PostHuman

Alex Beecroft recently posted a snip from a talk by Aimee Mullins.

Mullins was born with a disease that led doctors to amputate both legs below the knees when she was a year old. She learned to walk, and eventually to KICK FREAKIN’ ASS on prosthetic legs. Now a former Olympian and a world-record holder in various track events, she owns a number of sets of custom prosthetic legs, which give her five different heights, super-powers of jumping, and other abilities. She views her prosthetics not as fixes, but as augmentations.

This is unbelievably cool on its own, but also because this is one of the ideas that I’m looking at in my current WIP. One of the MCs is a physician, who starts a fad for prosthetic augmentation. She herself has several augmentations, which came about as a result of injuries. However, the character doesn’t relate to her world as “disabled,” but rather as augmented–much like Mullins.

I liked how Mullins described the way she relates to the world as a “conversation,” and how the “conversation” has changed for her, from being about limitations to being about super-powers. It’s an excellent clip. Watch it if you have the time.