dime_jaguar,
Guilty as charged.
Claradoon is right, this is what has survived through fifty years. I had no idea why, I feel perfectly normal, smart, bookish, started working IT in 1963, I do not see my life as being the problem.
It has been one long problem. Strangers threaten to beat me up. So I became good at that. They were looking to prove something to themselves, so they picked on an easy going stranger. Martial Arts is just a bag of tricks, I have a full bag.
People do use words, in many ways. Most are not related to logic. I never have a problem discussing machines or IT with knowledgeable people. Some I speak with about books, history, and we exchange knowledge and points of view. I have no problem with job related conversation.
Others use words only for manipulation. I do not pretend to understand what I do not, and ask for them to explain what they mean. They repeat themselves, and I ask again. If there was content, they should be able to explain it. The extremes are religion and scientology, they are looking for followers who will not ask questions, agree that everything they know is wrong, and will do as they are told without thinking. I flunk that test. I have sales resistance. They do not like people who do not buy, and leave to find willing marks they can sell insurance too.
Some are just seeing what they might get away with, nothing right now, but scopeing it out for later. They want to learn things like where do I keep my cameras, tools, guns, money, and when I will not be home. I am self employed, have a good deal of special tools, and have had several sets of mechanics tools stolen. I tend to own several thousand dollars worth of Snapon. It is my livelyhood, and enough to keep them in beer for a weekend. I have learned to ask people why they are speaking to me. They go away.
Most are not trying to get me into their cult or rob my house. In their world they chit-chat with each other, some hollow bonding, they are not friends, lack commen interests, are just going through the motions of life, trying to be like everyone else. We could not live without them, they work, stay out of jail, support their kids. I have nothing against them, but also nothing for them. I would not be allowed to join if I tried.
Six billion people and me, so I am self centered. I do well for myself, I will not rob your house, but my way of survival is uncommon. I build machines that have never existed, Patent things, write books, publish them, and market on the web. Most of the world has little to do with my world. I cannot live without them. They make the stuff I buy, and buy the stuff I sell.
What has worked for me, tested over fifty years, I do post here. Writting, Patents, Copyright, prototying inventions. All of this took me years to get an overview, and I give it away to any who want it. I have several other lives where I supply information.
When threats, conning words, social manipulation do not work, people turn to emotion. I used to have one, anger. I got over it because I am a much better fighter in cold blood. Martial Arts is a great path to anger control. I can now say I am aspie. But the non-playing of emotions came long ago.
I think self control is the starting point, without it we are lost. When emotions are directed at me I do not change. I know what they are putting out, but that has nothing to do with me. When someone trys to threaten and induce fear, I smile. They just lost the first round, if they try harder, they will loose the second.
My big job in life has been raising a little girl, both her and her mother are aspie. Mom was very emotional, daughter responded, and this was going nowhere good. I got in the middle, I am like yelling at a rock. I do not respond, I would consider it indulging in emotions. I always have a calm reply. The yelling stopped. They wanted to get it out, had no words to express it, so I let them rage. Then came angry words, then we got to real issues, and when both were calm, they settled the real issues between them.
Having emotions is normal, they are an outlet for when there are no words. They are older than words. Not responding leads to emotions running their course, becoming words again, then words becoming logic, issues identified, and most problems can be solved by defining the question.
Emotions are primitive, they come down to the three Fs, Fight, Flee, and F. I find that the non-emotional, the coldblooded as it might be, do better at all three.
There is a lot of emotional manipulation. I cannot see any good in it. It lacks logic, cannot be expressed in words, and I think if I responded to any of it I would wind up with a life insurance policey, or being a cult member.
Responding in kind would be indulging myself, and attacking a person who is in a weakened condition. Indulging the person who expresses it is keeping them there, there is not enougth empathy on earth to fill some holes. The only reaction I know is I am still here, still my boring self. I can listen without reacting, I have had good results, I am not harmed, and will be here with words and logic later, when the storm has passed.
I do see several very bad things here. People who post only to incite reactions, a good deal of that.
People who seek those having emotional reactions, post about how they understand, and want to become involved in a long term relationship. The old word was Porlock, a Psyic Vampire that feeds on other's emotions. They may be doing both, inciting it so they can feed.
Another is people who want to have an emotional reaction to simple statments. I have been flamed for simple humor, I could have been rude to someone, the subject matter of a book I wrote, a feminist history, claiming most human culture was developed by females, because I am male and the sista's own that turf, called raceist for living in New Orleans, and mentioning that the recent shooter was Asian, on a thread that was all do you think he was an aspie? Aspie is a white thing, which does include Native Americans and Blacks with mixed blood. Asians are rare aspies. But I am a Raceist for saying so. All that and for other truths generally accepted by older folk who have watched the world.
If I edited out everything that might offend someone, responded to all emotions, and confined myself to twenty words, what I might have to offer would be lost. Many laughed at my joke, one stranger said I was rude, then when told she was half my age and at my club, she left. One person attacked my book, many others have read it, none of them complained, one person called me a Raceist, hundreds did not. The thread changed from aspie bashing, it was what I was doing.
None have ever sent me a PM saying i was out of line, but I do have a lot of thank you notes. I am not going to change, quit being an identity it took half a century to build, just because a couple of people took a cheap shot on the internet.
While I do have a lot of aspie traits, bookish, focused, goal oriented, lack of social connection, no emotional response, lack of empathy, I do not have it all, I am a zero in art and music. I have the same problems here I have in the world, but to a much lesser degree. I relate, I understand, help when I can, but I am still me. I came here to learn about AS, I bought squier's book, Through My Eyes, at thirteen he nails it, without excess baggage.
The Kids' Crater is a happy place, the young teens well adjusted, things are getting better. Squier educated me about where I came from, I never could put it in words. It helps a lot. The truth was simple, and I could dump all of my unknowns. The world is not perfect, nor am I, but together we can help each other grow.
Both NT and aspie are humans, all share a lot. Emotions are not rational, but caused by a lack of ordered thought. The world was not much of a problem, dealing with my own human failings still keeps me busy.
19 Apr 2007, 3:54 pm
