Are there some things you just can't grasp?

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I usually to a spell check on the word 'intelligence'..........

Algebra. I understood calculus in college, but I still can't do basic algebra. I now just tell people to leave "x" alone because he doesn't want to be found any more.

Systems like politics or social heirarchies. I can memorize lists and such, but I do not understand the concept of power, let alone the gaining of it. Why do people want it and why does it matter? I think I am better off this way.

I have no concept of left or right, let alone the cardinal directions. I am always facing North and I only know which way is left if I look at my hands (some wise person told me that your left hand makes an "L"). Yet I travel the backroads of Missouri for fun and never seem to get lost.

Going to the post office. I know this sounds a bit strange, but I do not have a mental script for going to the post office. I am incapable of going there without going into sensory overload and just staring at the people behind the desk. They recognize me now (ahh, small towns) and will either hand me the stack of mail I forgot to pick up (again) or ask if I need to mail a package or buy stamps. They have learned to ask if I need to mail a package even if I do not have something in my hands. They will tell me to go home or back to my car to get the package. I have not learned the post office, but the post office has learned me.

Today I was presented with something that I probably will never understand. It was the concept of teaching another person how to change his or her perspective on something (stuttering, in this case) in order to give that person a sense of power over his or her life. World's most awesome professor threw what I think might be the hardest concept I will ever see at me. OK, so first I have to do what? And then do... huh? And then... WHAT? Thanks. Finding out what someone else feels. Convincing that person to change how he or she feels. And explain to that person the power that brings? I have never before more seriously considered dropping out of school and joining the circus.

I fundamentally don't understand the NEED for lots of friends.

I understand at an intellectual that most people have friends and usually more than one or two.

I can see, visually, that most people seem to get a lot of enjoyment from friends and that 'friendship' seems to be encoded into most of our species.

I am aware that socialising is a central part of the lives of many if not most people.

I just can't relate to this emotionally.

There are certain concepts that are difficult for me to grasp:

1) Mathematics. I am unable to grasp even the fundamentals of algebra and geometry. I also have problems remembering numbers and adding numbers in my head.

2) Driving a manual transmission automobile. I can only drive automatic transmission vehicles as I have a problem synchronising my senses so I have to consciously remember to change the clutch and look down. I cannot do it by habit alone.

3) Tying shoelaces. I know HOW to do it. I just cannot get my hands to synchronise with one another.

4) Why people are offended when people burn pictures or effigies. A picture is merely ink on paper (or canvas). What is the big deal? If someone painted a painting of my likeness and urinated on it, I wouldn't care.

5) Religion. I never understood why people pray and if they actually have a genuine emotional response from it. I have never felt any spiritualism of any kind.

That is all I can think of at the moment.

the majority of math; no matter how much you explain it, I just don't get it...it's partially why I have a calculator on me at all times.

Dance Dance Revolution...I just can't figure the freakin' thing out.

Pretty much anything on an election ballot...on the plus side, I no longer vote, so who the *&^% cares!

I've trouble with words that can't be translated in pictures, if I can not make a pictural representation of it, I don't know what it is about.

sometimes with a lot of effort I can translate those things but I tend to forget them quite readily to become soon words without meaning again
like 'pragmatics' yeah

pretty hard to study text where almost every sentence has this non pictural contents

Most everybody has something they just can't grasp, right? Mine is anything to do with numbers. The rules don't seem to stick at all.

I don't get what's the big deal about
me playing and wearing my Pooh and
Tigger clothes.

I did it all my life, why can't I
do it now 30 years later?

No law in the US that states that
I am not allowed to wear Tigger
on my shirt, or play with my hotwheels,
or legos, or watch Teletubbies.

What's the problem with society?

O well beats me, back to doing
what makes me happy and keeps
me out of trouble.

i can not grasp "teflon".
it is too slippery.


well seriously.. i can not grasp how anyone understands in a real way what anyone else thinks.
i saw a sculpture in a park in front of me (while i was waiting at the lights today) of a woman who was looking up at the sky with her hands covering her face.
there was a traffic jam, and i wondered what all the heads in all the cars thought of the sculpture.
i saw that the sculpture was of a dramatic pose and must have conveyed some deep emotion similarly to most average people who see it.

to me it looked like a woman looking up at the sky to see where the bird that dropped a "waste parcel" on her face was. i started to laugh for a minute until i realized that i have no idea what the real meaning of that sculpture is and i think everyone else in the traffic jam did.

i can not see how people that never knew each other can have the same thoughts about things.

all those people in the traffic jam came from different lives and they did not know each other, yet they have a similar appreciation of the statue without following any instructions to produce their emotional appraisal. how???
it is some sense that most people have that is so innate that they can not discern it, and no one has ever isolated that sense and found that people like me do not have it.

but i need not to grasp at straws, and anything that is not in my automatic knowledge is only as robust as a straw to me.

I'm 18 yrs old and a high-functioning person within the autistic spectrum.
But yes, the world contains a number of weird phenomenons that I can't grasp.

1. The fact that other people actually think about things and experience things. E.g. when I'm hanging out with people... I simply can't understand how all those feelings and thoughts could fit in one room!
I have a hard time understanding that every person is as real as me.

2. "Important papers". From the bank, insurance company or something like that. Just seeing it makes me stressed. And when I read it it's all mumbo-jumbo. My typical reaction is; "WHAT DO THEY WANT FROM ME?!"

3. How to make friendships or relationships. The process contains lots of social codes that comes naturally to most people, but I could really use a guidebook!

4. How people can get excited about sports games. I simply can't get excited over a boll that somebody puts in the goal; because it doesn't matter really; it's just a rule in a game!

5. People that use "But that's the way it is/that's the way you do it" as an argument.
I myself is so unaffected by what other people believe or do, norms and meaningless traditions that these types of comments just make me very frustrated.

This made me laugh out loud - thank you. When I went to the news agent the man asked me if I had exact change and I said no and he said "here's a small contribution then" as he gave me my change, that too made me laugh out loud but he did not seem to understand why.



Things I cannot grasp.
Chapter one, page one, tbc indefinitely.

-When people feel insecure and stressed out, why do they think it will make them feel better if they make someone else feel bad. It's like a subconscious thing - this feels bad, so I'll pass it on. Weird.

-Why can't they treat me like a person. I can see them, so why can't they see me - I can understand it if I only meet them in passing but if they've known me for years, why do they still treat me like I'm someone else. They see lots of ghosts from the past, and projections of their own fears and insecurities, and so on - but things I say and do don't seem to register. I can understand that many of the things do are either considered inevitable so people don't notice the effort that goes into them for that reason, or they're considered impossible so they don't notice them for that reason. But many things are standard, yet they register as something they're not, or not at all. I don't understand it. To me, everything that is logical is clear. But that's not how they think.

Another one for me: It is impossible for me to comprehend any kind of general statement. I cannot process anything without a specific example to look at and analyze. For example if someone says to me, "You always argue with me!" I'd have to ask for a specific example of the behavior they have a problem with so that I can try to find out why I do it and what are the possible options to make said behavior better. I cannot accept the statement "You always argue with me" on it's own merit and try to figure out how to fix it from just that. Without an example, those words are absolutely meaningless to me. That's kind of a poor example... but it comes up all the time in real life. I simply cannot process generalizations. Even a hypothetical example will help me a lot. But no example is a good way to make me completely miss your point.

It seems to cause much frustration to those around me.

I don't understand a lot of basic "human" concepts like friendships or relationships. Most people seem to want those things but I've never felt that need. It's completely foreign.

Another thing I don't understand is right or wrong answers in things that seem to be completely subjective. Like an art class, how does one grade art? Why would anyone want to? Or a music or writing class?

Oh, and property taxes. How is it acceptable to repeatedly tax people on something they already own? I understand the purpose of taxes, but this one I don't get.

I can't understand a thing about insurances.

And bribery and blackmail...okay, that's kind of weird.

This one you'll find crazy:

imagining worlds brought to life in books. Until I see a few pictures, I just cannot imagine someone else's world. For me, it's a bunch of words jumbled together, then getting detailed about how people are sitting or something, and the accuracy of how a coat looks or something.

Then some really intense stuff happens...and it completely loses me; sometimes it's hard enough to totally grasp that stuff in a movie, so when it happens in a book, I'm completely gone.

I totally understand what you're saying about sports. It's why I'm not as impressed by live presentations like the Shaolin Monks that the rest of the crowd is: they're trained to do it. It's like having my mind blown by some great inspectors at a nuclear power plant for doing their job...why would I be? And it's not like the Shaolin Monks took just any students on tour: they took the best of the best. Expecting anything less would've been pointless.

In regards to why people stress others out when they feel insecure...that's part of their emotions controlling them. When that happens, they feel inferior I guess, and don't like others feeling superior or something. It's really an issue for those with irrational mindsets...i.e. most of humanity.

Love is a big one. Trying to grasp how relationships work. how people find the balance of being a unit yet remaining individuals.

Also things like tvs and pcs... how they work. I can read the material but once I try visualising it and processing the information, I just seem to get totally stuck. I hate it when I cannot understand things like that totally.

I also often don't grasp jokes. An acquaintance the other night replied to a phone message I had sent where I had said I had been up all night and was bad. He said 'you've been bad? You murdered or robbed someone? you better go to the cops.'. I didn't know if he was joking or serious. I did wonder if he had taken me literally and thought I really had been bad.

Also, I cannot grasp most humans. I simply cannot. I watch them going about their lives when I am out and about. Shopping etc, hanging about in groups, drinking on friday nights and shouting stupid things out and generally acting like idiots... I just don't get that sort of thing.