autistic people using big words and “clinical” sounding language because they feel it to be the most effective means of communication is so often perceived by allistics as pretension. autistics are then made fun of for this use of language which can be incredibly damaging and often causes autistics to retreat further into themselves as any attempts they make to communicate with allistics cause them to be punished
so in general if you don’t like the way someone speaks (especially if you know for a fact that they’re autistic) maybe don’t make fun of them and instead do your best to understand and communicate with them in a way that’s beneficial to you both
But there was one scenario in which the Autistic people left a positive first impression: when people read a transcript of their words instead of seeing and hearing the Autistic people saying those words, observers rated them as more likable and more intelligent. In fact, in the scenario where observers just read the written words of Autistic and non-autistic people, they rated both groups the same. For non-autistic people, the written transcripts were their lowest-rated mode of communication, although only by a small amount. For Autistic people, the written transcripts were their highest-rated mode of communication by a very significant margin.
Written communication is the great social equalizer.
Remember this if you start to fear your Autistic child is spending too much time interacting with others online and not enough time interacting with others face-to-face. Online communication is a valid accommodation for the social disability that comes with being Autistic. We need online interaction and this meta-study demonstrates exactly why that is the case.
Autism and the Burden of Social Reciprocity | Sparrow R. Jones unstrangemind.com
hey so protip if you have abusive parents and need to get around the house as quietly as possible, stay close to furniture and other heavy stuff because the floor is settled there and it’s less likely to creak
socks are quieter than bare feet on tile/wood and for the love of god don’t wear slippers/shoes if you can help it
climbing ON the furniture will disrupt the pattern of your footsteps and make it harder to hear where you are in the house
crawling will do the same and if you get caught crawling you can pretend you fell
the floor near the wall can be really loud if the floorboards/carpet is old and not completely flush to the wall
do NOT attempt to use a rolling chair to travel without footsteps. they are extremely loud and hard to steer
Also. Breath with your mouth and not your nose. Your nose will whistle. Trust me. If you need to get into your fridge, jab your finger into the rubber part that seals the door closed and create a tiny airway. This will prevent the suction noise when you open the door. When drinking liquids (juice mostly), pour out your glass (or chug from the jug) and replace what you drank with water. If it was full enough in the beginning, no one will notice. DO NOT STEAL ALCOHOL. THEY WILL NOTICE IF IT’S WATERED DOWN. Bring a pillowcase for dried foods like cereal and granola. It helps to muffle the sound it makes when it pours.
If your house has snack packs (like gummy bears or crackers or chips), count them every day until you know the rhythm that they get consumed. (This took me a week and a half with my twin brother and sister). Then join the rhythm when you make your nightly visits. It will be that much harder to figure out it was you.
KEEP A TRASH BAG UNDER YOUR BED FOR WRAPPERS AND STUFF BUT DONT FORGET TO THROW IT OUT WHENEVER YOU CAN. BUGS YKNOW. Hope this helped.
I might have some useful info to add.
-a jar of peanut butter is long lasting and easy to hide under a bed or in a dresser drawer. I lived off of jars of peanut butter and boxes of saltine crackers I would buy on grocery trips with my mom.
-two words: Slipper Socks. These are the socks that have rubber designs on the bottom for grip. They make no noise, and also keep you steady on slicker surfaces like tile and wood. You can find them cheap at Walmart. They also keep your feet more protected if you’re outside.
-if you’re secure enough in your room to have a small food stash, make sure you’re not too obvious about it (duh) but also move its location every few days. I kept mine in a shoebox under my bed, then switched it to a backpack in my closet, then wedged between my bookshelf and wall, and I would cycle locations until i moved it permanently to a false-bottomed drawer I installed in my dresser when my father was gone for a weekend. I would NEVER put food directly into my stash after taking it. I would keep it in pockets of my clothes and between books until everyone went to sleep, then I’d stock and stow my stash for the next few days.
-get a water bottle with a filter in it. I used to be able to reach my bathroom from my bedroom door down the hall using a huge step or minor jump/leap. If I was afraid of being caught at night, I’d fill up the humidifier tank we kept under our sink while I took a short shower, and would refill my water that way. It might not be the best option, but I kept a small stockade of water under my bed for emergencies.
-if you can, smuggle your garbage out in your backpack or purse. Dispose of it at work/school. I got caught twice by carelessly throwing away packaging.
-if someone knows the situation you’re going through (close friend/partner/etc) see if there’s a way for them to get food or other supplies to you at school or work or what private time you may get. A hidden first aid kit literally saved parts of my body before and I owe it to a close friend.
-try learning the building’s natural rhythm. The house I grew up in would creak and settle heavily every night for 3-5 minutes. That was my shot, and I had to be QUICK. I still got caught a few times, but learning the patterns in our floors and walls, when they creaked, WHERE they creaked, kept me going. Eventually I was sprinting in slipper socks to the kitchen and back in less than 90 seconds.
-if you have stairs, or live upstairs. Sit as you go down them one at a time, or climb up them like an animal. It keeps you low/out of lots of motion sight, and also can reduce noise and creaking by distributing weight over more than 1-2 steps.
-You can use common hand sanitizer to remove the stains certain snack foods leave behind (coughs cheeto fingers) and a dry toothbrush can help scrub the color off your tongue. If you can get powdered toothpaste or toothpaste tabs to keep on hand, it makes a huge difference in sneakiness.
-I don’t recommend going for dried foods like granola or cereal unless you can sneak it to a secure place to get it. It’s too loud, it’s a gamble every time for something with less caloric intake than it’s worth if you get caught. Of course, there are times when that’s the only option!!
-if you’re taking milk, add water, but be SURE to shake/agitate the bottle to distribute the dairy fat with the water. I got into the habit of shaking milk jugs when I started sneaking it, and explained the habit as something I read in an old comic strip my father showed me. (Back when whole milk had a lot more cream fats and they’d separate, so shaking it would redistribute the cream.) I still shake milk jugs to this day.
-if your windows open or don’t have screens, eat leaning out an open window. Any food mess will be lost in the dirt. I was lucky I had bushes and birds outside that would catch my granola bar crumbs before anyone could notice.
-canned goods are tempting, but not worth it. It requires too many tools (can opener/strained sometimes/utensils/some need heat) stick to thinks like various nut butters (sunflower/peanut/almond), crackers, dried fruit, and easy to conceal food bars (nature valley/nutrigrain/etc.) dried ramen packets are good uncooked if you can stand the texture. Apple sauce and pudding cups are also easier to sneak and stash than one might think, and can be eaten with your fingers. The only canned foods I recommend are condensed soups and precooked pasta (spaghetti-o’s). You can easily mix them with a little bit of hot water from the tap and get something more sustaining than a handful of captain Crunch. The cans are cheap, sometimes recyclable, and drinking soup takes way less time than chewing solid food.
-if you menstruate, attempt to stash pads/tampons in a safe location. Sometimes shit happens. Pads can work as bandages in emergency situations. Sometimes shark week comes unexpectedly. If you can sneak a roll of toilet paper or paper towels, these are also life savers.
-plastic utensils from takeout containers can be hidden inside socks and will be worth their weight in gold when you least expect it. I bought myself a tiny plastic bowl from the dollar store and kept cheap trinkets in it on my desk so it didn’t seem like a bowl I was eating out of. You could try this with something like a mason jar, which is also useful for drinking out of or storing water.
-if you’re eating a crunchy or solid food, try soaking it in water. Mushy food can be repulsive in texture, but I could clock the sound of someone eating a nature valley oat bar from like 6 miles away. Dunking it in water (or using a secret bowl+water) can reduce noise, and also eating time since you don’t have to chew as much.
-keep a laundry bar or tide pen on you. Laundry bars are super useful, a little hard to find though. I washed a lot of stains out of my clothes with laundry bars in my bathroom sink as a kid. Not proud if it, but it kept me flying under the radar at school.
-clear rubber bands, plain twine or string, paper clips, and thumb tacks. Indescribably useful. I once rigged a system to open tricky cabinets and get objects from inside using two paper clips and a foot of plain string like a mock lasso system.
-if you’re pulling objects from tall cabinets, use your chest or stomach to cushion them. Let them fall into your torso and then into your hands cradled underneath. Not as loud, not as much grabbing, if someone sees it they can mistake it for it falling on you by the body language.
-get a bandana. Or four. Napkins, bandages, tool, and accessory all in one.
-get a tiny sewing kit. I’m talking 3 needles and a spool of thread tiny. Scissors if you can sneak it. See things into your clothes. Make hidden pockets or compartments. Threadbanger on YouTube did a video a few years ago about sneaking things into music festivals using tiny clothing mods, but they may be useful in sneaking money or medicine.
-on the topic of sneaking money. don’t take bills, take change. If your abusers don’t meticulously count their nickels and pennies, they’re an easy(ish) way to build up a tiny savings pool. I found nickels the least noticed coin I took, even more than pennies, and taking two every few nights from where they’d be tossed on our countertop soon built up to a semi-reliable fund I passed off to someone to get me food for my stash without having to sneak it from the kitchen. As soon as I became “independent” in my food storage, I was subjected to much less scrutiny. I managed to build up a solid 1-2 week ration supply after hoarding change.
-you can tape SD cards to the inside of book dust covers(the part that folds inside the actual cover of the book), if you have a sewing kit or zipper on it inside the stuffing of your pillow (trim a corner, stuff it inside, stitch it closed) or (this is final resort) VERY CAREFULLY remove the covering from your outlet and tape it to the wall stud before replacing the casing. I kept mine inside part of my wooden bed frame that I hollowed out using, you guessed it, take out silverware knives and 4 nights without sleep.
-THE FLOOR IS LAVA WAS KEY TRAINING FOR ME AS A CHILD. I learned to take pillows with me, climb on furniture to disrupt my flow of movement, toss a pillow down, and use that to cushion any rattle our living room could give off as I crept to the kitchen from the side entrance so my mom’s dog wouldn’t bark or alert anyone. I highly suggest crawling around on all fours like some sort of beast to stay out of sight.
-can you run your house blindfolded?? If you can’t. Maybe you should try to learn. I suffered some heavy eye traumas growing up and had a collective 3-4 months just IN THE DARK. Eyes bandaged, left alone. It was terrible, but damn if I couldn’t navigate the whole place silently, without any visual cues. This helps a lot with the whole moving around in the dark thing, too. Listening is obviously key.
-if your parents start getting suspicious, or you’re suspicious they’re getting suspicious, watch out for traps. String on the ground that gets shifted when you walk on it. Baby powder or flour left to track footprints or doors opening/closing. My dad was partial to wrapping a bungee cord around my doorknob and attaching it to the closet across the hallway. I wouldn’t be able to open my door enough to get out, or if I did, I risked ruining the structural integrity of the wrappings he did, and he would notice.
-learn to tie some knots. Strong ones. They’ll come in handy at one point or another.
-remember that you’re not totally alone. There’s people out there for you. Wanting to make everything better. You don’t deserve what’s happening, it isn’t normal, and you will eventually find help. But staying safe is important, and you are important.
It upsets me that people might need to know these but I know it could really help someone by reblogging
being able to get around your house blindfolded (or, you know, just in the dark, in the middle of the night, without turning on any lights) is SUPER IMPORTANT. im lucky because i have natrually good night vision, but even without it you want to be able to get around your house in the dark. don’t be afraid to use your hands as your eyes. its way more helpful than most people realize.
Watching out for traps is a really good tip. When I was really young, I would get up in the middle of the night to sneak food out of the trash (I know, not the healthiest, but I was like 4). My mom strung cat bells along the hallway and around the trash can. The first bell I hit, I bolted back to my bed and didn’t sleep for the rest of the night thinking she would come in.
Another tip: Halloween time, sneak as much candy as you can into your pockets in between each house. Chocolate always worked better for me. M&Ms have probably saved my life. The sugar can help on those days where you get the shakes.
When you open the fridge, break the seal first, then get the light off as soon as possible. There’s no point in being silent if you’re a literal beacon in the night. If you can figure out a way to hold the button down before ever opening the door, great. I would use a school ruler, and just slide it under the seal where the button was.
I know how tempting it is to eat everything you can find when your left in the house alone. DON’T. Take a little bit of everything, I’m talking minuscule. It’s less noticeable and can keep you from getting sick off of the same thing over and over.
When you get an actual meal, don’t inhale it. Try to chew each bite about 5 times first. It’ll keep you from over eating and throwing it all back up later. Make this opportunity count.
Learn who you can trust. My mother abused us for years, and no one in the family knew until very recently. If there’s an aunt or uncle or grandparent who you get to spend time with alone, TAKE ADVANTAGE. Take whatever they will give you. A bath, a sandwich, a drink, a nap, anything. It may be a while between visits, and you don’t know when you’ll get those things again.
Stay safe. Please.
Also (mod desi here). This may sound like the same old “I’m here for you advice” but it’s something I wish I had done. If there is someone in a position to help you, TAKE IT!!! I spent years with an emotionally and psychologically abusive caretaker before my dad married my mom that took “care” of us while he was at work (she never hit me, but I believe she might have if she wouldn’t have had to account for the bruises to my dad). I never said a word about what I went through during his long shifts because I was afraid. I wish I had. My dad loves me to pieces and he was in my corner through everything and he would’ve done everything in the world to make it better for me. If I had only spoken up, I might have saved myself years of emotional trauma. If it’s not safe and there’s no one you can tell, definitely follow this advice, but if there’s someone who could get you into a more secure situation, especially if there isn’t fear of being put into the foster system or that person would take you in (like the other parent, a close relative, etc.) take it. If you can relatively safely get out but you’re scared, take a leap of faith. That is my survivors advice. I know it’s terrifying, but I’m telling you as someone who wished they’d done it.
I know this is supposed to be helpful but really you guys sound like you’re giving pointers on how to be a better crook.
@iamcuziam I know this seems ghastly in the casual way the pointers are given, but it’s not always safe to tell someone. While there are some situations in which conquering your fear and telling someone who can help, in some cases when there’s nobody else in the family who could take them, telling someone or trying to get out could result in being put into the foster care system, and while it could be better in a foster home, it could also be worse. Getting out of a physically abusive home only to go into a sexually abusive foster home is a very real possibility in a lot of places. Sometimes it’s better just to try to survive, and I love that this post is accepting of that and isn’t saying “you need to go to a social worker or the police no matter what” because the system is so fucked that doing that makes it worse as often as it makes it better. Also, the blasé manner in the way this advice is given is really nice because it doesn’t treat kids in this situation as if they are broken or fragile or creatures to be pitied: it treats them like human beings. And that means a lot to kids who can’t get out just trying to survive. I hope that clears things up a bit.
Kids. Teenagers. As someone staring 40 in the face lemme tell you a thing.
You are going to be horrified and embarrassed at some point by the shit you are doing now.
And you are going to wish with all your might you’d done more of it.
You’re gonna wish you had more selfies, more photos, more videos being dumb with your friends. You’re going to wish you’d had your hair even higher or your shoes even sparklier.
Go. Document the shit out of your ridiculous life. Fuck trends but if you wanna be trendy, go all in. Fuck in-groups and subcultures but if one sings to you, do it all. Be exactly as cool or punk rock or goth or fandom or country or hardcore or hip hop or whatever, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.
Just don’t hurt people. That’s the only thing you’ll ever genuinely live to regret.
I think I have talked about this before, but because life doesn’t end at twenty or thirty or forty or fifty and thinking that folks are going to fall out of social media or that there won’t always be someone your age and my age and twice both of our ages interested in [insert anything, ever] is a very limiting worldview.
Somewhere there is a sixty-five year old who unironically loves Taylor Swift’s music and a fifty-two year old writing Superwholock fanfic and a ninty year old who absolutely lives for the next episode of Archer and a seventy-one year old that can kick anyone’s ass in k-pop trivia. There will always be these folks, and all the Internet has done is give fans of all ages a chance to interact in a way that they never had before.
Before BBSes and the Internet and Usenet and the World Wide Web and fanrings and forums and social media, those people would just love it in their own way, in the privacy of their own homes. But now anyone can make an Ao3 account or a basic fansite or tumbl about whatever they want, and sometimes you’re gonna learn those people are old but they still get it, and sometimes you’re going to find out those folks are still kids, twelve or fourteen at the oldest, and marvel at their maturity and skill and attention to detail.
And that is rad as hell, that is fucking incredible, that is… whatever the kids are saying these days, hah.
As a sidenote, once, about a decade ago, I decided to email one of my favourite authors before she bit it … she was pushing 90 at the time. ( … she’s still alive now).
Anyways, we got to having a long discussion, because I shared my deadname with her late husband, and I actually had quite a long conversation with her.
The part of the conversation I’d like to share with you about this now pushing 100-tear-old author isn’t that she developed a liking for her breakfast eggs from her honeymoon in Vienna, or that her Husband would sometimes steal her drafts to read them as soon as he could, or that she superglued a potted plant to her bookshelf to watch her orange cat try to knock it over and fail.
Nono, I mention this to bring up what she would do as a writing exercise whenever she didn’t feel like writing her serious work.
In short, erotic darkwing duck slashfic. You can find it online.
This is the greatest addition this post has gotten so far.
I LOVE THIS FUCKING POST.
I love all the posts written by older fans, with their insight, and their generous attitude towards young fans, and young fanfic writers, and young fanartists.
Older fans who patiently explain to whomever questioned the validity of older fans participation…
that it’s older fans running the AO3 servers and the entire OTW organization;
Older fans most often writing the actually well written fanfic;
Older fans planning, organizing and executing massive cons;
Older fans who write out fandom history dating back to pre-internet so that history can be known and preserved and enjoyed;
Older fan lawyers enforcing Fair Use lawspro bono to keep fans from being sued for creating fic or art or any other media;
Older fans behaving well with life-lived-and-learned healthy boundaries;
or conversely dealing out smack-downs to those not behaving well be they older trolls or naively inexperienced younguns;
Older fans letting fans of all ages remember that zany enthusiasm is not the province only of the young – it is the province of humanity.
And we’re right there loving being human with you.
I’ll say yet again, Tumblr users are older than we think. There’s nothing unusual about a 40-something on here.
This started out as something great and turned into something better
Age is just a number but fandom is forever.
Young people today always think they control everything and that everything is about them.
I blame it on the we’re all special winners philosophy they are all growing up under.
No. Hell no. Do not come onto my post that is all about telling kids to enjoy their youth and be weird, and pretend that it’s OK to yell about young people and their specialness and participation trophies and related nonsense.
Young people are AWESOME. They are enthusiastic and thoughtful and self-aware and creative. They give life and joy and effort and thought and work to fandom. I will take one well-meaning and enthusiastic teenage girl over a dozen half or ironically committed adults any day.
Lots of them are unaware of fandom history because we have been very shitty at keeping fandom history – and that’s on us.
Lots of them don’t care about ‘elders’ because they don’t know they exist, or because they’ve been socialized to believe they shouldn’t exist, that people have to ‘grow up’ sometime – and that’s on us.
Lots of them want elders, they are delighted to discover that they can grow up and keep being as weird and awesome and wonderful as they are right now, that they don’t have to ‘become an adult’ by giving up everything that brings them joy. The notes on this post prove it.
And then lots of them are down on elders because we treat young people like shit a lot of the time, and they are not willing to put up with being treated like shit. I give kids today a lot of credit for refusing to put up with nonsense. That takes strength and courage and self-esteem and love for their friends and for humanity, all things we should encourage.
People have been bitching about the ‘special winners philosophy’ thing since at least Gen X (that’s as far back as my memory goes), and we’re about two and a half generations out from that now. This new crop of kids is hyper aware of when they’re being condescended to, and have no need to respect something without that respect being earned. They don’t think too much of themselves, they just want the same basic shit that everyone’s always wanted only now it’s harder to get – and considering that their parents generation had those things, it feels like an actual loss rather than a hopeful dream for the future.
And let’s remember: they never asked for the participation trophies. Adults did. And participation trophies don’t actually make you feel good, they make you mistrust praise and devalue outside encouragement.
Basically, fuck this attitude in general.
Also, “fandom” is now starting younger (and has been for some time) because fans of franchises aimed towards younger people now have a way of finding fellow fans far, far easier than when a lot of us were growing up. And if their first fandom is for an original property aimed at teens, chances are most of the first other fans they meet are going to be close to them in age, so *of course* it’s going to seem to them like fandom is *for* younger people. That’s not entitlement, that’s basic extrapolation from their experiences.
Not to mention they’re probably getting that, “Loving [show X / book Y] is for babies, when are you going to grow up?” bullshit from at least one older-than-them person in their lives, in which case, they’ve already been told that being passionate about fiction is a sign of immaturity, something that adults shouldn’t do- so why are we surprised when they internalize that?
Medical historian, psychiatrist, and UCLA clinician Vernon Rosario, for example, notes that sex is “a polymorphic and multifactorial model” that must take into account dozens of genes, chromosomes and environmental factors. Even in orthodox biology, it seems, sex is no longer as simple as XX or XY.
Quote from: It’s Time For People To Stop Using the Social Construct of Biological Sex
The thing people like Williamson want to cling to the most is the idea that sex is an immutable, universal biological reality that is therefore easy to categorize. Although many are willing to call trans women women (or specifically “trans women” or “transwomen” or even “male women”), they say that that is just their gender. They argue that gender is cultural and that sex is an unchanging biological fact, and that therefore their sex is still male. This is used to support “Womyn born Womyn” spaces, create fear around so-called “bathroom bills,” disallow trans women from competing in women’s sports and even defend violence against trans women. […]
Since “biological sex” is actually a social construct, those who say that it is not often have to argue about what it entails. Some say it’s based on chromosomes (of which there are many non-XX/XY combinations, as well asdiversity among people with XY chromosomes), others say it’s genitals or gonads (either at birth or at the moment you’re talking about), others say it’s hormone levels (which vary widely and can be manipulated), still others say it’s secondary sex characteristics like the appearance of breasts, body hair and muscle mass (which vary even more). Some say that it’s a combination of all of them. Now, this creates a huge problem, as sex organs, secondary sex characteristics and hormone levels aren’t anywhere close to being universal to all men or women, males or females.
‘Queer’ was reclaimed as an umbrella term for people identifying as not-heterosexual and/or not-cisgender in the early 1980s, but being queer is more than just being non-straight/non-cis; it’s a political and ideological statement, a label asserting an identity distinct from gay and/or traditional gender identities.
People identifying as queer are typically not cis gays or cis lesbians, but bi, pan, ace, trans, nonbinary, intersex, etc.: we’re the silent/ced letters. We’re the marginalised majority within the LGBTQIA+ community, and
‘queer’ is our rallying cry.
And that’s equally pissing off and terrifying terfs and cis LGs.
There’s absolutely no historical or sociolinguistic reason why ‘queer’ should be a worse slur than ‘gay.’ Remember how we had all those campaigns to make people stop using ‘gay’ as a synonym for ‘bad’?
Yet nobody is suggesting we should abolish ‘gay’ as a label. We accept that even though ‘gay’ sometimes is and historically frequently was used in a derogatory manner, mlm individuals have the right to use that word. We have ad campaigns, twitter hashtags, and viral Facebook posts defending ‘gay’ as an identity label and asking people to stop using it as a slur.
Whereas ‘queer’ is treated exactly opposite: a small but vocal group of people within feminist and LGBTQIA+ circles insists that it’s a slur and demands that others to stop using it as a personal, self-chosen identity label.
Why?
Because “queer is a slur” was invented by terfs specifically to exclude trans, nonbinary, and
intersex people from feminist and non-heterosexual discourse, and was
subsequently adopted by cis gays and cis lesbians to exclude bi/pan and ace
people.
It’s classic divide-and-conquer tactics: when our umbrella term is redefined as a slur and we’re harassed into silence for using it, we no longer have a word for what we are allowing us to organise for social/political/economic support; we are denied the opportunity to influence or shape the spaces we inhabit; we can’t challenge existing community power structures; we’re erased from our own history.
Pro tip: when you alter historical evidence to deny a marginalised group empowerment, you’re one of the bad guys.
“Queer is a slur” is used by terfs and cis gays/lesbians to silence the voices of trans/nonbinary/intersex/bi/pan/ace people in society and even within our own communities, to isolate us and shame us for existing.
“Queer is a slur” is saying “I am offended by people who do not conform to traditional gender or sexual identities because they are not sexually available to me or validate my personal identity.”
“Queer is a slur” is defending heteronormativity.
“Queer is a slur” is frankly embarrassing. It’s an admission of ignorance and prejudice. It’s an insidious discriminatory discourse parroted uncritically in support of a divisive us-vs-them mentality targeting the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQIA+ community for lack of courage to confront the white cis straight men who pose an actual danger to us as individuals and as a community.
Tl;dr:
I’m here, I’m queer, and I’m too old for this shit.
none of your faves are unproblematic. none of your friends or family are unproblematic. you are not unproblematic. there is literally no point during the process of learning about social justice type stuff and unlearning internalized bullshit and dismantling power systems at which you magically become enlightened and unproblematic. it does not exist. there is no tangible finish line, there is only endless, arduous work and it’s hard but it needs to be done.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 