30-Degree Shift

Reality is a mass of reasons; I’m just here to map the gravity. 30-Degree Shift is a weekly publication of essays exploring the structural irony of the world through a neurodivergent lens. Whether it’s special relativity, the craft of fiction, or the sensory weight of a blue-buttercream cake, I’m looking for how light bends around our baggage.

TL;DR - My brain is a messy equation and I’m trying to solve it on the chalkboard in front of class.

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30-Degree Shift is a weekly column by William T. Torgerson

William T. Torgerson 10/7/26 William T. Torgerson 10/7/26

Demons, A Personal Study

The demons live in my head. I would prefer if they found other habitation, but, alas, I have yet to learn any effective methods of eviction, leaving such methods, if they do exist, purely theoretical.

William T. Torgerson 9/30/26 William T. Torgerson 9/30/26

On Finishing

Over the last year, I’ve started and halted three different novels and two novellas. The stories are solid and worth telling, I’m confident about that, but each one has some issue that I can’t get past. Often, it’s an issue I can’t even recognize.

William T. Torgerson 9/23/26 William T. Torgerson 9/23/26

Sharpening Senses

Silent bubbles rise from soaking stones sat upright in a pitcher of warm water. Two tones of grey, white, and clay are the colors in this rainbow, dull but fine beneath the crystal-clear shimmer.

William T. Torgerson 9/16/26 William T. Torgerson 9/16/26

Some Notes on Walking

There is more complexity and beauty in ambulary locomotion than we give it credit for. Sadly, the only spotlight walking receives is one’s first steps.

William T. Torgerson 9/9/26 William T. Torgerson 9/9/26

Love Bugs

The love bugs are everywhere, coating surfaces like paint overspray – harmless and annoying.

William T. Torgerson 9/2/26 William T. Torgerson 9/2/26

What Makes a Dungeon?

I rarely think of dungeons in any practical manner. Mostly it’s fantasy world kind I loot when I’m pretending to be a Tiefling Rogue. But, when I do consider what constitutes a dungeon, fluids are more common than loot.

William T. Torgerson 8/26/26 William T. Torgerson 8/26/26

Minimum Relative Suffering

While complete annihilation of suffering remains theoretically impossible, several laws have been discovered which outline methods to decrease relative suffering.

William T. Torgerson 8/19/26 William T. Torgerson 8/19/26

On Winning Monopoly

Sometimes I wonder if my choice to live out in the country is just one more revolt against Monopoly.

William T. Torgerson 8/12/26 William T. Torgerson 8/12/26

Easier to Remove the Option

I have one tick. I think it’s a tick.

Commit!

It is a tick.

William T. Torgerson 8/5/26 William T. Torgerson 8/5/26

On Receiving a Package

Receiving a package is so much more powerful that it used to be. From junk mail to drunken purchases, we truly live in the best time of history.

William T. Torgerson 7/29/26 William T. Torgerson 7/29/26

A Convenient Theory of History

We assume the grand and mysterious structures of the ancient world to have been constructed for equally grand ambitions: religion, astronomy, legacy, the afterlife, what have you.

But isn’t the truth obvious?

William T. Torgerson 7/22/26 William T. Torgerson 7/22/26

Pretty, Handsome, Hot

I have a confession to make - I’m pedantic. Don’t worry, I know when to keep it locked up. Still, sometimes it can be useful.

William T. Torgerson 7/15/26 William T. Torgerson 7/15/26

The Weight of Invisible Work

The story behind Tears of Inti: how I complicated yet another simple idea, turning into four months of research, illustration, revision, and one handmade zine.