About Time

     The ancient Greeks had two different words for time: Chronos and Kairos. You could think of them as left-brain time and right-brain time. Chronos is the kind of time measured by clocks and calendars, by which we make appointments and set deadlines, and generally coordinate our activities with those of other people who aren't alongside us all day long. It's linear, it's sequential, it runs out. Chronos can be wasted by procrastination or indecision, maximized by efficiency, extended with a healthy lifestyle ... but nothing in the world stops it. It is relentless, bearing each of us onward from birth to inevitable death, with (sometimes it feels like) nothing but shoulds and musts, hurry up, and what might have been in between.

I, sea-monster

     Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like an alien? Maybe you were literally an alien, in another country or cultural setting, or you're a minority in your own country. Or maybe, some time in your life you got some devastating, life-altering news -- even good news, like falling in love and then finding out it's mutual -- leaving you feeling totally cut off from the ordinary, oblivious, everyday lives of all the people around you. Or maybe you're just a teenager, when feeling like nobody understands you or ever will is pretty much normal. 

On Chastity

     I have an embarrassingly counter-cultural confession: I don't miss sex at all. I do not want sex, and I never enjoyed sex. Yes, I'm going there, even though yes, it's an uncomfortable subject. Chastity is not hard for me! It's a relief, actually. And another relief is discovering how common my dirty little secret is among people with autism. Not all autistics, by any means -- plenty of them love sex every bit as much as the world says we're all supposed to. But I'm finding that both the low desire for sex, and the sensory processing issues that make it impossible to enjoy sex, are very common among this tribe I never knew I belonged to. 

Gaia - liminal space of our being

     This week's blog post is something of a departure from what I've been writing about here lately! It was a thought challenge that came in a group of gifted people, and it was a real treat to be encouraged to use my mind in this abstract way to put words to some of my religious experience. The challenge given was simply the title of this blog post, which several people took and ran with in quite different directions. And here's mine.