Taylor Sloan

According to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, we're all influencers.

About Me

Hello there. My name is Taylor. I write things, mostly science fiction and essays of various lengths on topics like culture and technology. I also say words on podcasts like Science and/or Fiction. Occasionally I make things in a workshop behind my house. I also work as an adult/pediatric flight paramedic. When I’m not doing any of that, I like to spend time with my wife, daughter, and two cats.

You’ll come to find—probably fairly quickly—that I am deeply neurodivergent, and broadly speaking I am an anarchist. If you have any other questions, feel free to say hello.

Writing
  • Short Stories
  • Long Form
  • Essays
  • Other Stuff
Podcasts
Other Projects
  • Home Automation
  • Maker Shop
  • Miscellaneous

Category: life

  • on being a dad

    on being a dad

    One year ago today was our first real day at home with our newborn daughter.

    We had spent the not-unusual two days and nights in the hospital after she was born, taken her home, and then shortly I had to return to the hospital for my wife to receive additional care. Being in the hospital for our baby’s first few nights at home without us was so hard at the time, but my wife and I have incredible mothers—and families in general—who stepped in to take care of her in our absence. A year ago tonight, when we came home, was the first night of the rest of our lives (all three of them).

    There are plenty of things people will tell you about parenthood before you have a baby. Some of it is meaningful, some not-so-much, but almost all of it is well-meaning. The most common one I heard was that becoming a parent really does fundamentally alter your brain chemistry almost immediately, and that you can’t really understand what that means until you experience it. Fair enough, I thought on hearing it. I guessed I would find out when it happened.

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  • The Lessons Young Taylor Learned Watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Part 1

    The Lessons Young Taylor Learned Watching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Part 1

    I was in elementary school during the majority of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s TV run.

    Sorry if that made you feel old. I might not have been the most normal kid in terms of my TV preferences. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the early Nickelodeon cartoons and shows like Power Rangers that were more targeted at kids my age, but Star Trek had captured my imagination in a way that no other shows could.

    It all started with Star Trek: The Next Generation, a favorite of my Dad’s at the time it aired. It had started a couple of years before I was born, and continued into my earlier childhood. I remember watching episodes of it with him when I was pre-school age and being absolutely enthralled by the settings, characters, and—in whatever way I could really understand them—the stories.

    As a young school-aged kid I would ride the bus home to my grandparents’ house, where with their pole-mounted TV antenna (we were in the country, about 50 miles from Indianapolis), VCR, and plentiful spare tapes, I was able to cobble together a collection of episodes of both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine’s earlier seasons as they aired in afternoon syndication on our local UPN station.

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  • 34 Years: Life and Death and Love

    34 Years: Life and Death and Love

    Every year after my birthday, I like to write a short essay reflecting on my life in the last year: the experiences I’ve had, the interactions with people known and met, and what I’ve learned from all of it. This year I have decided to start sharing that essay publicly.

    In 2023 I turned 34 years old. This has been a year of my life that could be described as having ups and downs, but that might be an understatement. It has been filled with moments of incredible happiness, uncertainty, sorrow, and bittersweet joy.

    This February, I asked my girlfriend of 18 months to marry me, and she said yes. It wasn’t a surprise to either of us, but having the ring in my pocket and waiting for just the right time to ask made me about as nervous as anything in my adult life has. We began wedding planning that day, and I’m happy to say that in a few weeks, we’ll be husband and wife (and on our honeymoon).

    Before that, in January, my grandmother had started treatment for stage four peritoneal cancer. We all knew that the prognosis wasn’t especially good, but we didn’t want to immediately dismiss any hope that it might work. After all, she had survived breast cancer when I was a kid.

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