Good lord, someone just sent me a 7-minute voice message. I wish that I had the ability to forward this into Aiko so that I could generate a transcription, or I wish that Facebook Messenger would generate message transcriptions for me.

Don't get me wrong, this guy who sent me the 7-minute message is pretty cool. I like his writing style, and I've even seen a YouTube video of him talking. He has a great leadership tone. It's just that sending messages by voice to people who I don't know very well takes more energy from my nervous system than sending text does. Specifically, in a house where my speaking is monitored or tracked, I get asked who I'm talking to and what I'm talking about. While what I'm talking about is nothing big, those questions make me feel even more uncomfortable.

Here's a video I created and edited myself with the help of ChatGPT. It's designed to be posted as a FaceBook reel, but I'm posting it here to showcase the results of what I've been able to accomplish after using AI as a teaching tool. I recorded my audio in Voice Memos and read my script using my NLS Ereader. I then took a selfie and had ChatGPT make the coloring video friendly. But I didn't stop there. I added motion using animation so that sighted people aren't staring at a still image for a full 1 minute 50 seconds. Then I exported my presentation as a Movie and saved it to my camera roll. Video transcript in the next post of this thread.
The video is too big to host on my instance, so you can watch it here.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nva4k95f9zbk6ybrtm7xd/On-lack-of-context.MOV?rlkey=fhj2rbobzsigdtgm28kdo7d41&st=0w7o926s&dl=0
Or, if you only want audio, that's an option too. See attached audio. 1/2

When I check my own reality, I don't look to strangers or casual observers. I look to long-term relationships. To people who've seen me across seasons. To patterns, not moments. To my own internal consistency over time.

Identity isn't proven under interrogation.

It's revealed through continuity.

And if someone can't tell who you are without interrogating you, that doesn't mean you're unclear. It just means they don't have enough data--and they may never need to.

You are allowed to be coherent without being legible to everyone.

You are allowed to be stable without performing stability.

You are allowed to step back instead of explaining yourself into exhaustion.

If you're feeling unsettled right now, take this as permission to come back to center.

Notice where your steadiness already lives.

Notice who actually knows you.

Notice what hasn't changed, even when the noise gets loud.

That's all I wanted to say today. (3/3)

And that's an important distinction--because once you see it, you can stop mistaking social anxiety for personal failure.

There's a simple model I return to when I'm deciding whether to stay engaged with someone or step back.

Safe. Sane. Consensual.

Safe means the interaction doesn't leave you feeling destabilized, surveilled, or on edge.

Sane means there's a shared baseline reality--basic trust that each person can reliably read the other as grounded.

Consensual means access is mutual, not extracted.

Here's the part that matters most:

If someone cannot reliably tell whether you're stable or unstable, that's not a puzzle you're required to solve for them. That's information.

It's your permission to disengage.

You don't owe access to people who experience you as confusing or unsettling simply because you won't perform yourself into a box they understand.

If you're not careful, you start answering questions you don't actually owe answers to.

You start performing coherence for people who haven't earned proximity.

You start confusing visibility with accountability.

One of the most stabilizing practices I know is this:

Don't outsource your self-knowledge to people who haven't earned access to it.

If someone has known you briefly, contextually, or only through a narrow lens, their confusion is not a diagnosis. It's just confusion. (2/3)

Here's an audio reflection I recorded using voice memos. It discusses how to respond when someone questions your sense of self. Transcript below for anyone who cannot listen to the audio or who does not have the means.

It's the first of the month, and I want to talk about something quiet--but important.

What happens when someone challenges your sense of who you are.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

But subtly. With questions that sound reasonable. With concern that doesn't quite feel clean. With pauses that make you wonder if you're the unstable variable.

Here's the thing I've learned--both personally and through years of observing people, groups, and power dynamics.

When your sense of self is grounded, it often makes other people uncomfortable. Especially people who rely on consensus, hierarchy, or control to feel safe.

So they probe.

They test.

They ask you to explain yourself--not because they're curious, but because they're unsettled.

I've watched this pattern repeat across communities, workplaces, and social spaces.

When someone doesn't fit neatly into a role people recognize, the group often tries to resolve that discomfort by questioning the person instead of questioning the system.

You'll notice the questions aren't actually about understanding you better. They're about restoring a sense of order. (1/3)

@crazydutchy Don't mind me. I'm still waking up. I'm glad you're well, and it's perfectly okay to be busy. Sometimes we all need a break from social media.

@crazydutchy Good to see you around. Up earlier than planned, but it's going to be a good Sunday. I see you're recovering from a medical procedure. Best of luck to you.

Hey, you guys. I'm testing out a keyboard for iOS, PC, and Mac called Wispr Flow. You get 1,000 free words a week on mobile and 2,000 free words a week on PC and Mac.

I like it because I don't have to dictate punctuation. It auto-formats and inserts punctuation for me, which means that I'm typing faster or rather more productively on iOS with less of a need for editing. It also lets you specify punctuation style. In messaging apps, I have casual punctuation, but in email and other apps I have it set to formal punctuation.

You get a two-week free trial. After that, the app is $15 a month or $143 a year. Either way, I think I'm going to subscribe to this. ChatGPT estimates that I generate about 12,000 words of content a week right now, so I think this is a really good fit for me personally.

While much of the country has snow, we're enjoying soft Florida rain with occasional thunder. So calming. I'll take that over Tito's 18 inches of snow. I told him he can keep that.

@UncoveredMyths Okay. Not just me. Apparently blind folks are in the middle of a clients transition right now, long story short.

@MichiganPal No, it's not just you. People are posting. But it looks like a lot of the conversations are long threads. And if you're not following all the people in them, you miss some of the context. So people are still here. It just sounds like it's a client transition issue. But that seems to be slowly sorting itself out. On Windows, I mean.

@fastfinge Ah yes. I was missing the client issue. My iPad is my main device these days. I have a laptop, but I only use it when strictly necessary. I’m on Mona 7, but that was a one-time purchase for me. Thankfully, Fastsm looks promising. But I suspect you may be right about a future split.

I’m seeing less blind people post on Masto as of late. And I can’t tell if it’s just because of the amount of cool people I’m following who aren’t blind or because people have left for other platforms. DOn’t get me wrong. I see posts from blind people all the time. It just feels like the number of blind people posting has dropped. Not that there are less posts from blind people in general. But maybe that’s just my field of view talking.