“Acceptance does not approve the breaking. It ends the exile of what was broken.”

Acceptance is often mistaken for approval. But there is a difference between saying "this should have happened" and saying "this did happen, and I refuse to exile the part of me that survived it."

That distinction matters in recovery. We can acknowledge harm without sanctifying it, and we can make room for what was broken without allowing the breaking to define the whole of us.

This line came from The Metaphor Is Not the Cure, where I was exploring the difference between metaphor, acceptance and repair.

beinghumans.blog/2026/07/the-m…

A small but meaningful upgrade in the Being Human universe. 🕊️

I now have a new primary Mastodon home:

@ajashe@beinghumans.live

The idea is simple: a little more independence, a little more ownership, and a home that sits more naturally within the Fediverse rather than depending entirely on somebody else’s platform.

The old Mastodon account will remain in place while the transition settles, but beinghumans.live is now becoming the main federated home for A. J. Ashé | Being Human and In:Significant World.

Same writing. Same conversations. Same unfinished human mess. 🤣

Just a slightly stronger front door.

If you’re on the Fediverse, you can find me at:

@ajashe@beinghumans.live

I remember when Google felt like one of the great promises of the early web.

Not merely a company, but almost an idea: information becoming searchable, knowledge becoming reachable, technology becoming useful to the ordinary person.

Then came the acquisitions, ecosystems, subscriptions, dependencies, and increasingly enclosed gardens.

The interesting question is not simply whether Google became “too big.”

It is what happens when something we once experienced as infrastructure for everyone gradually becomes infrastructure owned by someone.

From Everyman to Behemoth — published today on In:Significant World.

A piece about Google, certainly. But also about the internet we imagined, the internet we built, and the one we may still have some say in becoming.

🔗 insignificantworld.com
Follow the publication here: @insignificantworld@insignificantworld.com

#DigitalCulture #BigTech #DigitalRights #Fediverse #OpenWeb

I’ve been thinking today about what it means for a small independent publication to be rooted, and reachable.

Being Human lives at beinghumans.blog. That is the home: the essays, the archive, the longer work.

But the conversation no longer has to live in one place.

WordPress can federate. Mastodon can answer. Friendica can join the discussion. Bluesky can be bridged. Different doors, different communities — without requiring the work itself to surrender its centre.

There is something strangely fitting about that.

Much of Being Human is concerned with connection without self-abandonment; belonging without disappearance; relationship without losing the place from which we speak.

Perhaps an independent publication can practise the same thing.

I’m still learning this federated landscape, but I’m beginning to understand the possibility:

One home, many conversations.

— A. J. Ashé | Being Human
beinghumans.blog/