Skip to main content

Help Yourself


I haven't made a blog post for a while.  I'm not interested in recording my thoughts and feelings.  These are flashes.  When I have insight, it's not worth imparting.  I observe for my own edification, and my observations only work for me, as far as I know.  My therapist tells me that I have good insights and that I should compile a book of them.  I don't know whether my insights are good for others or not.  Because I don't know what other people's insights are, I have nothing to which to compare my own to evaluate any assessment of them.

Most of the observations I make about people are blind grabs made in desperation as I flail for purchase in a world that doesn't want to stop me from falling out of it.  I'm not grasping for handholds that I might instruct others to use.  I'm trying to make sense of the world for myself.  I presume that my specific confusions are limited to me.  But is there something I could say about people or life that might help someone?  Which, if any, of my ideas are special?

I am a situation.  "Me" refers to an ongoing series of events of perception.  There's no situation exactly like me.  My insight applies to my experiences alone, and those are few.  I avoid experiences.  I've tried to engage with the world, and I'm not a fan.  I don't want to engage with it anymore.  My best advice is to remain small and quiet.  Do little, expect nothing.  See what happens and react only as and to the extent that you must.  This is how I live my life.  I don't know how you want to live yours.  If you want to collect experiences, if you abhor restraint, then my advice isn't for you.  My insight into how one might best conduct an anhedonic life would, I imagine, be of no use to a determined hedonist.

I do have insights.  I don't care about them.  I don't need them to amount to anything.  One of my insights is that it doesn't matter what one chooses.  Life can't be wasted.  It is burned up as it passes whether one engages with it or not.  Be mindful of the sunk cost fallacy; no matter how well you spend your life, your life is spent.  Good things and bad things are the same.  Whether one is satisfied or not has no bearing on what unfolds beyond one's measurements of satisfaction.  Mine is the way of no way.  My self help book would have one page and two words: "Help yourself."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Man Is Not Great: The Evolution of Anthropocentrism

Why do humans care whether their species is special? Why are they so invested in their specialness that they're uncomfortable with the idea that they aren't? Why is it a bitter pill to swallow that humans aren't uniquely important in the universe, that they aren't the intended end of evolution, and that their wondrous and diverse subjective experiences emerge from the same physical processes observable in "lower" animals? I think that the maladaptive human tendency to insist upon their specialness in the universe is an extension of an adaptive tendency to self-advocate in their tribes. Consider fear. The predisposition to turn around when you feel like something might be behind you is likely to save you when there really is something there. Most of the time, when you can't help but turn around on the dark basement steps, there's no threat. From an evolutionary perspective, it’s better to turn unnecessarily than to do nothing in a moment of danger. That...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Mystery of Friendship

Friendship looks good on paper.  People appear to enjoy their friendships and to want, or at least to expect, to have friends.  I don't have this experience.  I don't want friends. It took me a long time to understand that I have no desire for friendship.  As a child I thought I had to seek friendships because everyone around me wanted them.  It was part of trying to pass; I know that now but I didn't then.  I wasn't aware that other people didn't have to try to be like each other.  How could I have been?  I had no basis for comparison besides myself so I assumed everyone was like me.  I thought I was neurotypical and this was conducive to my feelings of inferiority.  I didn't know why I was so bad at being like everyone else.  It was because they were being themselves and I wasn't.  But I wouldn't realize that until long after my formative years were over. I was a very confused child.  I had few friendships and I wasn...
2 comments
Read more

George Versus Lennie

People seem to believe that you can't have cognitive deficits if you don't seem stupid. The image many carry in their minds of a person with cognitive problems is an image of someone whose internal dysfunction necessarily finds clear outward manifestation in unusual physical proportions, motor skills, vocal quality, and speech patterns. Less objectively, it's an image of a cartoon idiot: Lennie from Of Mice and Men as depicted in Looney Tun es .  This is a suboptimal situation.  My autism involves some cognitive impairment. Because I'm intelligent and articulate, even paraprofessionals have trouble remembering or, in fact, believing that I'm not as able to apply my intellect as ordinary people are. I'm smart, I'm not Lennie, but I'm not George either. The dichotomy between those characters is the only way many people can understand the difference between neurotypical people and people with cognitive or neurodevelopmental disabilities. If I'm n...
Post a Comment
Read more