel today. It's not just about who I am, it's about my entire understanding of identity and language and meaning and experience. It's something I've been staring right in the face for weeks, months, years, a lifetime- so obviously this afternoon/evening has been like fireworks going off in my brain for hours on end. Here goes.

I'm a thread. I am many threads. I am but one thread in the giant tanglement of everything that is. But it's not just me that's like that- every possible concept/idea/"thing" is a thread, made up of smaller threads and part of the make-up of larger ones. That's my model of reality, or at least reality as I understand it. Everything interweaves.

In particular, stories are tapestries. Language itself is a tapestry, and stories pull in words and images and sounds, beliefs and thoughts and feelings, and then weave them into plots and characters and themes and so on. I've always loved pulling apart my favorite stories, trying to understand the craftspersonship in the telling, and my personal connection to the tale. Love, for me, is picking apart the threads within a story, to know each one individually and see how they connect.

I intertwine with the stories I love, and... well, you could say they become part of me, or that I become part of them, or that together we become something bigger. That's how thread works- two threads twined together become another thread, a stronger one. They're still each themselves, and together they're something more.

I'm the stories I love, and the people I know and have known, and the memories I carry, and the things I see and hear and think and believe, and I'm so much more all interwoven. I'm also autistic, and I finally know how to describe what that means to me. Some threads don't tangle or enmesh easily with others- they wrap together with other threads, but can easily be separated back out. I'm the opposite- I meet people, have experience, encounter new ideas, and it all sticks to me. Try to pull my strands apart and they stick together stubbornly. It's hard for me to shake off the things that hurt, hard to show up to a conversation as just the most acceptable strangs of who I am. It's also easy to connect deeply with what I'm passionate about, easy to remember topics I'm interested in. All the different traits I knew were connected, but couldn't explain how- they twine together now.

I think I've always had the thread model inside me, to some extent. Now I see it for what it is, and can start tracing connections in earnest. I see the common thread tying together my selfhood, my worldview, my likes and dislikes, my way of thinking and feeling and being.

Thanks for reading. I'm excited to be part of this community- I'm sure I'll be around.