Ph.DONE.

After one helluva year, it’s done, the dissertation.  And Maitri and I, we have a son.  He’s sleeping up against my chest right now.  Those two events, my finishing my dissertation and the birth of our son are inextricably intertwined.

So I feel like this is the end of a chapter.  The manifest spontaneity chapter?  Mmmm…..No.  Actually, maybe I’ll go back to that beginnings and vision page. 

And we’re back. I started this blog-project with the intention of writing more.  Writing from authenticity.  Manifesting spontaneity.  It’s hard to tell whether this project helped me write my dissertation.  One thing I do observe: writing frequency on this blog was inversely proportional to writing frequency for my dissertation.  I do think that this blog helped me.  Whenever I got stuck, I could come here to write.  I think this outlet kept me from stagnating quite so much.  Getting used to writing, no matter how I felt.  So what will this be now?  

Before I answer that, there’s another entry I’d like to return to my outdated future self.  

Back again.  Reading that just now…wow.  This line, 

'Where do I fit?  What kind of clothes fit me?  What can I offer?  The generosity of being genuinely myself. '

really hit me.  Now, it points to being authentic in my gender-identity.  What about my neuro-diverse identity?  Ooooof.  That too?  What’s the difference between being authentic and being overly demonstrative?  Not being angry when someone doesn’t pick up the cues you’re giving.  Eh.  Not so sure about that.  

There’s another line that seems especially applicable right now, 

 I learn the way forward by taking the steps.

“Laying down a path in walking” as Varela, Thompson, and Rosch wrote.  I’m not actually sure if that’s what they meant.  I’d like to read the last chapter of their book, Embodied Cogntive Science a little more closely.  




“Taking the steps” though.  It will be interesting to see my own process or learning to walk compared to my kiddo’s process.  I anticipate those first steps as so effortful.  Will walking my path become effortless as the years go by?  I can’t premeditate everything.  Or maybe it’s more like I can’t pre-effort everything.  At some point I have to say, it seems like I ought to do something different, or something more like this (insert jerky approximated movement).   

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