Having the condition known as "Asperger's Syndrome" is no walk in the park.
When people think of autism, they think of screaming, leering, grotesque masks of their former children's faces stolen away who are completely lost to the world and are running around acting "bonkers"-- as if they're possessed by demons. The truth is, those who live anywhere on the spectrum tend to live very much in their own world. . . . . up in their head, a condition that can be likened to "selfism". Whole, vast, creative systems can flourish up there that might never be discovered or even heard from if they're never given the full flower of expression.
What you have to understand, is that the entire neural wiring is different and unconventional next to others, like a separate culture compared to your standard Western art-deco "United Nations" building sitting there like a modern rectangle that presumes to speak for universal human values but just can't "take account" for the unique way that others "piece things together".
What we are like, in comparison to a skyscraper, is a temple off in the South American jungle covered with vines and rot that suggests something totally fabulous and alien compared to the world of constitutions and forged metal and jet fighters and "Donald Rumsfeld on speed" standing astride the world like "Colossus of Rhodes" in our consolidated media paradigm.
It is simply a different breed of culture-consciousness that can engender surprising results, if one would care to listen. Imagine a car produced in Latin America. . . . . it would probably be stuffed with leaves and mud and sticks and roll on wooden wheels, but by God, it would work in its own screwy way! What would it run on, magic mushrooms?! Indeed, "The Food of the Gods" as a chieftain sips cocoa from a crystal skull that modernity in all of its arrogance cannot explain. . . . .
In my experience we tend "to find each other" subconsciously in the trickling river of life and many tend to be math n' science oriented. . . . . lecturing on charmingly like "little professors" to the ends of the earth. God forbid if there's a gap of silence in the conversation, which they fill with dorky jokes! To a fault, they're absolute whizzes with logic and systems and "little worlds" that have their own internal, consistent ways & means although they may be somewhat dense in their perceptions and lack the ability to take a step back "and look at the whole picture".
Many have "a stubborn streak" that would make a mule blush because they are "set in their ways" but remember that "not everyone can be Gallieo" nailed to the door of church orthodoxy like a human sacrifice offered up to "truth". What you gradually find out is that no mathematical model is big enough to map out the entire world and that the more you know, the less you can truly understand. . . . . and let that "punch through" for all time.
On the flip side, they tend to be "collectors"-- whether in comic books, pop culture memorabilia, or whatever requires a slightly obsessive bent which definitely pays on scientific expeditions on obscure topics. Of course, "good taste" is questionable as they rake it in like a praying mantis clicking its jaws over a tasty treat. It's probably where the idea of "geek culture" came from, though it's certainly nothing to revel in as people find themselves in an ineffective state, unable to make their dreams come true. In turn, all of this energy is once again directed back into their hobby, which makes them even less "with it". All of it becomes a rather predictable "replacement" for the wild & wooly world "out there" which can become very overwhelming in short order if you don't come across like James Bond, though we can certainly fantasize.
I think I grew up around too much media-- too many cartoons, movies, and fluffy children's shows on publicly-funded television that always had a happy script with a kindly cast of characters "where good won in the end" and evil was consigned down to the darkness, vanquished from the set. But the problem, alas, is that a great deal of human interaction does not run with an elaborate script and comes down to a bunch of nitwits standing around, all looking out for themselves without a sense of grand, unified purpose. And with the fault-lines of negative human psychology, especially during adolescence, it can become downright-diabolical.
No matter how much a sentimentalist and a romantic, you have to learn that out in the world simple "feeling", projected outward, is but a rather feeble lever with which to overturn the immutable laws of the universe, which can be rather pitiless unless you begin to let the actual winds of the world lift your wings. I've figured that out. Some people never do. . . . .
Sometimes life can feel a little bit like a carnival, and you're the country cousin looking at all of the lights and movement with a bit of a dropped-jaw while others take it all for granted. You have a lot of energy, a lot of enthusiasm for what's happening, but you're at a bit at a loss.
The booths are open where you show off your skill "to win prizes". You step forward and put down your money, your social capital, taking a risk, but never really quite grasp how the game is played. Someone explains it to you and intellectually you understand the principles of "how to lob a dart" but you don't know how to throw it with any effectiveness to hit the balloons.
Your hand is shaky, your grip uncertain because your relationship with the outside world isn't very good. . . . . you're a genius internally, but the interface without is clumsy. You fail, swooping down with the inevitability of gravity and the consequences of natural process and there the divide sits like a gulch-- the zero-sum game between winning and losing and you feel like a golden retriever stabbed in the belly by the porcupine of fate.
Fate and consequences play big in our lives, with boulder-like heaviness.
You lay down more money, but don't improve and bystanders are looking on, wondering what's wrong with you. Some laugh with scorn, others turn away at this embarrassing spectacle because it reminds them too much of what they fear themselves becoming. You can see only what's in front of you, and you vaguely hear people making their comments, but your peripheral understanding is bad as you find yourself getting more and more flustered. . . . .
You walk away from the booth and behold clowns and acrobats performing where not everything is what it seems, and because you're woebegone-looking they make you part of the show-- and you can't quite decide if you've been crowned "the king of fools" or "the toast of the town". All you can do is stand there and "look for cues" trying to make sense of their gestures as if you're being pulled along by a script you're struggling to understand. You try not to presume too much and be too suspicious, because one doesn't want to be "a poor sport" and misread things, lashing out and looking like "a real heel" in front of everybody. But it's as if they're talking in a foreign language whose inflections you only know the basics of, and many of the subtleties elude you.
If too many outsiders are talking too fast for too long, you feel as if you're walking underwater and drifting with the currents-- like a zoned-out space cadet on a moonwalk where everything is reduced to slow motion, like a bouncing astronaut, because there is so much going on, and the mind can not interpret all this information through overloaded circuits. You're in a hypnotic "dream-state" when your head is only half-working and you're running on auto-pilot, nodding and agreeing pleasantly but not really "all there".
Sometimes you have "to run back to the cave" in order to sort everything out and let your mind reorient itself, but you leave feeling drained and empty as if you had been shot up with penathol and had your soul sucked out through your eyes and ears and senses.
In my experience, I've always looked to books and movies as "an escape" because it showed, to me, "life as it should be" with a clean-cut script where everything makes sense. However, in life oftentimes nothing makes sense and you find yourself at a complete loss. And the more you ask around, then the more ridiculous you look as people take it all within the margin of the inexplicable that they don't bother to understand "what goes unsaid".
The answer is to be more occupied with "what is", and not "what should be". Usually there is a method to the so-called madness of the world and things happen for a very unromantic reason. If you are open to the insights of sociology, psychology, economics, and Darwinism then you will be far more equipped to deal with the world, and with a little bit of "wriggle-room", account for the overall "bad taste" of your fellow man in all of his ignoble endeavors. Be able "to let things slide" in other words, with a wave of your hand, laughter, and a smile.
There is always a big difference between what man wants and what man needs. And it is said that "the key to happiness is a high threshold of pain". Crown me "the king of fools", and I'll make you "the toast of the bonfire" with my scathing wit. You have been warned. . . . .
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"You want a-nuther song? Well I ain't plain' one mutherfuckin' note until someone comes up here and puts sum money in my god-damned tip-jar! You know I only came here for one purpose. . . . . to take yor fuckin' cash! Why, I could make more profit puttin' out my meth-head neighbor's asshole and ringin' a bell, hollerin' 'Man for sale! Man for sale!'
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(Rheeee of Crickets)
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("I heard that, Missy!")
© 2008 by Insufferable Industries
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