Inexcusable Discriminatory Rationale

Disability is a subject I’m reluctant to write about in a post here at my blog. After all, I am not my disability. I have a page on the subject, My Disability Quirks, to give my readers an explanation for some of the more erratic things that go on in my daily life that may affect how I respond to my readers. Other than that, I would rather you knew the thousands of other things about me instead.

Albeit, on approximately May 15, 2019 [It could have been one or two day before.], I received an email from a blogger, a fellow writer that perturbed me to the point where I was unnerved, infuriated. It invoked me to speak out about the absurdity and mindlessness of what the email said so plainly. At the time I read it, I didn’t realize how it was going to affect me and deleted it thinking I didn’t need that rubbish in my inbox. But it produced a night of restlessness to the point where I was awake most of those hours. Before writing this post, I went to my trash bin at Gmail thinking maybe I could retrieve it but somehow it had been eliminated completely.

As I’ve stated on my page, My Disability Quirks, I have cognitive issues connected to my disability that I live with each and every day. Two that are an irritant each and every day are the inability to spell some of the simplest of words and short-term loss. It’s the technology of present day that has insured that I don’t become a lunatic. Without it there would be lengthy interruptions of using a hardbound dictionary and trying to remember where I have left off because I had lost my place in my project. By typing on a keyboard [one-handed of course] and being able to toggle between my work and an online dictionary and thesaurus, I can stay focused on what I want to accomplish. I don’t think I would have kept up my momentum to write without these helps and would have given up writing all altogether.

If I had believed what this blogger had written, I wouldn’t even be speculating on the idea of writing. Why? According to him/her, a person is not a writer unless s/he writes using a pen and paper. This blogger/writer professes that if a writer uses only a keyboard to put forth his or her words, that person is not a writer.

—

The first question that came to mind when I read the email:

What kind of lunacy is this? Must we go back to the time of Leonardo da Vinci using the quill and papyrus, and write by candle light? The first person I thought of after reading this email was Jacqui Murray, a woman who has many fictional and nonfictional books under her belt. Predominantly, she works paperlessly in her home office. Is this blogger/writer saying Jacqui, of all people, is not a writer?

—

My second question:

Is this person so presumptuous to believe a person who does not have the capability to write with a pen on paper cannot be a writer no matter how talented that person is in storytelling? If this was true, a quadriplegic couldn’t be a writer—period. That is extremely prejudicial.

It seems to me this blogger/writer is illusive, probably to the point of being self-serving. I do wonder how far this person will get in his/her career making this type of announcement.

—

My third question:

Does this blogger/writer know what s/he is doing to him/herself by making such a statement on the Internet? Is s/he that irresponsible, that inconsiderate, that foolish? Obviously s/he is because that is exactly with s/he did.

—————

It’s probably just as well that I can’t remember who sent me the email. The temptation to do a smear campaign might be too hard to resist.

I maintain the belief that a person who is serious about writing and is getting the words out in any shape or form so another person can experience them is a writer.

What do you think?

“Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you’re conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.” 
― Anne Lamott