Concrete mind, concrete life
Hey all.
I'm trying to deal with all these AS issues and I find out a lot just by naming them. I think I got inspired by the caetexia theory, the context-blindness instead of only mindblindness. Many of us have something I'd call the concrete mind. Concrete means specific, explicitly given.
This is going to sound weird from someone who hangs out for days and weeks in a single room at the computer and has a typical lack of friends and GF, but thanks to the mentioned theories, I realized that I'm actually very social. When it comes to hanging out, I really enjoy social interaction.
Cross my fingers, but I'm trying to stay at a school with a very stimulating environment. It's full of Libertarians and such anarcho-capitalist types, which is very interesting. I've never met such people before, but they're intelligent to give me new insight yet wrong enough about things so that it's fun arguing with them And I realized, hey, hanging out it's fun!
So what's different about that situation and the rest of my lonely life?
- Firstly, there's the common framework of economy, philosophy, ethics, politics and other such topics. I use them as a flash of Roëntgen rays to get a glimpse of what's inside of people's head. To overcome the mindblindness for a moment, I get the person's mind outlined in terms of which anarchocapitalistic thoughts they have.
- Secondly, it's an event with concrete topics, concrete agenda. All these people gather for a specific purpose. I know this purpose and so I know what is expected.
- Thirdly, I realized, that the internet forum is very much a similar instrument. It cuts down the social interaction into very neat packages with name tags called topics, we can just hang around and choose the topic we like. We choose according to topics, not people. People don't have any specific context or purpose around them (unless they wear a uniform or happen to be your mother) so we must orient according to topics.
- Fourthly, these things, concrete communication, purpose, outright context, structured and topic-oriented activity... Hey, we deserve them! Some say that we Aspies are about as much impaired as blind people or without both legs. I don't know if that's accurate, but they get wheelchair, a white stick and even a trained dog to help them. Where's our wheelchair and a dog? How would an instrument for Aspies look like?
The problem is, we really need these instruments to get around and get by. Otherwise let's say I suffer a case of serious lack of social motivation. I'm no more motivated to go out and hang out than you'd be motivated to visit a church. Which is a place where many people sit and listen to simplistic and historically inaccurate speech of a priest, can't talk back and correct him. Then they all sing in front of each other some songs all about the same thing, read only one and the same book for all these years, and they talk weird things about something you can't see. Hell, they sometimes just sing and play without notes and text, they know all the words all along. It often involves making coordinated strange gestures and signs. They say you've got a problem with the boss even if you've never met him and if you disagree, they get upset, because for some reason they don't enjoy disagreement.
No wonder I'm not social, the whole world is a church for atheists. Nobody talks and does anything concrete in there. I think the need for concrete life is a great impairment, as it drastically reduces the amount of things we enjoy doing. What is free, vague and open, is severely limiting, meaningless and empty for us. Feel like doing anything?
Anything is the worst word ever, because "anything" means "nothing concrete", which in effect means "nothing".
I can tell that, because alcohol makes it a lot better. When I'm sober, I can only take in a small range of information, all that is concrete. And I have to think hard to translate vague life around into concrete knowledge. But when I'm drunk enough, the brain gives up on the whole concrete thing, the extreme self-imposed control and demands for concreteness. And it gets spontaneous. I suppose the spontaneity was somewhere deep down there all along, but too weak to get over the embargo of left hemisphere. Which means getting drunk gives me an overwhelming, beautiful feeling of freedom. Freedom to talk with anyone, about anything, or just hang out. Freedom, that is unthinkable for me in the sober state. Which I presume is something normal people enjoy most of the time, for them the world is full of meaning, context, familiarity, possibilities and other kinds of fun.
Maybe we aren't really asocial or extremely focused, it's just that we can only perceive some kinds of meaning, so in a world we concentrate on islands of (concrete) meaning in sea of vague nothingness. It's not focusing, it's being imprisoned by the left hemisphere's embargo on everything non-concrete outside. The tragedy is, we could enjoy all the non-concrete things, if only we could take them in. The capability is there, as opposed to some other neurologic disorders.
Without understanding we can do nothing. With understanding we can do something.
- We can explain ourselves, come out as what we really are, not as something people think we are. People do not understand the need for concreteness. At home it's a concrete situation, so parents don't perceive anything serious. People elsewhere don't distinguish concrete and non-concrete situations, they're fluent at both. I don't say we should wear a t-shirt with "please be concrete" written on it. But do you have any better idea?
- As for the experts, the experts are good at contriving various theories, like mindblindness and context-blindness, both of which could be summed up as vague-blindness, I think. IOW, concrete-only perception. Neurologic inhibition of all that isn't concrete. It scares me how serious this disability is and how little people understand it. (I know, the caetexia theory says there are right-hemisphere-locked Aspie women much more frequent than men, but undiagnosed, that's not the point)
It would be also interesting to explore some inhibition-loosening medication, if there's any. Science experts should look at this.
- Today I suppose it is not uncommon to date or marry a blind person or someone who's missing a leg. Last time I checked, there was 21st century out there. So it should be in principle possible to be socially accepted, if we play by the rules. As I understand it, the rules are, be visible. What we have is an invisible disability and people are very visually oriented. Wear dark glasses, carry a white stick, hold a dog leash, ride a wheelchair, so people can see what's wrong with you. But how do we mark a concrete-minded person? Here my imagination comes short. How do we come up with something expressive, yet not derogatory? Wearing an alien mask probably won't do.
Of course it has downsides, we'd probably not want to carry the proverbial white stick into some situations. It would be however interesting to see people understand what we need or how we work. It works for blind and deaf people, others apparently don't invite them to concerts or galleries, don't expect a blind person to respond when they wave at a distance or think that a deaf person ignores them on purpose if they say hello. It's just a general common sense today, if people don't assume that everyone can see them, everyone can hear them, it would be an interesting social experiment to make them understand that not everyone can see their vague context - intentions, wants, beliefs, needs...
It could do a real difference when coming out. If you've read through, please share your thoughts on this. If you came out, did you manage to explain your great need for concreteness? How would you make others understand?
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