radical sensing

academic conference is plodding along, with all of the usual proceedings, housekeeping, pronouns, acknowledgement of country, rules for microphones and video screens, and delays in transmission, yada yada yada, when. all of a sudden. a slide show begins. creative writers are being encouraged to engage in a new way of practicing our craft. it’s being sold as an opportunity to feel nourished while writing. but. here’s the thing. the practice they’re describing is an imitation of how my brain operates. they’re calling it radical sensing. they tell us to tune into our senses. list all of the things you hear, smell, feel, taste. then use those things as a prompt. applause for the new way of thinking leaves me incredulous. what. the. actual. fuck. because this is not new to me. i am always already radically sensing all. of. the. things. all of the time, all of the time, all of the time. never stops. and it is far from nourishing. it is a hamster wheel and it won’t let me stop. now these neurotypicals are pumped. eager to experiment with my reality. trying it on for size like a daring new lipstick shade. a costume. while i imagine what it must be like to be able to get off the hamster wheel and become familiar with silence…absence of sensing. that would be radical for me. that would be new. that would be nourishing. and they never even asked us neurodivergent folks what being radical is like. they just borrowed our ways of being and presented them as research. significant and novel. as if we are nowhere to be found in the existing discourse…maybe we’re not…yet. but we’ve been here the whole time. all they had to do was ask. instead we are tokens. anomalies whose inherent radicalism is punched down into ever-smaller boxes…until, until, until…they need compelling, shiny, untouched ideas. then all of a sudden. we are counted. but without our involvement. without our permission. without our opinions. unless they want to satisfy the diversity quota…then, then, then…they pimp us out as a unique selling point and count their profits while we suffocate under the searing stage lights and sweat inside the grease-paint and the too-tight, scratchy academic uniform blazers. neurowashing us clean until there’s nothing. radical. left.