I have had a serious difficulty in relating to others and the world my entire life, as do we all in varying degrees, but often times I wonder how well I am able to apply the 'Theory of Mind' in practice, while at the same time being inspired by some rather remarkably emphatic persons. The want to experience this sort of emotion has often led me into the direction of pretending I felt anything at all, when I did not. Simone Weil, a french philosopher gives me much comfort in this regard, herself a very compassionate person and brilliant mind. But there is something about her that draws further discontent from me: is it all a psychosis to live in this World?
This relational 'schism' is a constant struggles for me as I continually commit myself in attempting to make sense of and rectify all the division and doubt I felt while going on about my life.
I was inspired to start this blog as a means to chronicle things I have written that brought me to a place of peace and stillness of mind, from periods of doubt and anxiety. At a glance it would seem that the two hemispheres of my brain were at an impasse, thus relieving the other while his better half takes over.
It came to my attention recently at the age of 24 that I was dealing with a neuro-developmental disability (NLD), non-verbal learning impairment as I'd rather call it, that had gone undiagnosed most likely due to my early homeschooling, but started to cause me a great deal of hardship once I transferred into the University of Washington, wherein finding I had a much larger deficit in academia, social interaction, and life than I had previously thought, as I had recently transferred from a two-year institution after struggling for many years within the confines of Institutions I had no business to indulge trepidation, because they were by their nature antagonistic, yet working for the vast majority of people. I internalized this as defect after defect in my inability to cope with the demands and deadlines placed upon me, which were in no way related to my abilities to master the tools, knowledge, and material I was given. The way I overcame was to have ever more patience with myself: determined to succeed, because I would will it to be, regardless of how long it took me to arrive at whatever forgone conclusion. I did not let pessimism in, because it was already at my doorstep.
This was hard to reconcile, because my self-confidence was derived by my insight into the nature of things, as I saw it, which my Professors sought to encourage. If only I could go through the eye of the needle that is undergraduate, would I be able to 'transcend my fettered existence', and write at the level and with the peers I was made for: Graduate studies, apparently.
This was hard to reconcile, because my self-confidence was derived by my insight into the nature of things, as I saw it, which my Professors sought to encourage. If only I could go through the eye of the needle that is undergraduate, would I be able to 'transcend my fettered existence', and write at the level and with the peers I was made for: Graduate studies, apparently.
I have always held my difficulties in school in lieu of a few idiosyncratic characteristics, but these same idiosyncrasies had their way of being misinterpreted time and time again as misgivings and character flaws as I aged. They were no longer endearing qualities when social pressures and societal expectations, givings and misgivings collide.
How hard it is to share your reality, your perceptions with another, when they have already made up their mind, or have no way of understanding altogether, because you don't operate in the same shared reality. Implicit bias.They reply in utterances, devoid of any context of the individual. Before this, I had found ways to cope with these feelings of anxiety and the social isolation I felt through philosophical works, gaining much needed inspiration and acceptance of my situation: the quintessential hermit, loner, and wanderer (in spirit and in practice). Yet I was alone with ghosts. Where was the I in me, irresolute from others unlike me?
In this new modality of autism: is it a form of social control over my mind? I do think differently now because of the diagnosis, as it places more preponderance upon my psyche to admit my Asperger's Syndrome, a relic I'd like to forget. Suffice to say I haven't delved very deeply into that notion (social control), but it does impress itself upon my thoughts from time to time. I think a better question may be, at present, "Does calling a problem by name help our minds put things into perspective categorically, allowing better clarity and insight into our lives?" Or is it mere obfuscation?
Life is full of contradictions and perhaps one possible way to make sense of them is to see what binds them together. Comparative analysis is seems to slowly become apart of my personal repertoire at this point, so I'll mod what I can from the psych. eval. and see how it fits. I desire to bring my life back to a state of peace in an ever changing landscape of thought and feeling, sown with doubt as well as moments of unassailable certainty, later revealing themselves as mere braggadocio or naivete. Therein I find an inconsistency: a deluded concept of otherness projected onto others who are different, whom must then wear that mantle or risk losing agency with me. Alongside this, subtle reminders of my self-confidence and boasting of my innate superiority (constant monologue on topics instead of actual conversations) to rebuff the onslaughts of lesser minds. Incontrovertibly, in order to maintain my agency, confidence, and principles I employed the same tactics to maintain a sense of individuality in a world that outnumbers me categorically.
This new compositional expose' has shaded many things in my life a much different hue, to the point where in the act of reevaluating events and episodes in my life, I am actually changing the narrative of who I am, my egocentric self. Do things make more sense than they did before, or have they simply reinterpreted themselves into a language and context more people understand? I am fooling myself so that can have a life that can pass as normal?
It is a complex thing. By taking part in this narrative of my personal psychologist I at once undergo a 'metamorphose of self'. Since I've always had a hard time belonging anywhere, this space is affording me a safe haven to conform within, for fear of being struck down by a much wider audience. Funny, isn't it? This is the schist I make reference to alongside the schism. I have begun systematically through an element of an unconscionable will to disassemble and push aside my previous state of conscious living (identity), drawn into it, without any conscious effort on my part - unabated. I know that in order to be safe in public and in life, this is an avenue one such as me must tread while crossing through it. This is a confusing process I feel, because of the amount of energy it took to think on it, before these thoughts were swept up in the performance of survival at all costs. I am still trying to figure out a better term for this process in psychological jargon, but inevitably such thoughts just lead me to contemplate creation and the nature of God unto his creation..
I wish to document the 'metamorphoses', the schist, that have built upon itself the very unconditional elements that I have used to deal with the 'schisms', so that I can make sense of the details and apply it to the whole of my life, in order to unify and make known their various bits that I have obsessed over, only then to ostensibly lose track of where they originally traced themselves from, during the translation of one modality into the next. I don't want to lose sight of that, which is, intangibly--me, solely to cope with misfortune and failure. (Something like that, we'll see.)
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