“On Being Considered ‘Retarded’“
Amanda makes amazing videos. Please check out her youtube channel!
this is great. i’m very often frustrated by the limits of understanding. i wish thoughts and feelings and intentions weren’t inhibited or filtered or blocked or messed up by all the things they are. like the fact that i’m amazed that she is articulate as she is. and that i constantly forget that other people are just as much of a person as i am. i mean in general, now. empathy and compassion are hard to make work in ways that aren’t overwhelming or inhuman. it’s hard to remember everything and to keep it in your mind all the time. it takes a lot of effort and can be very unpleasant. or hard to bear, would be a righter way to say that. making the conscious decision not to let automatic mode take over. but at the same time to open yourself up. it makes you feel very alive.
see also walt whitman’s song of myself, a million john green quotes, david foster wallace’s kenyon commencement speech, this blog post by amanda, and all good, free, big things
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