X-Men was my safe space as a neurodivergent kid. I have always and continue to feel like a mutant who just doesn’t know how to use my powers. I spent my life coming at it from that angle of investigation and, though it was a bumpy journey, on the whole it was an extremely productive and fruitful lens for me.
I feel less like a wandering mutant these days and more like Professor X must have felt before he started his school. So many amazing traits have I discovered, because you’re exactly right: there is a core set of skills we all spin into personalized magic. We just usually have to figure that out on our own and that’s the tragedy in it for me.
The Professor X thing really got me. You’ve done the messy work of figuring out your own powers, and now you’re sitting here going “okay but why does everyone else still have to wander around confused and alone when I could just… tell them?”
Nobody tells Rogue she needs to just try harder to touch people. They work with what she’s got. That’s the whole point.
What made X-Men feel safer than other superhero stories? Was it the mutant school aspect, or the whole “feared and misunderstood” theme?
Almost every other super hero story requires some random external element: radioactive spider, rich parents being killed in front of you as a child leaving you a fortune, rich genius with a fancy suit, etc. They’re mostly about being ultra-privileged or lucky.
The X-Men showed me that being different was the most natural thing you could be. It showed me three things namely:
1) There are two ways to respond to oppression about difference: curiosity and fear. I always try to choose curiosity. Professor X just always seemed happier than Magneto, so I tried to follow his philosophy through life.
2) Your “powers” are a part of you. They may do many things, but they represent one mutation which you may have to spend your life learning how to use.
3) Almost any “power” can be used for good or evil.
I loved the idea of the mutant school and it was also a safe space to be girly. I could pick Storm or Jean Grey playing a video game with my straight friends without outing myself but still getting to feel a little gay while still in the closet.
It gave me so many metaphors and strategies for learning to operate gifts without a manual and without institutional help.
The school didn’t teach them how to use their powers. It taught them how not to hate and fear themselves, which enabled the powers to grow and develop safely.
For me, associating neurodivergence with superpowers isn’t about sugar coating at all. It’s about being honest about the awesome or terrible power that this kind of mind can produce. More and more of us are coming out of the woodwork and the traditional social structures do not support us. That’s not all that dissimilar from the exposition of the X-Men. We’re at a fork in the road: one way leads to a future where we are two clans working against each other. The other leads to a new kind of society where we fold in the new and different rather than push it away. I really have no point of reference in history or literature for what that looks like.
I’m exploring political ideas and fictional stories about what changes we might need to adopt now which will help us choose the latter path when the time comes.
Okay this is hitting me: the school didn’t teach them how to use their powers. It taught them how not to hate themselves, which enabled the powers to grow safely.
That’s coaching. That’s literally what I do. I’m not teaching people executive function hacks or how to organize their sock drawer. I’m sitting with them going “your brain isn’t the problem, the world’s setup is” until they stop fighting themselves long enough to figure out what they’re actually capable of.
And the fork in the road thing: we’re already seeing both paths play out. Some workplaces are going full Magneto (eliminate the threat, force conformity). Others are trying to figure out what Professor X’s school would look like in corporate form (and mostly failing because they’re still using neurotypical blueprints).
You said you’re exploring what the better path looks like through political ideas and fiction. I’m so curious what you’re finding. Because I think a lot of us are trying to build that school without a manual for it, and we’re all kind of making it up as we go.
What does the good version look like to you? Not the perfect utopia version, but the messy, realistic, “we’re actually trying” version?
Well I’m about a month into this little adventure so I’m still finding my voice and position but I’m interested in harnessing the ripple effect of human behavior we call history in our favor.
I’m hoping to figure out how to be a coach of some kind. I was my first client. I’ve spent 2 years teaching myself how to be happy using strategies I had as a child but unlearned in school and in life.
Small changes have exponential effect over time. I’m thinking of ways to scale the strategies I’ve used to help myself up to the level of global society. Deliberate historical ripples.
What are small changes we can make which will grow over the next few generations into resource pools and guardrails against the parts of capitalism which only benefit the wealthy? How can we raise the average quality of life for everyone without lowering the quality of life for anyone?
Give children $1000 per year in school to help them learn financial skills. They learn about savings accounts and budgeting, eventually investing and crypto. Help them have the financial literacy they’ll need when they graduate. Very small per capita investment which would have huge effects on income inequality over a few generations.
Royalties on certain patents so there is a direct correlation between corporate profit and fueling the infrastructure we need.
Philosophical pivots like opting out of organ donation rather than into it. Effectively no change, but overnight way more organs. Place the burden of action on those wanting to remove resources from the pool.
Digital voting so direct democracy is more viable.
Universal minimum and maximum income. No one needs a billion dollars but if that argument is lost already, definitely no one needs a trillion.
We seem to be in a stalemate arguing back and forth about moving taxes from here to here, convinced there’s not enough money, but we aren’t being creative at all with the solutions.
I believe it is intellectually silly to continue sacrificing our agency at the alter of societal inertia. When our society was designed a few centuries ago, psychology didn’t exist, slavery was considered morally acceptable, women were still property, and queer people were still invisible.
We treat history as a retroactive field. What if it isn’t? What if we decide where we want to be in 50 years, install some patches to the system to aim us there, work to keep them going, then revisit in 50 years to regroup, recalibrate, and redeploy?
For my part, I’m going to try to flood the market with new ideas we haven’t even considered. Force some new conversations. That may be all I get done in my lifetime. We need to start thinking of success trans-generationally.
I’m the primary caretaker for my aging mother and fully a Peter Pan personality so I live trans-generationally. Maybe that’s why it’s easier for me to think that way. I don’t know that time moves in one direction. I understand that’s an unusual thing to think and I’m not really interested in proving it to anyone, but can you imagine what else you might have noticed if you had viewed everything you’ve ever seen or read or heard through a lens of time moving in more than one direction?
I have dreams where I sit around the table with Shakespeare and Einstein and the Curies and we discuss the feeling of inspiration because while it has affected each of us differently, that is the common thread we all share. I view inspiration as a force in the world, a measurable force. I think consciousness is likely atomic and not in any way human-specific, which means I have a totally different appreciation for the environment.
I’m just not like anyone I’ve ever met. I spent 10 years after leaving grad school trying to play the part of capitalist gay, dancing and drinking and partying and looking for love in the nooks and crannies where the people who love like me are allowed to seek out one another safely. But I just didn’t succeed. I’ve never had a healthy relationship. I’ve never been on vacation as an adult. I’ve never imagined getting married. I’ve gone through life feeling like I was on the outside looking in.
And while my experience is extreme, I think everyone feels this way to some extent because so much of our society is dysfunctional.
Life has been lonely. But I was a kid when I taught myself to turn loneliness into solitude: just add wonder. I forgot that sometime during the darker years after school. I’m grateful to have rediscovered the recipe.
I’m working on a one-year plan to share my story in a more deliberate way. With any luck, by this time next year, I’ll either be making money from this directly or will have convinced someone to hire me. Really, truly, I’m just a smart person who knows he could help if only there were an institution in our society whose job it was to point smart people at the problems we’re facing.
I think the person who started that institution would be pretty smart. Maybe I’ll be that guy.
No doubt, it's superpower!
I love the pivot to superpower metaphors.
X-Men was my safe space as a neurodivergent kid. I have always and continue to feel like a mutant who just doesn’t know how to use my powers. I spent my life coming at it from that angle of investigation and, though it was a bumpy journey, on the whole it was an extremely productive and fruitful lens for me.
I feel less like a wandering mutant these days and more like Professor X must have felt before he started his school. So many amazing traits have I discovered, because you’re exactly right: there is a core set of skills we all spin into personalized magic. We just usually have to figure that out on our own and that’s the tragedy in it for me.
The Professor X thing really got me. You’ve done the messy work of figuring out your own powers, and now you’re sitting here going “okay but why does everyone else still have to wander around confused and alone when I could just… tell them?”
Nobody tells Rogue she needs to just try harder to touch people. They work with what she’s got. That’s the whole point.
What made X-Men feel safer than other superhero stories? Was it the mutant school aspect, or the whole “feared and misunderstood” theme?
Almost every other super hero story requires some random external element: radioactive spider, rich parents being killed in front of you as a child leaving you a fortune, rich genius with a fancy suit, etc. They’re mostly about being ultra-privileged or lucky.
The X-Men showed me that being different was the most natural thing you could be. It showed me three things namely:
1) There are two ways to respond to oppression about difference: curiosity and fear. I always try to choose curiosity. Professor X just always seemed happier than Magneto, so I tried to follow his philosophy through life.
2) Your “powers” are a part of you. They may do many things, but they represent one mutation which you may have to spend your life learning how to use.
3) Almost any “power” can be used for good or evil.
I loved the idea of the mutant school and it was also a safe space to be girly. I could pick Storm or Jean Grey playing a video game with my straight friends without outing myself but still getting to feel a little gay while still in the closet.
It gave me so many metaphors and strategies for learning to operate gifts without a manual and without institutional help.
The school didn’t teach them how to use their powers. It taught them how not to hate and fear themselves, which enabled the powers to grow and develop safely.
For me, associating neurodivergence with superpowers isn’t about sugar coating at all. It’s about being honest about the awesome or terrible power that this kind of mind can produce. More and more of us are coming out of the woodwork and the traditional social structures do not support us. That’s not all that dissimilar from the exposition of the X-Men. We’re at a fork in the road: one way leads to a future where we are two clans working against each other. The other leads to a new kind of society where we fold in the new and different rather than push it away. I really have no point of reference in history or literature for what that looks like.
I’m exploring political ideas and fictional stories about what changes we might need to adopt now which will help us choose the latter path when the time comes.
Okay this is hitting me: the school didn’t teach them how to use their powers. It taught them how not to hate themselves, which enabled the powers to grow safely.
That’s coaching. That’s literally what I do. I’m not teaching people executive function hacks or how to organize their sock drawer. I’m sitting with them going “your brain isn’t the problem, the world’s setup is” until they stop fighting themselves long enough to figure out what they’re actually capable of.
And the fork in the road thing: we’re already seeing both paths play out. Some workplaces are going full Magneto (eliminate the threat, force conformity). Others are trying to figure out what Professor X’s school would look like in corporate form (and mostly failing because they’re still using neurotypical blueprints).
You said you’re exploring what the better path looks like through political ideas and fiction. I’m so curious what you’re finding. Because I think a lot of us are trying to build that school without a manual for it, and we’re all kind of making it up as we go.
What does the good version look like to you? Not the perfect utopia version, but the messy, realistic, “we’re actually trying” version?
Well I’m about a month into this little adventure so I’m still finding my voice and position but I’m interested in harnessing the ripple effect of human behavior we call history in our favor.
I’m hoping to figure out how to be a coach of some kind. I was my first client. I’ve spent 2 years teaching myself how to be happy using strategies I had as a child but unlearned in school and in life.
Small changes have exponential effect over time. I’m thinking of ways to scale the strategies I’ve used to help myself up to the level of global society. Deliberate historical ripples.
What are small changes we can make which will grow over the next few generations into resource pools and guardrails against the parts of capitalism which only benefit the wealthy? How can we raise the average quality of life for everyone without lowering the quality of life for anyone?
Give children $1000 per year in school to help them learn financial skills. They learn about savings accounts and budgeting, eventually investing and crypto. Help them have the financial literacy they’ll need when they graduate. Very small per capita investment which would have huge effects on income inequality over a few generations.
Royalties on certain patents so there is a direct correlation between corporate profit and fueling the infrastructure we need.
Philosophical pivots like opting out of organ donation rather than into it. Effectively no change, but overnight way more organs. Place the burden of action on those wanting to remove resources from the pool.
Digital voting so direct democracy is more viable.
Universal minimum and maximum income. No one needs a billion dollars but if that argument is lost already, definitely no one needs a trillion.
We seem to be in a stalemate arguing back and forth about moving taxes from here to here, convinced there’s not enough money, but we aren’t being creative at all with the solutions.
I believe it is intellectually silly to continue sacrificing our agency at the alter of societal inertia. When our society was designed a few centuries ago, psychology didn’t exist, slavery was considered morally acceptable, women were still property, and queer people were still invisible.
We treat history as a retroactive field. What if it isn’t? What if we decide where we want to be in 50 years, install some patches to the system to aim us there, work to keep them going, then revisit in 50 years to regroup, recalibrate, and redeploy?
For my part, I’m going to try to flood the market with new ideas we haven’t even considered. Force some new conversations. That may be all I get done in my lifetime. We need to start thinking of success trans-generationally.
You went from “I taught myself to be happy” to “let me redesign capitalism” in about three sentences. That’s wild and I’m here for it.
The organ donation flip is perfect. That’s the kind of solution that only happens when someone looks at a problem without everyone else’s baggage.
You’re one month in with this massive trans-generational vision. Everything feels possible and connected right now. That’s such a specific phase.
What does month one actually look like for you? What are you working on, thinking about, building?
I’m the primary caretaker for my aging mother and fully a Peter Pan personality so I live trans-generationally. Maybe that’s why it’s easier for me to think that way. I don’t know that time moves in one direction. I understand that’s an unusual thing to think and I’m not really interested in proving it to anyone, but can you imagine what else you might have noticed if you had viewed everything you’ve ever seen or read or heard through a lens of time moving in more than one direction?
I have dreams where I sit around the table with Shakespeare and Einstein and the Curies and we discuss the feeling of inspiration because while it has affected each of us differently, that is the common thread we all share. I view inspiration as a force in the world, a measurable force. I think consciousness is likely atomic and not in any way human-specific, which means I have a totally different appreciation for the environment.
I’m just not like anyone I’ve ever met. I spent 10 years after leaving grad school trying to play the part of capitalist gay, dancing and drinking and partying and looking for love in the nooks and crannies where the people who love like me are allowed to seek out one another safely. But I just didn’t succeed. I’ve never had a healthy relationship. I’ve never been on vacation as an adult. I’ve never imagined getting married. I’ve gone through life feeling like I was on the outside looking in.
And while my experience is extreme, I think everyone feels this way to some extent because so much of our society is dysfunctional.
Life has been lonely. But I was a kid when I taught myself to turn loneliness into solitude: just add wonder. I forgot that sometime during the darker years after school. I’m grateful to have rediscovered the recipe.
I’m working on a one-year plan to share my story in a more deliberate way. With any luck, by this time next year, I’ll either be making money from this directly or will have convinced someone to hire me. Really, truly, I’m just a smart person who knows he could help if only there were an institution in our society whose job it was to point smart people at the problems we’re facing.
I think the person who started that institution would be pretty smart. Maybe I’ll be that guy.