How I Turned Someone's Substack Note into a Prompt

'There should be a way to unsubscribe from people in real life.' This was a Substack note that received many likes and comments. I don't remember how many. I remember, however, the author's name because of the initials MD, Matthew Donnellon, and the name of his stack is Em Dash which is also another EM-D. That's the pattern I recognized and it's a neat pattern.

I commented on Em Dee's note:

1. That sentence is gold.

After that I spelled out a one-liner confrontation about unsubscribing from someone in real life:

2. Hi person. Hi. I unsubscribe to you. What the hecks.

It's an impersonal line that I wrote in 30 seconds about a theoretical human writing off another human. It happened to me; being unsubscribed in 30 seconds both times I was dismissed from two jobs in four months because of my neurodiverse ways of unsubscribing to neurotypical linear-compliance-follow-along-logic ways of doing things.

For seven years I worked at a trauma-informed school as a teacher of language arts and social studies, and I unsubscribed to 19th century rote teaching methods prescribed by the AOE, the Agency of Education. Where I learned with easy research that not one upper administrator is an educator.

In two weeks I was hired as a Behavioral Interventionist in a mainstream school for challenged and challenging students that followed a framework of ABA, Applied Behavioral Analysis. I did not subscribe to this framework. I told my supervisor that she was a compliance manager. 72 hours tick away and I'm called into human resources for my 30-second dismissal meeting.

My first firing was by computer screen which felt like a literal unsubscribe. The second was face-to-face which felt like nothing, the same way indifference has no feel to it. I call it my drop-out mechanism where biological imperatives are all that's left like breathing, blinking, being upright and my cognitive wherewithal is dropped out like a functioning illiterate. It's the indifference that closes the curtain on me and I drop out. This second firing was read to me from a complete-idiot script which began with the typical 'effective immediately you are being unsubscribed from your role.'

On the drive home from the second firing I turned on my favorite podcast Philosophize This. Steven West opened by thanking his subscribers for hitting 100,000, mentioning his Patreon supporters. I pulled the car to the side of the road. I checked the sub count. 101k. Out of nowhere, I was overcome by the impulse to unsubscribe from my favorite podcast.

I like Philosophize This. I learn a lot. It's relaxing. It doesn't monopolize my time. I respect Steven West's intellect. His base of knowledge on philosophical treatises is impressive. Overall I find value in my subscription to Philosophize This. I feel the need to dig deeper on why I want to unsubscribe from something I find valuable. Do I envy the success of the channel? That makes no sense. I know that's not it. But the overarching question of dismissing something valuable is the philosophical question that is presented to me. The contradiction is where valuable insight appears. I'm getting closer to what is beyond language at this point.

Then I return to the MD golden sentence: 'There should be a way to unsubscribe from people in real life.'

I examine the components of the sentence. There should be a way. The word should floats to the top. I fill the placeholder with the word ought. After I feel the command of ought versus the conditional should, I begin to feel the sense of satisfaction emerging. I'm thankful that I luckily stumbled on the weight that should carries insofar that it amounts to persuasion; a suggestion. Whereas ought is disciplined and embodies morals and obligation.

Should = Practical wisdom/what would be advisable

Ought = Moral duty/what is obligatory.

Now I examine the problem and proposal that is poised in the sentence which amounts to a therefore. Therefore, in the context of the golden sentence, unsubscribe conveys a digital solution to a social problem. It's that simple and that complex. After some weighing and considering, here's what I was persuading myself to see in Em Dee's Substack note from which I developed a confirmation bias, but I'm okay with that. We all need healthy moments of self-satisfaction or I should say, I'll take any moment of positive self-reflection after being unsubscribed from two jobs in four months.

Therefore:

There ought to be a way to humanize the modern workplace for the neurodivergent without unsubscribing them.

=Mr. A = Attention Maps