Learning & Changing

As we go through life we take in new information, we learn from new experiences, and as a collective these experiences shape us and the world around us. Part of writing these blogs is about sharing information, experiences, and resources. Therefore, one of my responsibilities, I feel, is making sure that that information is good information, sourced from reliable sources, and presented correctly. A consequence of this is fixing any errors and updating information that is either wrong or has changed as time has gone on.

Today I am updating two qualities of my written work, and my language going forward. This will involve adding pronouns to people's names and changing neurodiversity to neurodivergent where relevant. I will be updating my website, including blog posts, but will not be going through social media posts at this time. There are a variety of reasons going into this decision.

Pronouns:

I recently finished a book in which the author would always introduce somebody with their pronouns, which I felt changed how I experienced the book. For starters, it stopped any internal biases assuming gender neutral names were a particular gender based on associated information, and it was a quick and concise way for me to get a little bit more information about the person mentioned. In short, I like that aspect of their writing style, so I am borrowing it for my own work. Yet, I feel that this is something that will and should become the norm as time goes on.

Neurodiversity:

This aspect is a little bit more complicated, but not by much, and is a terminology change. Neurodiversity is a word covering the diversity of the neurological aspects of people as a whole, whereas neurodivergent would be used for people whose neurological makeup is different from what is considered typical, which in itself is described as neurotypical. Until now, I have been using the term neurodiversity as a cover-all term, which has not been wrong, but understanding has changed, and the use of language has as well. So I too shall update my understanding and change and adapt.

I feel that we have all grown up with some form of hatred or otherness being considered normal, and this is true no matter when you grew up. I am not going to pretend my younger self saw the world differently, but I am going to hold my present self to a higher standard because that version of me I can change. A consequence of this is that I am going to make mistakes, but I am always going to do my best to fix them and learn from them. If you encounter a mistake on my site, be it terminology, outdated information, or anything you feel ought to be changed, then please do let me know.