the company i work for put emphasis this past year on "diversity and inclusion" and they asked if anyone in the dept wanted to give a ted talk on the subject, so i took the bait with another colleague that stutters. it was an exhilarating experience but definitely terrifying, too, to be so vulnerable. yeah, there are many roads to take with stuttering, and i tend to agree with your sentiments. i still practice fluency shaping techniques, but it's not the goal for me anymore, just communicating is. i love the chinese finger trap concept you talked about in your essay, i've described stuttering to other folks in a similar manner. the thing is, the more i seek fluency, the more despondent i become, and i genuinely don't feel that i can become a fluent person, but that's tangential to the real meat of life anyway. good luck with the next phase of your life!