VALUES | Orientation
What are my values? Who do I do this for? What do I say yes to / move towards?
- 🩻 I value accessibility and disability justice.
- 🏩 I value compassion and rahma.
- 🧬 I value interdependence and interconnectedness.
- ❤️🔥 I value defiance and courage.
- 🪐 I value imagination and play.
- 🧿 I value wisdom towards liberation.
"I cannot separate Islam from liberation. Truly living the values of Islam should require us to push for justice, to be anti-racist and to free ourselves and our communities from the false god of capitalism." — Nabihah Maqbool
🩻 I value accessibility and disability justice.
'Disability' is value neutral.[1] 'Disability' is not a sign of damage but an explanation of how a person functions and the help they need to function— and even then, functioning labels are inaccurate obstacles that imply conditional societal acceptance.[2] 'Disability' is something we will all experience, and so accessiblity is something we all need.
What this value means to me:
- Masking up indoors because there is no accessibility without the solidarity of masking, especially after 2020, especially in organising spaces. It is so deeply unserious to agree that collective action is critical to surviving the coming years, yet continue to organise in and towards mass disabling events. One of the main reasons people don't have support networks now is because they have been abandoned by their friends and communities for still taking pandemics seriously, or for being disabled by it.
- Feeling no shame for being disabled in a world that actively disables people by failing to accommodate their realities. Using the words 'disabled' and 'neurodivergent' and refusing to use euphemisms like 'differently abled' or 'neurospicy' to mask discomfort with diverse bodies and brains.
- Rejecting ableism, fatphobia, and all narratives that frame the disabled as biologically destined to be lesser than neurotypicals. Inviting others to recognise that God is discoverable in the different,[3] and to pretending otherwise is to betray divine possibilities.
- Making zines to break up gatekeeping and screentime.
- Learning more about crip time, Autistic culture, different ways of learning and digesting information.
- Imagining disabled and neurodivergent people growing up, living full lives in the world and in fiction, co-creating the future, and revolutions, even from our beds.
🏩 I value compassion and rahma.
Compassion levels hierarchies.[4] Our first survival strategy has to be secure attachment, because without love and attention from others, we would die.[5]
What this value means to me:
- Paying attention to the ones in front of me regardless of their status or position.[6]
- Moving at the speed of trust, which is to value critical connections over critical mass.[7]
- To practice deep listening, because it is the kind of listening that can help another suffer less.[8]
- Hoarding bounty from the people we are in community with only leads to regret,[9] but sharing builds stronger communities. The practice of redistributing resources resurrects the heart, so practice sharing any wealth you have.[10]
What this value means to me, a Muslim in encounters with other Muslims:
- The first invocation is a commitment to compassion; to begin anything with ﷽ is to begin with compassion. We cannot ask for rahma without giving it to ourselves, or invoke ﷽ on something that is not the best interest of everyone involved.
- When Muslims insult what others worship, they increase antagonism against the divine.[11]
- To value compassion and rahma is to believe I can pray for ANYONE's soul, since it is not clear to us today whose fates are Fire-bound.[12]
🧬 I value interdependence and interconnectedness.
I value interdependence over independence; because I don't want to be isolated and individualistic. Feeling connected to others is what reduces burnout.[13]Loving is a skill, but to feel loved is a skill too; to see what people do for you and to recognise the sentiment of their actions as love can take practice to develop. Remember we are more than the problems we have relating to others.[14] All we have each is other, and whatever it is, it takes a village. The land we live on is a living being and we have an international generational responsibility for it,[15] that my purpose here and your purpose here is to cultivate and protect and nourish and care for a planet where everything on it is interconnected.[16] It is not our responsibility to finish the work, but neither are we free to abandon it.[17]
What this value means to me:
- Learning to be self-reliant is more important for running; it is community that is essential for long-term survival. In a community of care, the fight is against precarity and the front line is the labour of care work. Safety comes from the care networks people form as capitalist systems lose the ability to provide for them. In any scenario, more and more of us have to learn to take care of each other, our neighbours, ourselves, and learn to organise in heterogeneous group who do not agree on everything.[18]
- Significant social change is not spontaneous, sudden or miraculous, but the consequence of millions of choices made not to look away.[19] Every time we perceive a shift in social attitudes or systems, what we are witnessing is the effect of many, many deliberate choices that make up the collective action of millions and millions of people who are doing everything they can not to look away.
- Valuing interdependence is to make systems of separation too expensive and impractical to sustain.[20] What comes to mind most strongly for me now is 1) dismantling Zionist architecture and 2) not abandoning people for taking mass-disabling pandemics seriously.
❤️🔥 I value defiance and courage.
To save even one life is equivalent to saving the life of all humankind.[21]
What this value means to me: I must become a menace to my enemies.[22]
🪐 I value imagination and play.
A negative view of humanity is just very successful marketing, a pessimistic staple in the western canon of thought going back to original sin.[23] Now more than ever, we need stories to help us find expressions of post-capitalist desire and reimagine relations in the face of systems collapse.[24]
What this value means to me:
- I value imagination's role in helping us get un-stuck, as one of many ways to practice life-long learning. To value imagination is to resurface and amplify narratives from the past to keep compelling possibilities alive in the collective memory.[25]
- To me it also means to play at imagining forwards, like exploring speculative fiction as the genre most interested in what makes someone a person.
- To recognise that craft is not neutral. To see craft as the history of power defining a set of audience expectations, and that craft not only supports a certain worldview but can shape new ones too. Fiction does not make something new, it makes it felt.[26]
- Playing games in any medium or platform without seeing it as a waste of time! A game is when you set an arbitrary goal and limitations for the joy of overcoming those made-up limitations. Enjoying and making games where working towards a goal is what makes the game valuable, where the trying is the fun part, not the winning.[27]
- To build and play role-playing games as a process of shared, collaborative storytelling and problem solving. The active role of players as both audience and co-creator in RPGs challenges conventional storytelling advice.[28]
- I value play as a way of using curiousity and consent, of finding custom approaches to intimacy with each other instead of defaulting to past patterns and learned norms.
- Recognising that even though fighting the bad stuff is important, one has to spend as much if not more time on making space for people to build, affirm and celebrate the world they want to live in[29]— time dedicated to why we care, what is worth defending, the world we are working to build together. This means also valuing reflection, humility, and work that seems too playful or performative for others.
- Prioritising the need to replenish ourselves. Resting is an act of justice that calls attention to the oppressive ways capitalist culture devalues rest.[30]
🧿 I value wisdom towards liberation.
What this value means to me:
- Reading is resistance. If empires wanted us to read well, we would have by now. To value wisdom is to recognise that in the age of the internet, the blueprints for our collective liberation are hanging out in plain sight.[31]
Deaf and disabled activist Jessica Kellgren-Fozard, 10 May 2023 https://www.instagram.com/reel/CsEVXrRrWRj ↩︎
From my notes after Devon Price, Unmasking Autism: Discovering The New Faces of Neurodiversity (2022) ↩︎
Disabled and trans Anglican priest Rachel Mann writes, "... God has always been bigger, freer, and more capable of embracing difference than our safe human categories usually allow. If we are all bearers of the image of God, then we make fools of ourselves when we try to make that image overly determined and safe." See Rachel Mann, Dazzling Darkness: Gender, Sexuality, Illness and God (2012) ↩︎
A religious teacher of mine said: "When we are being compassionate towards an animal, towards a wiggly worm, we’re experiencing life through that particular being. That hierarchy between me and that worm disappears. So compassion levels hierarchies." ↩︎
Jessica Fern says emotional attunement and connection are wired into us as basic human needs that persist through life. See Jessica Fern, Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy (2022) ↩︎
After an anti-ableist anti-classist reminder in the Qur'an (80:1-11). ↩︎
adrienne maree brown says a principle of emergent strategy is: "Move at the speed of trust. Focus on critical connections more than critical mass. Build the resilience by building the relationships." See Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (2017) ↩︎
In a 2010 conversation with Oprah, Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh said the best and only way to eliminate terrorism is by practicing compassion in deep listening. https://www.oprah.com/spirit/oprah-talks-to-thich-nhat-hanh/5 ↩︎
We cannot be tightfisted, arrogant, boastful, ungenerous, oppressive, shady or extravagant to orphans, labourers, neighbours, near and far. After the Qur'an (3:133-134, 4:36-38, 9:34, 17:29) ↩︎
After a parable in the Qu'ran about spending wealth, following two accounts of resurrection (2:261) ↩︎
The Beloved in the Qur'an calls on believers not to insult what others worship. See 6:108. ↩︎
Only Allah has the divine wisdom to pass judgement on a person. Surah at-Tawbah says it is not proper for believers to pray for forgiveness for non-Muslims who Allah has clearly identified as mushrikeen (se 9:113 and 9:84). And since the Beloved has not sent any messenger after Muhammadﷺ, no one alive today can tell us whose fates are Fire-bound. ↩︎
Dean Spade says "burnout is prevented or lessened when we feel connected to others, when there is transparency in how we work together, when we can rest as needed, when we feel appreciated by the group, and have the skills for giving/receiving feedback." Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next) (2020) ↩︎
Specifically, our attachment styles are not static and fixed identities. An insecure attachment style is not how you relate all of the time and is not all you are. When we reduce our partners to being "a fearful-avoidant" or "an anxious-preoccupied", we essentialise one part of their experience as the total of who they are. After Jessica Fern, Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy (2022) ↩︎
Humankind was tasked with the generational authority of being responsible to serve and care for Earth. See the Qur'an (2:30, 6:165, 7:69, 7:74 10:14, 10:73, 27:62, 35:39, 38:26). ↩︎
Palestinian storyteller Jenan Matari on Indigenous thinking and bearing witness, 5 March 2024 https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4IjQg3LhOF. ↩︎
Rabbi Tarfon in Pirkei Avot (2:16), 2nd century CE. The Jewish ethics text Pirkei Avot is the only Mishnah text of 63 that does not deal with laws. https://www.sefaria.org/Pirkei_Avot.2.16 ↩︎
"It's not that I'm describing an inevitable tipping point, [...] if a state fails and the structures that come in to take its place aren’t oriented around meeting everyone’s needs, those new structures will immediately be on a rapid path to collapse. And again and again until structures are formed around care. It’s all about how quickly people withdraw their dependence on capitalist states and form those care structures instead." See this incredible video essay from Sophie From Mars, The World Is Not Ending, 18 August 2023 https://liyyusof.com/doomer-mushroom ↩︎
After Hala Alyan, Palestinian professor, writer, psychologist, 8 January 2024 https://www.instagram.com/p/C114MUjOTRQ ↩︎
Apartheid in South Africa ended mostly because it wasn't financially worth it. Between 1972 and 1979, the South African government spent around $100 million on public reputation, buying journalists, publications, influencers around the world. Hannah Claire Smith recommends the book Selling Apartheid by Ron Nixon to learn more about Apartheid South Africa's disinformation campaign. See Hannah Claire Smith, 16 November 2023 https://www.instagram.com/reel/CztjJJEuI9u ↩︎
We are meant to save innocents, not kill them. In the table spread surah of the Qur'an, "whoever takes a life—unless as a punishment for murder or mischief in the land—it will be as if they killed all of humanity; and whoever saves a life, it will be as if they saved all of humanity." (5:32) ↩︎
"How many of my brothers and my sisters / will they kill / before I teach myself / retaliation? / Shall we pick a number?" [...] "WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME? / I must become a menace to my enemies." From June Jordan's 1976 poem I Must Become a Menace to My Enemies, 1976: https://www.junejordan.net/i-must-become-a-menace-to-my-enemies.html ↩︎
The cynical and pessimistic myth that humans are innately selfish (the veneer theory of civilisation) was a staple in the western canon of thought, going all the way back to the ancient Greeks around 427 BCE, then the Church and the concept of original sin which trended through the Reformation, and was even the basis of placing reason over faith in the Enlightenment. A grim view of human nature persisted in the men who founded western political sciences, American democracy, modern psychology, even the theory of evolution. They were celebrated as realists, and anyone who thought differently about people were ridiculed. After Rutger Bregman, Humankind: A Hopeful History (2019) ↩︎
After Sophie From Mars, The World Is Not Ending, 18 August 2023 https://liyyusof.com/doomer-mushroom ↩︎
After Sa’diyya Shaikh, Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn ‘Arabi, Gender, and Sexuality (2012) ↩︎
After Matthew Salesses, Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping (2021) ↩︎
C. Thi Nguyen says striving play contains a motivational inversion where one selects the ends for the sake of the means it puts one through. In this type of play, achieving the goal without struggling completely defeats the purpose. See C. Thi Nguyen, Games: Agency As Art (2020) ↩︎
After James D'Amato, The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide (2019) ↩︎
After @KateRoseBee's insight on Twitter from the abortion movement in the US Empire, 12 April 2024 https://twitter.com/KateRoseBee/status/1778567832110059890 ↩︎
After Shawn A. Ginwright, Rest: A Middle Finger to Oppression, a Road Map to Justice, 17 January 2023 https://nonprofitquarterly.org/rest-a-middle-finger-to-oppression-a-road-map-to-justice-by-shawn-ginwright ↩︎
Ismatu Gwendolyn: "Your relationship with reading is fucked up because burning books is a bad look. The empire utilizes overt, violent oppression like that as a last resort, because it makes it near impossible to seamlessly convince people they are not oppressed. And to hide an empire like this? Of this size? People need to not know. The far easier route: traumatize the kids. Make them hate reading. Tie plenty of guilt, shame, and fear in the process of returning to reading in adulthood. Make them feel like it’s an innate talent— you have it or you don’t— rather than a skill you need to learn, hone, and practice. You never have to burn the books if no one ever wants to read them in the first place. And this means you can allow texts that chronicle blueprints for our collective liberation to hang out in plain sight. The internet age is the most collective access to information we have ever had as humans in every iteration of our timeline— and most of us cannot read it well enough to allow it to change our lives." See Ismatu Gwendolyn, you’ve been traumatized into hating reading and it makes you easier to oppress, 16 February 2024 https://ismatu.substack.com/p/youve-been-traumatized-into-hating ↩︎
Sidebar: Values help build Autistic self-trust
"My values protect me and the people I care about"
- This page is the result of thinking for over a year about moments in my past that made me feel truly alive, and negotiating the themes and patterns in those moments with how I spend my time in the present.
- This is an ask of Heather Morgan's values-based integration exercise, which was highlighted and adapted by Devon Price in his 2022 book Unmasking Autism: Discovering The New Faces of Neurodiversity. Devon Price: "Exercises like these can really highlight the ways in which we’re 'throwing' time away meeting the expectations of neurotypical people in our lives, or just trying to conform to a vague idea of what we think society wants from us. As soon as we’re able to create a little distance between these implicit demands and our actual selves, saying 'no' gets a lot easier."
- The ideal result of this exercise is to help an Autistic person trust themselves more. Devon Price: "Stepping back and taking a look at my key memories and core values, I can see that I’m a dynamic, powerful, clear-headed person who is always growing, and who has risen up to defend the people and ideas that matter to me many times. I am so different from the inept, powerless, clueless, needy figure that I have always worried abled people might see me as. I’m also nothing like the frigid, passive intellectual I’ve often masked myself as. This exercise also made it painfully clear just how much my old, masked life blocked me and kept me dissatisfied. Alone in my apartment, socializing with no one, I had no room to inspire others or to express myself. I was so afraid of upsetting other people that I didn’t risk standing up for what I believed in and didn’t indulge in anything that gave me pleasure. It was my attempt at a neurotypical persona that failed me—the real me was a beautiful person who deserved so much more."
These are Devon Price's answers to the values-based integration exercise in the same book:
Value 1: Candor
What this value means to me: Honestly sharing how I feel and the way I see things. Sharing observations that might not be convenient, but which are true and important to hear. Being honest with myself about who I am, who I enjoy spending time with, and what I want out of life. Speaking out when I see someone being mistreated.
Value 2: Courage
What this value means to me: Trusting my intuition and being willing to take risks. Standing up for my beliefs even when they are unpopular. Enthusiastically, passionately saying “yes” to the things that I want, instead of searching for excuses to say “no.” Letting my emotions be loud and bold. Taking up space, and taking a huge, hungry bite out of life.
Value 3: Inspiration
What this value means to me: Observing the world around me, filling myself up with ideas, and sharing my thoughts and passions with the world. Listening to my own creative drive and bursts of insight. Being a light that can guide others, by empowering people to do what is best for themselves.
Value 4: Passion
What this value means to me: Giving myself the space to feel things deeply. Making time to be sad, angry, resentful, or joyous. No longer filtering emotions based on how others might receive them. Being unashamed of who I am, pursuing the things I desire that feel good, and letting myself leave the situations that distress me.
Devon pictures a shield that integrates those four values into a larger whole:
When I transitioned, I chose the name Devon in part because it means defender. When I was in the closet (about both my transness and my Autism) I used to be shrinking and defensive. My whole existence was an apology for who I really was. Now I draw strength from who I truly am, and I aim to be a shield for others: a steadfast, brave presence that confronts the world head-on, and tries to shelter those who need it. My values protect me and the people I care about. I used to believe that my mask protected me, but really it just weighed me down. Honoring my values does the exact opposite. It places my most Autistic traits front and center and lets them lead me into battle, rather than hiding them away. I am thankful now for the person I am, and I know others are thankful to know that person, too. And in the course of coming into an Autistic identity, I have met so many people who have gone along a similar path toward self-acceptance and openness, finally feeling free, integrated, and attuned to their values after years of a false, fear-driven performance. I want the same things for you.