Sexy objects and their sexy properties. Yeah, sexy.

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With a great title like that, I worry I've set myself up for a fall.

As with the lines thing, this is an 'anyone else get this?'.

Right. I'm somewhat interested in/by the life and work of David Foster Wallace. Struck by a few things, I Googled him regarding Asperger's, and this came up:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/139654123

A well written and interesting review of Infinite Jest, but what really dropped my jaw was this part:

"There is also the sense that the world is primarily experienced as a manifold of individual objects (in contrast to other authors where human relationships constitute the bulk of the world); the vocabulary has an urgency to it, as if this multitude of things requires precise description in order to be comprehensible and so allay the immense anxiety generated by the plenitude of discrete objects ... It’s almost as if every individual thing in the world has eyes, and is staring at Wallace, demanding his attention, and the only way to satisfy this throng is to assign each a precise and proper name. The relationships between objects are also theatening in their exponential complexity..."

Which is as good a description of my mental experience as I could hope to find. My head hums with the need for objects to be fully recognised - every property and possible facet has to be accounted for. Every process at every level (physical/chemcial/economic) that bought an object to it's place in my world needs to be noted and accounted, as does any object - animal, vegetable, mineral - that the first has come into contact with, expanding out like a drop of ink in a glass of water.

It goes on - as I suppose much consciousness does - at a speed way beyond language. I can generally satisfy this by noting 'there's that' - the 'that' denoting all the properties and facets. This is usually at the level of a background hum, as I'm places I've already been. I'm much more aware it's going on when I go somewhere new, and there's so much that has to be accounted for. It's part of why I spend so much time in my head - it helps if I can actually find something to think about, as does music - walking down the road with my earphones in, I wrap myself up in the song and lose myself in its properties, which is much more pleasant than accounting for a rogue traffic cone. I've certainly read of those with an ASD getting fascinated - in the proper sense, close to enchanted or captivated - by an object, and that certainly happens. I almost let my bus go by last week as I was just staring at a telegraph pole over the road.

Anyway, is this at all understandable, and does anyone else experience it?

Don't mind me. I'm just bumping this for the night as the yanks come online.

Ohhhhhhh, yes yes yes, objects B sexxxay, and their properties B sexxxay too.

I am really into objects and their properties too, all so sexxxay, droool...poool.

Verry merry berry simple things fascinate me verry merry berry much. The perceptual eggsperience of looking at things, I like verry merry berry much, and other perceptual eggsperiences too.

sensory feng-shui...i like my spaces to be tidy and purposeful. User friendly and calming. But some objects can have an almost malefic presence. (i'm thinking of a particular cupboard in my kitchen. it makes me shudder, i'll never use it.) i find new places and spaces visually overwhelming, every object and facet of architecture demanding attention....

A lot of the time my obsessions stop from getting on with keeping tidy. Not to mention having two children!

Definitely. Though I often get into a sort of fetishistic frame of mind with 'bad' places, like putting your hands over your eyes then peeking through your fingers when watching a horror film.

And this:



God yes. Part of my wondering is if this is the bud of what blossoms in some into that savant ability to draw perfectly highly detailed renderings from little more than a glance.

It feels very claustrophobic, I find. I like it when it gets fixated on systems though. Like guttering and water courses, and phone and electric lines. It feels nice and free then.

When I walk into a new place that's loud and busy, such as a bar (or ugh a mall) I tend to trip over chairs or stumble down stairs that are right in front of me because I can't focus on any one thing.

Yes! Floor tiles have often saved me! Train tracks and cobblestones are lovely to lose myself .....

Ah, train tracks! Lovely things.

New (public) places is information overload. Chatter and music and lights and movement and patterns. Horrible. On my own I use music a lot - it can help me filter things and only take in the absolutely neccesary. But when with someone else, and they actually ask you where you want to go or what you want to do...

Re details - I remember seeing this on TV back in 06, before I had any inkling or knowledge of AS, and was struck by how his experience of a mind altering substance was pretty much how my mind worked anyway:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zps-YobeZwk[/youtube]

Particularly 'that's quite interesting, that's quite interesting...'.

This. I do also like to have rooms in my place that are more stimulating (as opposed to "calming"), with neon green and black walls (circuit board design) and various objects to serve as "eye-/hand-candy."

Yep. I like the things that I've chosen, and I'm familiar with. And I find colour quite exciting. My last apartment had a purple livingroom, yellow kitchen, and a granny apple green bedroom, all my choices. I loved it.
And some textures and patterns are 'quite interesting', very compelling, and MUST be touched.

Singularity wrote:
My last apartment had a purple livingroom, yellow kitchen, and a granny apple green bedroom, all my choices. I loved it. And some textures and patterns are 'quite interesting', very compelling, and MUST be touched.[/quote]
THAT is uber

auntblabby! you're back! how are you doing?

That is something I really liked about Infinite Jest. (Something I did not like is how much of the story took place in footnotes so that I had to read the book using two bookmarks.) I have also found that the branch of science fiction known as cyberpunk can be like that. Cyberpunk author William Gibson once said he wished he could write a novel that was nothing but nouns. This is definately in contrast to the many authors who focus on relationships and have things mainly as a backdrop.







[/quote]

Yes I can relate to that. It is the hypersystematizing frame of mind. Although not autistic, I am a hypersystemetizer. Everything gets a label and all its' qualities get labels too. And the relationships between objects get labels. Thus I live in my head a lot (as do many people here and lots of authors) because the act of labeling does require attentional vigilance. It gets hard to relax.

THAT is uber 8) 8) 8)[/quote]

Oh how that reminds me of my bohemian apartment, so many years ago. Everything seemed sexier then, especially my 1865 edition of Shelley.

thanx beaucoup Singularity i could be aot better now, not as far along the healing path as i would rather be. i need all the help i can get. definitely not the "sexy thing with sexy properties" right now.

Glad you're alright, and you're lucky to have help when you need it. Although if you're anything like me, used to living alone and having things my way, it'll be a frustratingly long time until you're 'far along the healing path.'