Improvisation...

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i just turned 69 years old and was reflecting on my bio. i've come to see my whole life as one big improvisation. i have severe adhd and an extra helping of autistic traits that have made it almost impossible to see a future state, much less plan for a future state. so my life has consisted of "whatever comes out".

when i cook, i fly by the seat of my pants. i paint or sculpt and the result is as much a surprise to me as it is to any observer. i love playing my piano and keyboard but every note is improvised even after months of lessons.

it's like i have a 3cm view and a 30,000 km view and everything in between is just chaos. it's been that way my whole life. all the steps in between are like magic to me. they happen in spite of my best efforts and not because of them.

i am fortunate to have a capable nt spouse and a high enough IQ to compensate for some serious handicapped executive function. my wife has been patient but there's always been an awareness that i disappoint her often and have for the last fifty years. that's the hardest part. she's much better at hiding her disappointment after five decades. overall, we've had a pleasant life

i'm curious if any of this is common in the community.

I'm certainly able to improvise when I play music, but I can also get locked into overplanning it and working to a formula in the hope of optimising the result, which tends to take all the fun out of the thing, though the results are usually quite good. I suppose overall I'm a mixture of intuitive improvisation and anal-retentive planning. Most of my cooking is formulaic these days, with almost no room for variety or the unknown. It's as if I dislike cooking and have reduced it to very rigid, precisely-defined steps that are designed to get it done in the minimum possible time. Yet I've been known to start cooking with no idea what I'm going to do, just for the hell of it. I can never decide whether to be an artist or a scientist. If the result is important I'll probably do it like a scientist just to be on the safe side. I'm somewhat proud of both of those abilities.

As for partners, my last NT wife and I disappointed each other quite a lot. Certainly I don't see it as one-sided when it comes to disappointing behaviour.