I still can’t get the daily prompt to load, but it revolves around a genie giving me three wishes. I would like to think that I only want two wishes, and I can release the genie from its bottle at the end, provided he is as nice as Robin Williams. Have to do a vibe check.

Make me a billionaire.

I want to save the world, so I want the money to be able to do it. I would like to solve world hunger and thirst with whatever tools are available. The best technology is often the cheapest, particularly for clean water. There has to be more than one solution that costs less than a billion dollars, but that’s how much attention I want to give the problem. The money is not for me, but for all the ideas I have in giving it away.

Make me a hottie.

I always loved how Genie styled Prince Ali in Aladdin, and I could use some help. I need the self confidence, and if I’m going to be in meetings with people about how to give my money away, I’d like to feel confident. I rarely spend money on clothes, waxing, manicures, etc. I’m starting to think I should, because even though I cannot afford to overhaul myself, I can afford to go to the dry cleaner’s.

I only need these two wishes, because even if I make my life’s work into giving money away, there will still be plenty to live on. I’ll be able to pay for my own travel, and genies can’t fix relationships. I might as well take a chance on hoping that if I let the genie go free, I have made a friend.

You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?

“Three magic genie wishes” sounds like “New York Football Giants.”

I honestly think I would have different wishes depending on which processing disorder was at the forefront, and I’m not being snarky. I genuinely do see things differently when my ADHD is winning. My ADHD side is a thrill-seeker. My autistic side wants NONE OF THAT. I want to conquer the world, but not when I’m wearing uncomfortable shoes. I want to lead a nation, without leaving my house (some of you live in countries small enough where this might be possible. Call me.). I could rule the world if I could understand it. 😉

Truly, it is an interesting place to be- so understanding of how neurotypical people work in conflict, and unable to fit into it. I am not, in fact, doing something a neurotypical I’ve observed does, because mimicry is not authentic. What I’ve laid down comes off wrong and I don’t know why. I then take up less room and let more start happening around me without participating. Things happen to me, I don’t direct, because when I have had a voice, no one has listened. I am learning to find people who listen so that my voice does matter…… and because I haven’t had a voice, I haven’t used it for anything except in my writing. It took me until I was 45 to realize that I was hurting myself by only letting other people set boundaries with me. That if I never said there was a problem, it would never go away.

I found out who my friends were. It’s the ones that even when they disagree with me, acknowledge what I’ve said. I feel heard, not gladhanded. I feel they’ve listened, not managed me. I don’t want anyone to be a “yes man” to my crazy ideas and I don’t want to be infantilized. By the way, “crazy” is relative. Like, “what if I downloaded the beta version of Ubuntu? What if I went to Walgreens past nine. Finding out that someone wasn’t my friend was finding out that they didn’t care they were hurting me when I asked them to change. After all I’ve written, it sounds pointed at Supergrover and it is definitely not. Lots of people liked having no boundaries with me. If dopamine was money, why would they want a different deal when they used to have free withdrawals all day, every day, without ever making deposits? People who love you genuinely don’t want to feel like they’re draining your emotional ATM all the time and care when they’re doing so. It’s easy to find your real friends when you say it out loud. I have to have boundaries set so I don’t worry myself to death in your absense….. and most of the time, it’s because I’ve taken off a social mask and don’t know how you’re going to react to it.

The anxiety at not having canned responses in unfamiliar situations is frightening, and something with which all neurodivergent people deal. I’m not saying I don’t try every day, only that it’s easier to pick out patterns when you are outside a system rather than in it.

With wishes, I couldn’t fix all that. But I could help.

I would make other people do well so that it was like they got a magic wish, too. The first wish in either case (whether autism or ADHD is winning) would be “socialized medicine in the US.” People know not what they do when they vote against socialized medicine- that insurance premiums from private companies are more expensive than you’d pay in tax and millionaires who don’t want to pay tax have convinced people that socialism is evil. Why wouldn’t they? They don’t need it. The gate should have closed after they got in.

The second would be erasing Reaganomics off the board. It didn’t work and no one will admit it. Go back to the 50s tax structures so that our millionaires and billionaires are actually subsidizing us as they should through tax, thus having money for a safety net. We could do it right now, but we would have better facilities and a wider network of services if we had more influx…. money that isn’t already allocated, in other words. Being able to do it through magic wishes is the only way it would happen- that tax structures would be restored and all the influx would go to social services, the people who need it the most.

If Congress can’t agree that we should do our best to stop school shootings, what makes anyone think they’ll do anything in the way of social services? These are the same people that try to call government services “entitlements” like you’re being an entitled Karen when you use them. They forget that they’re called “entitlements” because you’ve already paid into them. It’s just more rich people shaming poor people as the barrier to entry gets higher and the stigma gets worse.

The third wish would be overhauling education. It is a disaster in this country that most people don’t recognize the names of the Vice and the Speaker, and barely recognize “Biden.” It’s a misnomer to think that the US is a country of extremes. No, it is a country of apathy represented by extremes, because voting participation is so low. Voting needs to be more important, certainly, but we’ve always been failing history and now have a shoddy relationship with science at best.

We stopped focusing on leaps in education and it cost us, clearly. We’re in deep and most people don’t even know how bad. This is not limited to a candidate because fascism is a movement. If it’s not Trump, it’s DeSantis. If it’s not the Proud Boys, it’s QAnon. Education is the only way out, and I don’t think any of those people are going to change whether we educate them or not, but we can prevent it from happening again.

Notice all three wishes are for me. They are just not only for me. I have the idealism to believe that we can make a better world, so I’d use the genie to facilitate it. I would rather grow where I am planted rather than trying to find another country that has these things. I just know they won’t happen in my lifetime and want to help.

But even after I’d done all that, I’d still wonder if people liked me because I messed up their sysem.