{"id":4703,"date":"2019-09-02T12:44:54","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T17:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=4703"},"modified":"2019-09-02T12:45:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T17:45:00","slug":"definitely-not-standing-on-my-own-two-feet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/?p=4703","title":{"rendered":"Definitely Not Standing On My Own Two Feet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Andrew Solomon (whose book Far from the Tree<\/a><\/em> is on my ever-growing reading list) has an excellent essay on how those of us with disabilities see ourselves and how others see us<\/a>. I particularly like this passage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Independence is not so brave a value as we often insist, and it is also almost impossible; we live in a collective fabric, all our lives entwined with the lives of others. Human beings are social animals. Disabled people are often dependent on other people, and in our lionization of self-sufficiency, we see that as a weakness. But dependency has its own particular poetry. It is a fundamental aspect of intimacy, a defining quality of love.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even after 46 years of living with a disability, I still have moments where I feel self-conscious about my dependence on others to simply live my life. Even though I’m employed and have achieved some degree of economic independence, that does not change the fact that I will always need assistance to scratch my nose or use the bathroom. I appreciate this reminder that dependence is a feature, not a bug, of being human. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solomon’s message that we all depend on each other is especially vital at a time when the gang of assholes that is our current government is busy punishing immigrants<\/a> who dare to seek some public assistance to improve their lives. This administration is doing everything in its power to bring eugenics back in style<\/a> and it disturbs me to no end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yes, I’m blogging again. Feel free to take wagers on whether I can keep this up for more than a week or two. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Solomon (whose book Far from the Tree is on my ever-growing reading list) has an excellent essay on how those of us with disabilities see ourselves and how others see us. I particularly like this passage. “Independence is not so brave a value as we often insist, and it is also almost impossible; we […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New Blog Post: Definitely Not Standing On My Own Two Feet","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability","category-politics","category-14-id","category-18-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Iwau-1dR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4703"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4710,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4703\/revisions\/4710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the19thfloor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}