Who else likes deep learning beyond a few interests?

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I'm trying to figure out what the problem I have with my tutor is and it boils down to the fact he wants us to assume the reader has no knowledge and keep them in that way, only to tell them about something very basic or something emotional. This bothered me in not just his critique of my writing but also his critique of a lot of other people's writing.

This is against what I want to do when I read. It's also against what I want to do with my life.

I want to spend my life learning as much as possible, as deeply as possible and about as many topics as possible - I don't care if they're high or low brow although with certain topics (not very stereotypical for an aspie but these are mostly STEM topics. The others are practical things and socialisation which being dyspraxic and autistic I have reasons for finding hard).

I love to hear (autistic) people talk about their (specialist) interests, so long as they have fine tuned the ability to speak well about them and they know what level they're starting at with me, which tends to mean either something professionally produced like a book or video - I can do my own research and take notes - or a one to one conversation. There are few topics I'd rule out learning about entirely and where I feel like that, I find it a failing of my own.

I love books which touch on a whole host of topics and I want to meet people who know about a whole host of things too - assuming they have an autistic level of depth to the things they know about.

Does anyone else agree with me on this?

Is this an autistic thing? Am I being unusually allistic in how I'm approaching life and learning? Or does it have nothing at all to do with autism?

As anyone who knows me on here knows, I do have my obsessions. But that's not all I'm interested in, by any means.

People should never think in absolutes, I don't believe.

Something "allistic" might actually be useful to someone who is "autistic."

Temple Grandin, the famous autistic inventor, realized that. She sort of bit the bullet at times, and allowed allistic people and ideas to influence her and help her get her agricultural devices out.

There is no strict line, moreover, between "autistic" and "allistic," in my opinion.

Of course, I enjoy "deep" learning----And I enjoy "depth" in general. However, I also believe one has to be in contact with other aspects of the world other than that which is philosophical or intellectual.

True, I suppose what I'm getting at is my ideal and what I genuinely do enjoy is a whole range of things and I try my hardest to get to know about them, everything I do.

When I read, if I come across something I don't understand, I google it, unless I'm in the lucky position of being near a library or near another book which will explain it, or having the author right there with me. Then I'm generally glad to know it.

This guy seems to only want to know either the things his sort of person knows (ugh I hate that phrase/idea) or about poetry. That means I think he's ill equipped to teach about place. That would be a good thing for someone who was a world traveller and curious about the world.

I'm not praising myself on all of this by the way. If I didn't have this sort of curiosity in me I wouldn't watch kids' tv shows as an adult or watch BKB videos as a female and somebody who's not part of that world. But I also wouldn't know the more intellectual things, be able to hold conversations with people on their pop culture interests etc. I think I'd miss out and I think it would be sad.

For eg my teacher was having a go at an old man because he had a brand of an old toy in his work. Old guys/old women who used to be tomboys would know what they were, old ladies presumably have brothers and husbands to ask and young people are digital natives so we can google it and find out what, to us, is a 'history' lesson. Maybe middle aged people would be confused but that's why it's good to talk to parents We have a great toy museum around here so maybe I'll even ask them about the old guy's toy tanks and how popular they were in the 50s.

Only poem I found confused in the whole class was this woman who used the native word for Greenland - when I looked the word up on Wikipedia, it was also the name of somewhere further north and the name of a singing contest. But she explained it and I learned something.

I know I'm using a concrete example but I find a lot of people are like this. And what's more, it doesn't tend to be the autistic ones. At least autistic people who obsess over one thing (I have my own obsessions but I mean the people who can't discuss anything else) usually obsess over something a bit unusual and know absolutely everything there is to know about it.

(And yes, I'm aware that this has gone from a neutral discussion to a rant - sorry)

I get what you mean. I believe in what you say. I can relate to it.

I don't know if it is autistic thing but I have it, too.
I "nerd into" different topics to gain and sort out as much knowledge as I can. It can be even very common-day topic like cosmetics - I want to know and understand how different substances work with skin. I just can't do it different way, I can't be shallow with my knowledge.

In fiction books, I value precision. I couldn't read Game of Thrones because the author seemed to forget about details - like why is this character in this procession but no that character who was equal in rank to the first one? Why was he absent? No explanation, the author just forgot. And every few pages there is something like this.
On the other hand, I love Agatha Christie books with her precise construction of characters and extensive details that always fit together.
Did you read The Martian? I enjoyed it too.

Well....

I passionately agree with you, and...

I passionately disagree with you, and passionately agree with your tutor.

Both at the same time.

I love to learn. And love to talk about what I have learned, but I am also aware of the fact that others cant or wont follow my train of thought, unless.... I can find ways to engage them.

And that need to engage and seduce a reader to take at least momentary interest in something I am writing about is part of the challenge. And perhaps even more painful (for us aspies who are compelled to monologue) you DO hafta edit. Cut things out (the good news being that what you cut out can be used in subsequent writing projects).

Writing is like a pro sport. You need a tough coach. So for the moment take your tutors coaching. Sounds to me like he is doing you good.

Thanks, I haven't read those books but I'll check them out. Genre fiction such as crime and sci fi is something I don't know much about.

I'm glad to know I'm not alone

One of the traits of Aspies is:
* proficient in knowledge categories of information (highly-focused interests)
* a remarkable ability for intense focus is a common trait, becoming an expert in a single object or topic to the exclusion of all others

But Aspies also can change their special interests. They can become experts on a wide variety of fields. They can take a new topic and quickly assimilate many of the main core aspects of that topic. They can drill down as deep as they need in order to capture the essence of things. They develop a fine skill of performing research which just seems to grow as they get older, as their universe expands outward.

There is a term for this skill. It is called a Renaissance Man.
(or in your case a Renaissance Woman!)

I'm not sure why people think I'm on a fiction writing course and don't know anything about writing?

I'm at the same sort of 'level' as he is in terms of how published we are except I have a traditionally published collection and he doesn't. I think this is the problem. When I go on a course run by a great writer or a course about fiction writing (I'm a poet), I actually do learn things.

Right now I feel like a coach having a coach from the same league treat me like one of the reserves, and the difference between the metaphor and the reality is actually making it harder not easier - coaches don't tend to be fit anymore. I only took the course because the course with a more advanced tutor got cancelled and I was offered a choice of courses as a consolation. I was hoping he could teach us about poems which dealt with 'place'.

I have a tendency to monologue in speech and prose but not in poetry. My poetry is edited at least ten times before anyone else sees it, mostly for sound and word choice I must admit but also for 'is this going off on a tangent'?

It's not just me. The less published writers in the group are writing really good stuff which isn't hard to understand then he's having a go at it because it's recognisably not about things he knows. Instead of just thanking them for informing him of things and praising them for the details which make things more real. I'm very glad they include the detail he wants them to omit. He's teaching us to write about places then telling us off for including details about these places.

I think unusual detail in poetry can be ok as long as it communicates the general emotion or point, or sometimes just sounds good. As long as it has a purpose. Nobody really understands the Wasteland, but I consider myself one of its fans and I've learnt a lot from studying what Eliot put into it. He deliberately mixed things and made it tricky, in order to represent the world of the early 20th century to its fullest capacity. None of our work is as hard or as good as The Wasteland - but I use this eg to show that sometimes with poetry, more can really be more.

I think prose is different. Prose you sort of have to do what it says on the tin. Some lit fic can get away with broader than this, Joyce was good at this. But in genre fiction, the expert knowledge you want readers to have is for eg a western fan to know the makes of guns being used. In journalism, a sports journalist can refer to previous games or even to other teams and other leagues but not for eg to some obscure piece of art. Some writers can break these rules but that's rare. And in prose, it can be really hard to stop monologuing - especially in less formulaic pieces. Maybe this is the same in poetry but it would have to be an especially bad poet not to realise, I think.

I agree, anything beyond emotion, you need to engage your reader in. But I've had very similar work published to the work he was criticising and he was criticising, not critiquing.

I think what I've learned is, maybe it's time for me to move on from poetry writing courses as a student unless I really respect the writer who's leading it or it's an Arvon course or something. Instead, I'll take courses on things like art, history and prose writing where I have an interest but not an expertise.

Thanks. This makes me feel better about being weird and knowing/being interested in a whole load of things.

The thing is I've always been this way. Mum once wrote a list of my favourite TV shows in the book she made me when I was five. I know TV isn't high brow but I don't care, the point is that there was a whole load of different types of shows in there and I was equally obsessed with all of them.

It really makes me upset when people aren't this way or they discourage this way of being in others. In aspies but NTs do it too and at least aspies, like I said above, have their own genuine interests which are interesting if for nothing else than that they decided to focus on something which is a bit obscure.

Hey TUF have you read A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka?

There are sections where the father in the story monologues about tractors.

It's just really clever the way thats woven into the story.

No but I've heard of it I'll look into it

They think that because....you need tough couching as a writer. What I just said.

You made no attempt to explain what kind of writing class you were taking. Or what you're resume was. You sound like an undergrade taking some kind of prose writing (either fiction, or nonfiction). And much of the same principles apply to both fiction and nonfiction prose.

Ok.

I just take it cos there isn't a writing group in this city except one which expects you to take the leadership role sometimes and I don't think that's good for someone with social anxiety and Asperger's.

It's actually quite annoying...

And yes I do need a lot of coaching in prose writing and in speech. That's why I don't write prose except on online forums and for fun.

Before college I was kind of curious about things

Structural engineering failure

Fear of failure

A friend wants to teach me rubix cube. She's at coding boot camp. Chess. Good use of theory of multiple intelligence

While I let my brain rot



It's bad for neuroplasticity


But my brain feels resistance

Like to read

But not stem or anything particularly difficult


Usually not college level



Brain weak tired bored stupid as usual

Oops, it somehow skipped my mind that you write poetry

I'm not very knowledgable about poetry, I wrote some as a child but my mother got it and compared my 10yo art with a then-recent Nobel Prize laureate :/ Yeah, my mother is the Master of Discouragement. So I never wrote anything more serious than changing popular song lyrics into making fun of my teachers.

I consider myself sensitive to poetry but not enough to be a good author. My favorite authors wrote in my native language so we can't discuss them. The only Engllish-speaking author I know who moves me (I admit I don't know many and English is not the language I really feel) is Leonard Cohen - and I have totally no problem that I sometimes need to google to understand his subtle Kabbalah or rabbinic tradition allusions. I actually enjoy it

I don't know, for me your tutor seems rather frustrated and narrow-minded than anything else. It seems it happens with art teachers - my sisters are professional musicians and they had similar encounters to deal with then they were studying.