On understanding

[haddayr]

Every wheelie has an experience similar to the one I had today: I pushed open the door to the bathroom and began to wheel through it. A coworker was standing at the sinks, washing her hands. She looked up, a totally panicked expression on her face, and abandoned her hygiene to leap in front of me, completely blocking my entrance, and to grab the

Comments

[tithenai]

But -- you clearly DO understand. Everything about this post shows you understanding what they meant, and further understanding the context that produces the well-meaning beyond even what the well-meaners mean.

So to ask you to understand is sort of superfluous. To ask the asker if THEY understand would probably be more to the point.

[jonhansen]

I don't think they're really asking for understanding, I think they're asking for forgiveness.

[tithenai]

That's an excellent point. Yes.

[callunav]

Yeeesss...but there's two problems with that very graceful and compassionate translation.

The first is that they're mostly asking for forgiveness for other people, not themselves, which makes everything rather difficult to handle meaningfully.

And the second is that--well, /my/ sense is that most of the time, when people are asking for forgiveness for something, there's generally expected to be an element of actual contrition and an intent to do better thereafter. This totally lacks any of that.

I think orbitalmechanic nails it, below, really.

[benrosenbaum]

From "monstrous" to "poor unfortunates needful of help" is a step up, I suppose, but you might consider that it would also be alienating to have everyone around you feeling instantly burdened, upon seeing you, with the duty of somehow personally doing something to alleviate what they imagine to be your need and distress -- especially when you experience the situation (say, moving about as you usually do) as neither.

[benrosenbaum]

My apologies for my misunderstanding; in that case I take it I am preaching to the choir. :-)

[kellyhul]

Great post. Thanks.

[capriuni]

I'm currently working on a song on this theme (on how the disabled are "monstrous" and how dare "they" insist on inclusion).

I've got a thread up in the Mudcat forum on it, now: Monster Song (?) from CapriUni -- Help? (it's going through the draft stages; I'd appreciate your input as a "monster" with a musical ear, btw).

Just giving you a heads-up that I will now post a link to this entry in that thread, and maybe quote a bit, too.

[haddayr]

I really liked this, and I really REALLY liked that the ABs didn't have an epiphany. I am not used to using MudCat; did you post a midi file or recording that I am missing?

[capriuni]

Good! I'm glad you liked. And yeah, when the ABs have the epiphany, I'll be able to move on to other topics.

And no -- no tune yet (I've got Noteworthy Composer open now, to try and fiddle one out). When I've got something I think is close to workable, I'll post an ABC notation and a link to Concertina.net's converter page in that thread. I'm thinking something along the lines of an Irish Troubles song (Whether Republican or Loyalist, they always seemed to nail the righteous indignation tone). Any suggestions?

[haddayr]

To be frank, I avoid these songs for the exact reason you think they'd be good for this song, so I don't have a suggestion. :-P

[marydell]

That is some bullshit. You don't have to understand. People should learn to be fucking polite. Disabled people are not CHILDREN, except for the disabled children, I mean, and at the very least compulsive helpy people (of which I am one) should OFFER help or ASK about help, but not just leap in to take shit over. Because that's RUDE RUDE RUDE. (And I have trained myself to not offer help, either, becaus strangely if I just say HI to a person, they know they can ask for help if they so desire, and if they don't want help we can have a nice exchange of hellos).

Meanwhile I think you should trick out your wheels like this and then tell people whose calves you slice open that they just have to understand that's your natural response to people who stand too close to you.