Flipping the Bird: A Life Autistic Update

It’s been in the making since August 2008.

writes a novel. Jobless

— The Life Autistic (new vid out now!) (@InsertKABOOM) August 12, 2008

Boy, I sure was the optimist. And no, neither of those things are true anymore.

I’ve been doing more self-reflecting and directing, listening to my inner pseudo-Marie Kondo, who in this case is telling me:

“Destroy what dampens joy.”

Destroy what dampens joy.

I remember back in 2002, I was younger, under the pretense and hope that I could slap words together and write.

Being one of the youngest music writers on an MP3 review site, explaining to people the definition of “dronology,” placing well enough in essays for small scholarships, dabbling in poetry, wowing my roommates with the phrase “Janus-faced,” diving headlong into English studies in college, saving my grades with impeccable skills in writing term papers.

And then to harness what I called art: writing a book or two, querying agent after agent and even getting bites on my works, almost getting represented, pivoting to a writing advice blog, keeping that sword sharp at work with high-concept technobabble at its most lowbrow, re-writing and editing procedures and drafting global communications at best.

And then this blog, which people have told me has given them hope, freedom to be themselves, an “answer to prayer,” beautiful, and many other kind affirmations.

I want to think I’m a good writer.

And I wanted Twitter to work for me.

It isn’t.

It’s almost a tragedy for me, that a written medium is just now a reminder of joylessness. Of where my skill meets desert. Where toil and craft meets dust.

It brings me so few joys and dampens far more.

Destroy what dampens joy.

As a writer with some skill in both the long and the short form, I’ve appreciated the Twitter medium, but I need to repurpose this from here on out. I’m still keeping the account up and keeping up the account, but the void does me no good now, and my voice is better spent elsewhere besides just dying in the depths.

That said: I’ll still share some pictures, new blogs, videos, maybe a retweet here and there, short-form poetics, paeans of gratitude, and things when words are needed. I don’t plan on it being much.

However: I’m giving up the rest – pithy witticisms, the hashtagged autistic tweets that fall dead on arrival, the smart concept humor, the jeremiads, the worded thoughts with aims that don’t deserve the deadness, the dampened joy.

Destroy what dampens joy.

I love writing. I love writing snappy little humorous things. I feel I can turn a good phrase, both clockwise and anti-clockwise.

I’m afraid Twitter is a dark and comic reminder that my loves and skills may just live in the wrong place.

And we are packing those up and moving those out.

Find me elsewhere. Where things grow.

To learn more about autism from an autistic person’s perspective, follow & subscribe to The Life Autistic here and on YouTube — or follow the more whimsical, spontaneous, and amusing content on Instagram.