What's Your Formative Experience?
A Writing Prompt Response
releases writing prompts over on her Substack newsletter, , every so often. Back in September, the prompt was to do with formative experiences - and you can view that essay here.
I usually don’t go for writing prompts; writing is a way I process my own thoughts, so there’s a logic in not adding more to the pile. (A YouTuber once referred to this as ‘Autistic brain drain’.) I feel like it is a way to find out what I think, as well as being a way to judge myself. I don’t need to be prompted towards a thought spiral of anxiety.
But this one played on my mind when it landed, just calling out to me from the other side of the internet. It ended up in my notebook as a stream of thought, highlighted and edited - and it felt like it needed sharing here.
Empathy is not built, learned or performed - but it is a work of translation in action.
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