When special interests get in the way of feeling

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For other things.

I love the air force. I'm especially fond of the F-35 Lightning II aircraft. Since hearing about it and that the Australian air force has been so behind in buying their own I've been eagerly waiting for the day when it's announced that we get our own F-35s.

Months ago the Royal Australian Air Force page on Facebook hinted at acquiring the planes but when it's finally announced to the public it was presented in such a negative way. Because this country is in a lot of debt and the government are cutting a lot of services that we really need and apparently acquiring the aircraft will cost about $12 billion, people have been complaining about it.

I know a lot of activists and they often criticize our prime minister for any decision he makes, and the news media are just displaying images of this aircraft I love and the light news programs are making jokes about it.

I tried telling my friends how hurt it made me and they just didn't care. They kept going on about the Prime Minister in the way they usually do. And I know the issue here isn't the planes, it's the amount of money being poured into them when the government doesn't have that kind of money to spend. And if the money was being spent on anything but the squadron of F-35s I'd probably join my friends in their outrage, but I just can't.

I have a sense of pride for the RAAF. I don't know what it is about the air force but I see the planes as more alive and feeling than I see people. I guess I have a great respect for the RAAF too. I used to be a socialist too but I've always loved military aircraft and after watching Stargate SG-1 just fell in love with all things air force.

I've also been trying to deal with the fact that I do share the same interests with people but they don't want to talk to me about them, so I'm just feeling lonely and insecure about revealing my interests to people. And when I do talk to people about them it just ends up in an argument. Then this happened. One of my special interests right out there in the public eye being scandalized.

Hopefully people here can understand just how personally hurt I am about all this. The rejection I get from people, getting shut down from talking about my interests from other people and finally when one of my interests hits the headlines people aren't celebrating it like I am. And I do know I should be more concerned about where the money will come from to pay for the aircraft, and I've tried to and I just can't feel that way.

This whole event just makes me not want to open up to people ever again. They just don't understand that a special interest really is a lot more special than an interest. I'm sure there are people in the air force who feel the same way I do about their planes. I've heard them describe them as an extension of themselves. I think I see them like I see my cats, as individual feeling creatures. I know they are machines but I just get this feeling from them. I've never been on a jet but I'd just love tho go to an air museum and be in their presence, wearing my d.i.y air force jacket. With RAAF badges.

I am basically anti-imperialism, anti-military, etc.

But I love military aviation. It hasn't been an issue for a long time because I moved on to other stuff, but yeah. On the one hand, these are amazing machines. On the other, military spending in the US is beyond ludicrous.

Sorry to learn of your disappointment and frustration.

I treat politics as a "no fly zone" - I do not discuss it with anyone, because it like always triggers me in one way or another.

And in my mind, government spending (including military) is but an extension of politics so I don't discuss it either lest differences of opinions (and arguments) ensue.

This can be disappointing because military history (especially naval) is one of my special interests, and it can be hard to discuss without it pushing other people's "politics" button. In my mind they are different topics, but it seems to many others they are the same. So I avoid it too.

That said, I recently met a man (90+ years old) who served on a famous aircraft carrier in WW2. He loved to talk about it and so did I. We had a great time talking endlessly about it all.

Other than that odd instance, though, whenever I do talk about one of my special interests with people I try very hard to limit whatever I say to one or two sentences. It keeps me from launching into a verbal essay, and give them an opening to redirect the conversation if they want to.

My Special Question is: Why can't we bring back Manned Space Flight to other worlds?

For my special interests that bore people what I have found helpful is internet forums dedicated to those topics. There is usually Facebook, chat rooms and other social media pages dealing with these topics but I have rarely tried those.

pensieve wrote:

Penseive thanks for sharing your feelings. I find your mind very interesting and can relate. The same thing you are talking about has happend to me and is happening all the time, and most recently for me it is happening a lot on Wrong Planet and though I really like this forum in some other ways, for me this is very disturbing. However I am used to thios kind of thing, so I have tried not to let it get me down. It is a sad shock and very hard to face, but apparently my brain is very different from the brains of many if not most people's brains, even here, though I share the common characteristics of autism. But I am not complaining about it all the time and calling these people nt's or should I say at's:-)---autistic typicals. Actually I have just coined a new term that does explain something in my mind, but I will not be using it, as I am looking for the common characterists between myself and other people here, not the uncommon ones that set me apart. It can be very painful, though, and yes, a special interests can be a refuge. If it represents to a person, himself, then it is very meaningful to be able to share that. It can even be lifesaving.



Well said, and thank you. For me enquiry, which is a special interest, is like drinking the water of life and when someone says not to do that it feels like they are trying to take the water of life away from me.


That is indeed very possible they do feel this way, and thank you so much for writing this. I am encourages and inspired to go back to my thread about the lost plane.

I do not see planes this way at all, but I think I am feeling what you are feeling as I read this. What I did see when I wrote about the lost plane was the people who were so interested possibly feeling they lost a part of themselves. That whole thread was about special interest being interconnected to looking for a lost part of oneself, and I am going back to that thread now.

p.s. I just looked at your profile and saw you are a woman. I had no idea as the picture is of a man. I also have difficulty with the pictures, as to me they are literally what the person looks like, though I know that cannot always be true. To me the picture is the person I am writing to. After writing this p.s. it just now occurs to me that if I feel something, then to me it is literally true, and I think that is how feeling works.. So when I wrote about the lost plane, I assumed other people would be seeing it the same way I was and would understand what I was writing, and was quite shocked when they did not. It was actually very shocking. I am thinking a lot of autistic people might feel this way when they realize other peoiple don't understand them and are maybe never going to, so a horrible feeling of being cut off and having a part of myself miissing from myself, and then there is this search to find "the plane," and this can be very interesting. I have no idea if any of this is the case with you. I have just gotten carried away with writing about myself, as this brought up some feelings. I hope that is okay.

Thank you again. I really like your messages and your writing style. There is a thoughtfulness to it..