Dear Neurosparklers (and Nearlynormies who love us),
You might have thought I quit trying to launch this newsletter.
Technically, you would be right.
I quit trying harder to publish something “good enough” just so that I could check an item off my already overloaded Todoist list of things I can’t do well.
ex·u·lan·sis · noun
The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.
— coined by John Koenig, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
The Just Right Word for introducing the “Bird Brain Framework” is Exulansis
The word Exulansis derives from the Latin exulans — exile, wanderer.
As in Diomedea exulans: the wandering albatross.
The wandering albatross has the largest wingspan of any living bird. Her incredible wing span named "the exiled one" by people who only ever saw her from shore and assumed that she wanted to land. In reality, her wings are made for her to do the very thing she was designed to do.
Fly without landing.
Her wings were made to do the things that she was made to do. That is a quote from my book, Through the Hummingbird’s Eye: A Neurosparkle Manifesto.
“Quit trying to be good enough for other people to understand how you are made” is the very definition of exulansis.
Exulansis is the choice to stop explaining when the words that are available for explanation do not exist or are not comprehensible to the listener.
Exulansis Fatigue comes when I become weary of being asked to explain the unexplainable. The ensuing frustration of not being understood is felt by both the speaker and the listener. Leading the speaker to keep trying to make the explanation land…not realizing that more words are not the answer.
Comprehension of someone else’s lived experience cannot be achieved using words that can’t adequately describe the unexplainable aspects of that experience.
Depression follows exulansis fatigue when "I just can't explain it to you" isn't a good enough explanation for someone else to believe that I see something that they don't and the words don’t yet exist to explain what I know.
Neurosparklers are GenX 2e AuDHD women became unconventional high achievers despite having lived our entire lives without a diagnostic lexicon to understand how our brains work.
We have been “othered” and gaslit by people who judged that their comprehension of our words determines the clarity of our explanation of our own perspective and lived experience.
This leads to the tendency to shut up. To shut down. To dim our brilliance because it hurts someone else’s eyes.
Exulansis and Excellence - Refusing to Land
My definition of failure is trying harder to become less mediocre at something at which I will never excel thereby exhausting time, resources, and energy that could be used to Choose that which I can’t NOT want.
Excellence creates friction. When you can see what something could be, “good enough” can feel intolerable. Not because you are arrogant, but because you can see the gap between What Is and What Could Be.
Exulansis is what happens next. You stop trying to explain an experience because repeated attempts have taught you that your words will be minimized, distorted, or misunderstood. Exulansis can be a choice or a consequence.
The book is the Auntie-dote to Exulansis Fatigue. Instead of explaining myself from the beginning every time, I created a concise, finished artifact that says: This is what I believe. Read it—or don’t. But I no longer have to prove that my thinking exists.
Why Am I Relaunching Now?
It is what it is. But who defines what “it” means?
I quit trying to explain “it” until the container existed to hold all of the “it” that I see.
I did not quit seeing. I did not quit writing.
As of last week, the container exists to hold all of my ideas in one place.
Recent changes to beehiiv were announced last week that finally provided me with the container that I have needed to build what I can’t not see.
I don't know what the Neurosparkle Newsletter will become.
A business?
A hobby?
A journal?
A Neurosparkle Revolution?
I just know that I can't NOT want to find out. And I don't need to explain why.
For now, this is enough:
I'm back.
It simply is what it is. Finally the container exists to hold my thoughts until I can explain how I see “it”.
— Paige