Matt's Corner

how intelligent are we?

2011-07-13T12:45:00.000-07:00

People will have to get used to the idea that never-ending economic growth and ever-rising living standards are impossible on a finite planet. 1) POPULATION If people live longer, and average family size is small, we cannot remedy the situation by constant immigration or large families. The population of any country cannot grow for ever. The resources are not there. 2)RESOURCES We have trashed the environment. Despite what some think, we are totally dependent on the environment for our food, fresh water, even the air we breathe. We are very likely to run short of energy and food - perhaps soon. If people realise this, are prepared to change their lifestyles & are willing to consume less & use new technology as much as possible the human race can survive. Otherwise - after the rioting - famine, war & disease will reduce the population to what the planet can sustain. The breakdown of civilizations has happened before. How intelligent are we? We have to wake up.

There is no alternative

2011-06-18T04:42:00.000-07:00

The economy cannot recover because we have been, and still are, in a totally untenable cloud cuckoo land. There is no going back, there will be no recovery, the best we can hope for is the economy to stabilize at a liveable level.
As I posted earlier before they reset this thread, we are watching the beginning of the end of western liberal democracy. The decline and fall is going to be long and painful. Many of the things that people take for granted as a "right" are going to disappear, never to return.
The minimum wage, health care free at the point of delivery for benefits dependents and Public Sector workers. It has never been free for the private sector tax payer, they have had to pay not only for themselves but for everybody else as well. Soon everybody will have to pay for themselves at the point of delivery, there is no other way. Care of the elderly, same thing and so on and on until all you get, if you are lucky, is a modicum of law and order, sufficient public works to keep the roads passable, the waste collected occasionally and a helping hand if you do hit rock bottom.
No politician is going to say it, the media don't get it and economists have been exposed for the frauds they are. There is nobody out there who has the faintest clue what to do - just look what is happening in the Eurozne.
Welcome to The Headless Chicken Show.

Prepare yourselves

2011-04-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

While experts chortle that human population will level off by 2050, they fail to appreciate that it will continue to grow by adding another two to three billion before that time. Humanity will hit 7.1 billion this year, keep adding 1.0 billion every 13 years and reach 9.2 to 10.0 billion by mid century.

By that time, we will have wrecked the planet beyond repair. We will have killed off tens of thousands of species. We will have poisoned our biosphere and disrupted the environment beyond comprehension. We will have created horrific living conditions in cities around the USA and the planet where human misery dominates everything. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be so big and that we'll be able to walk across the Pacific filled with plastic. Our 80,000 poisons will disrupt DNA for animals and ourselves. By 2050, we will be fighting wars for energy and screaming for food.

I laugh myself sick at men like the Pople and other nut-bags that think we can expand the human race forever. The Pope and other major religions stick their heads into the sand and into the past. They are hopeless.

"Most Western elites continue urging the wealthy West not to stem the migrant tide [that adds 80 million net gain annually to the planet], but to absorb our global brothers and sisters until their horrid ordeal has been endured and shared by all-ten billion humans packed onto an ecologically devastated planet." Dr. Otis Graham, Unguarded Gates

Experts think that humans will become suddenly smart by 2050 and start winding down their birth rates. But, by that time, as illiteracy dominates most of those and our society-what do you think illiterate people do-go to the opera? No, they stay home and procreate more of themselves. As humans add 137 million new babies annually, there is no way to educate them, so they will birth more of them. Where did I get those numbers?

Check out that 57 million humans die every year planet-wide. Humans replace that 57 million and add another net gain of 80 million. That's 137 million more babies to educate annually. We cannot do it. Thus, I would like to see how we're going to stop the human herd by 2050.

Finally, the big arbiter will be oil energy. It will not allow us to feed ourselves and our enormous population once it runs out. Even if it didn't run out, we cannot keep up with feeding 10 billion humans because we won't be able to access arable land. But if we could, we still not be able to pay for it as to the horrific cost of energy.

"The cheap oil age created an artificial bubble of plentitude for a period not much longer than a human lifetime....so I hazard to assert that as oil ceases to be cheap and the world reserves move toward depletion, we will be left with an enormous population...that the ecology of the earth will not support. The journey back toward non-oil population homeostasis will not be pretty. We will discover the hard way that population hyper growth was simply a side-effect of the oil age. It was a condition, not a problem with a solution. That is what happened and we are stuck with it." James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency

We stand in a Faustian Bargain that will end in Hobson's Choice. Be absolutely certain that Mother Nature enjoys the last laugh. Brutal, benign, ruthless and effective in her ability to cull the human race with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: disease, pestilence, starvation and war.
If we continue on our merry, stupid and arrogant path by adding 100, 200, 300 million to the USA, we will find ourselves in the crosshairs of Mother Nature's final equation. We're well on our way in 2011.

Cold hearted reality in America

2011-04-20T13:12:00.000-07:00

Leftist dogma is very tedious. The plain facts are that the wealthiest 10 percent of all Americans pay more than half of all the personal income tax burden of the country (from about 52pc to around 56pc, depending on the year) and the top five percent of the wealthiest Americans pay over 40pc of the income tax. Trying to blame the rich in the USA is just cutting off your genitals to spite your rearend. They keep the country operating, and without their income taxes, the US would go bankrupt in three months.

Leftists must face up to hard, cold reality. Wealthy people are superior to poor and middle-class people. The middle class are average, or mediocre human beings, and poor people are inferior, or below average people. So society has always been, so it is today, and so it will always be. Politics and philosophy have nothing to do with the facts. Emotion doesn't change arithmetic or DNA.

The inferior members of the species are to blame for all that is wrong and bad about human society. They are the burden and anchor dragging civilization back from advancement. It is the responsibility and fault of the below average poor that human society is not better than it could be. They are the people who should be criticized and condemned, because their inferiority is the primary cause of all human problems.

sweeping statement

2011-03-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

You're either:

a) Very poorly educated, forming your ideas of the world from what you watch on television or hear from your parents.

b) Angry and lonely.

c) A genuinely malignant waste of the earth's resources.

2011-02-25T14:25:00.001-08:00

Human dignity

2011-02-21T13:31:00.001-08:00

If two people live in an apartment, and there are two bathrooms, then both have freedom of the bathroom. You can go to the bathroom anytime you want to and stay as long as you want to for whatever you need. And everyone believes in the freedom of the bathroom; it should be right there in the Constitution.

But if you have twenty people in the apartment and two bathrooms, no matter how much every person believes in freedom of the bathroom, there is no such thing. You have to set up times for each person, you have to bang at the door: "Aren't you through yet?" and so on. In the same way, democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people onto the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.

Money, economics, and delusion

2011-02-20T03:34:00.000-08:00

Saying the things that people do not want to hear my not make you many friends but you gains you respect when you turn out to be right! I am shocked as type out this blog. I would have never expected to see such change in this small amount of time but it is happening as I type.

We are now seeing the start of another era of inflation and jerky interest rates. The whole process is inspired by the foolishness of QE. When interest rates start to creep up and then shoot up we experience a massive public and private sector debt inspired financial blow-out. A financial blow-out of far great economic pain then would have been caused by fessing-up to bad debt and cleaning it out of the financial system in the first place. When interest rates shoot up everyone is going to be forced to remember the vast amount of bad debt hanging around in the financial system, we are in the eye of the storm, the 2008 financial crisis was the opening act.

We are now seeing the start of a global political process whereby the Middle East is freeing itself from regimes that were stood up by Western governments not so long ago. Once the Middle East countries free themselves where do you think they will politically lean? Will the new Middle East regimes politically lean towards the East or West?

It is clear to me that the outcome of political unrest in the Middle East is the start of a process whereby this region falls under the political influence of China. The Chinese will gain control over the regions oil reverses and a very young population of consumers, they used us in the West as a tug ship to get onto dry land, now they are not waterlogged and can walk on their own two feet the fate of the world is in their hands.

In the case of the UK especially, it is a combination of ignorance and delusion. Trying to trade with Europe alone is lke flogging a dead horse, the court of human rights will eventually lower the rights of everyone. State dependency will mean that a huge number of people are going to have a miserable future, it has been so intertwined with mindset that we cannot imagine a society without welfare. Students who grew up in the New Labour era demanding free university education so they can go and study philosophy is clearly absurd. China's growth is a massive opportunity for the brand Britain to export there, niche-marketing for high tech and sustainable products, but we need an army of home grown engineers, scientists and doctors.

The EU, with its unsustainable expensive social model, is living way beyond its means; more so than the USA. China and the other BRIC countries are going to grind us into the dirt. Britain has an opportunity to go its own way and to stand out in the world, all it requires is a bit of creative thinking, which can only start from a young age. Has the current generation missed the boat?

The Chinese leadership is composed of scientists and engineers who take a long term view and plan accordingly. The West's leaders are mostly lawyers, accountants, career politicians, resting actors, and assorted headline grabbers. They take a short term view of what impact they can make on tomorrow's headlines. Long term planning is a dream some of them have but none implement. That is our downfall in the medium term. The Chinese are trying to copy the industrial practices of the West, but they fail to realise that they must try something bold and new if their brave venture has anything more than 20-30 years to run before mother nature gives up and punishes mankind.

My point is we need to abandon capitalism AND socialism in its current form. Making a huge profit and/or fulfilling everyones needs like magic is never going to be sustainable. The pragmatic rulebook needs to be rewritten. We live in dangerous times. Times are changing and so must ideology. How many hearts and minds, if educated correctly and are properly informed would really want things to carry on the way they are?

Until we in the west being to accept that liberalism, mass migration, paying people to have children who will turn may not contribute anything either thanks to the benefits culture, outsourcing and the obsession with appearing politically correct and "multi-cultural" has all conspired to inflict great damage to our way of life and the traditional norms of our society, in terms of the way we use to work and solve problems; and until people wake up and realise these things without shouting "racism", or "tax the rich" in order to stifle the debate, nothing is going to change. The society that the liberal left has forced upon us since the 1960s, the damn baby boomer generation, with their moral relativism and "diversity" nonsense, created several generations of westerners who don't want to see the bigger picture, equating being proud to be western with racism. And because of this nonsense, they are people who don't know how to defend western civilization against the dangers we now face, both economically and physically, so it's no wonder we are being slowly left behind. We should be setting the example, not China. How right the Enoch Powells' of the western world were. Our obsession with promoting positive discrimination at the expense of merit is simply unforgivable. No wonder nuclear fusion, electric cars and the space programme has ground to a halt and the world is facing a population crisis. We spent so long trying to force ideals on other countries rather than leading by example that we have scared them away.

sad reality

2011-01-15T08:08:00.000-08:00

The 2 most useless concepts that do the most violence to rational thought are blame and justification. In other words it is all someone else's fault, or someone's own particular actions or point of view are somehow justified. These are legalistic concepts to aid the often arbitrary decisions of actual legal systems. However, these otherwise useless concepts stop us from seeing things clearly. They are a means of avoiding uncomfortable facts we find inconvenient and they produce false logic. People can avoid looking at uncomfortable facts and therefore come to false conclusions. They also mean that people refuse to look at the consequences of their own actions by justification. These stupid concepts produce highly egocentric thinking. Nowhere is this clearer than with regard to the human population issue.

Too many people and poor food distribution plus greedy speculation are the problems facing us now. They will pale in comparison to the nightmare of water shortages. Then the shit will hit the fan unless we can tap into the oceans. But at what cost?
If speculators sink their greedy teeth into the supply of water there will be war as millions are displaced in the search for fresh water supplies.
We should get rid of speculation for a start. Next, improve the distribution of food and access to education, and the long term availability on a global scale. Easy to write but I see no other way for the ongoing survival of mankind - if that's the will of the planet.

the predictions are all coming true he was just wrong about timing, we are indeed living on the capital itself and not the interest like any sensible person would. It cannot last and I see no alternative other than to scale back our greedy lifestyles, and that will only buy the human race time.

Maybe someone will discover fusion power so we can actually have electric cars, that only leaves us the problem of what we are going to eat and what all our "stuff" is going to be made of.

I think that people don't want to face the truth about population growth. The fact is that people need to be allowed to be responsible for their own reproduction. Just because you can have six children, does it mean you should? Insisting upon having as many children as you want as a right is ridiculous. It's my right to smear chocolate all over my living room walls but that doesn't mean it's a great idea. In the future, people will have to take more responsibility for the numbers of children they produce. Another uncomfortable fact is that often people who have the largest families rely on the state to feed them. Ordinary people who don't rely on benefits simply don't have huge families because they know they can't afford them. It's controversial - but I think that having any more than four kids is nonsensical. We have birth control now. There are no such thing as 'accidents'. A woman can easily stop getting pregnant. It's time everyone grew up.

The alternatives are only the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

a new world order

2010-10-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

The financial crisis was staged as part of a plot to transfer power from the developed world to vested interests and to place public funds in the hands of the global corporate elite in order to shape civilisation.

You only get this type of recession when you have massive wealth locked in a fraction of the population. We are experiencing a global crisis of OVERPRODUCTION. But this is a luxury recession. Thanks to industry being shifted to countries with cheap labour there is now too much of everything, and not enough in the Western world to simply be able to survive off the land.

The Orwellian society has continued to grow around us, and like the brutal religious leaders of the past ordinary people are being shaped without realising it. The first stage was to deindustrialise the west, get society addicted to consumerism and make them dependant on exports from other countries and easy credit, then hit them for six through the banking system.

Oil is running out, the global population is exploding and the west is over consuming. Something has to be done without making it overly obvious. We are but pawns to support the powers at hand as they dig their hands in our pockets for decades to come. We are expendable and we must continue to serve our masters and accept this as our fate and demonstrate humility and humbleness.

Unless We The People rise up with a rational exerted effort toward new energy technology and build whatever it takes to manufacture, erect plants, retool machinery there won't be a recovery in society as we know it.

To sum it up a doctor in America told his patient he only had 6 months to live, the patient said he couldnt afford his health bill so the doctor gave him another 6 months.

Maggie T's 85th Birthday

2010-10-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

It is the Iron Lady's 85th birthday today and I am sick and tired of all my left wing associates talking about dancing over her grave. I am no child of Thatcher (from a philosophical point of view) as I do tend to stay in the centre of politics as much as I can but here is my take on it.

Thatcher was merely there when change was happening. Just as Blair was as well. The difference was (whether you love/hate either) in Thatcher's time, a lot of the change was inevitable. In Blairs, a lot of the decisions were made by them, mistaking the wave of economic success to themselves, precipitating it's terrible downfall.

Margaret Thatcher didn't destroy manufacturing, but restructured the economy including getting rid of the too powerful unions to get the country back on it's feet. The manufacturing that died was inefficient and outdated. Our products were being out made and out priced by countries such as Japan and we just called strikes every five minutes. How can we blame Thatcher personally for that?

For example cheap North Sea Oil coming on line and the miners making the coal situation and the dependent industries face a dead end. Maggie just put the boot in and made the changes.

It's funny how these changes are precisely an interruption in the overall scheme of things. Actually starting up an industry from scratch is pretty tricky.

It is also quite ironic that a lot of staunch Labour supporters were also buying Council houses and doing very well out of it AND then moaning that there were not enough being created as well.

I like to think of the years 1979-1982 as the hangover years
as the UK got back on the straight and narrow after the wild and
anarchistic times of the 1970s.

Blair and Brown could have changed what they inherited, as ‘Thatcherism’ was always supposed to be (in the greater scheme of things) a short term foot in the door, and did not have to continue down the path that they did.

All Thatcher did was become the first PM to view the UK as 'UK PLC'

She looked at various nationalised industries, saw that UK PLC was propping them and said:

'If we are propping it up financially, then its loss making. A loss making business has to be sorted out, otherwise its a pointless drain on the public purse'

So, she did.

I havn't yet met an individual who rails against her who can come up with a convincing argument for why the state should pump money into loss making industries. There is no justification, long term for the state pumping money into loss making outfits. Its a waste, pure and simple, and the result would have been an economy comparable to the Eastern Bloc.

The so called British Worker was the cause of the demise of most of British Industry. Under Callaghan and Wilson before him there was hardly a day went past without some people going out on strike.

Nationalised Industries were costing all taxpayers Billions a year. The steelworkers, Dockers, Shipbuilders, Engineering, even the motor industry were perpetually out on strike.

We lost jobs because no manufacturer could guarantee a delivery date or a price, so orders went overseas. The only ones to blame were the so called workers, and their communist Trade Union leaders. More pay for less and less work. We couldn't keep up with the rest of world and they super seeded us. Hence most of us drive German cars etc etc...

One of the effects of the Carbon Hysteria is to reduce CO2 outputs by shifting to fuels with more favourable C:H ratios. ie:- Oil and Gas.
In practice, I would suggest that this is more closely responsible for coal fading out. I remember about Britain being responsible for alot of acid rain. Our lefty Geography teacher used to go on and on about it.

Perhaps another factor was the decline in steel production in the UK, which is highly energy intensive.

The real trouble is that one just can't hide from the fact that buildings, ships, cars, all take a huge amount of energy to start out with.

For anyone who says that China is moderate in it's use of energy you gotta think again. The buildings, ships, cars, they're all still being made, and the labour is cheap. If these things are happening then the energy is being used somewhere and someone else is losing out.

I find it interesting that many of the people who complain about the environmental toll of mankind are left leaning. Often they are the same people who point the finger at Maggie because of the miners. But there's a contradiction there, no?

Maggie cleaned up the acid rain. And now we're gas fired and looking to become nuclear and renewable. No?

Better than not being fired at all, which is the Labour legacy. Living in the Northeast, Thatcher is still very much hated by the majority working class. Wander into any working class pub or social club on a Sunday afternoon and you will hear that it is Thatchers fault that the country is in the state it is in today. They really do not want to believe the destruction their beloved Labour Party has done to them - they really would not want to hear the truth.

The place really could still be full of pits and mines making sure people are dead by the age of 50 and these people honestly think life would be better.

As for Thatcher killing Manufacturing, well i am sorry to tell you silly people, yes you wont believe it and shall remain in denial, BUT after she closed the pits Maggie Brought you Nissan.

Not many of them know or like to know about that. The company that has basically kept a large area of the North alive was built by the one woman they detest and hate. The company that employs thousands, uses thousands of local suppliers, has improved wages, working conditions and basically brought the area up to date.

BUT

it is impossible to measure the net benefit of certain industries- such as a rail industry. whilst on the face of it it might have been losing money, the net benefit in terms of social wealth, mobility and unaccountable benefits means the equation should be more complicated than just one of state support.

Thatcher was 100% correct to break the unions (see Royal Mail if you want to see the effects of a over-unionised company), it at least gave companies a fighting chance to compete.

Make no mistake, this country is run by companies (most of htem SMEs), its power is commercial, its success dependant on profit. These policies kick started the UK back into life again - but that does not mean it had to continue. The labour government has always thought that the only thing that mattters is "state". In this they will always be wrong, the key is a balance.

Given the growth in public spending that had come before, and that has now come about again and the assumption that it would go on like that for ever, I think holding it almost steady for ten years was a huge achievement.

Of course more could and should have been done, but you're asking for superhuman determination there. Maggie was as tough as they come and even she had to fight every inch.

If Thatcher's influence on the economy was disastrous, we can only guess what adjective we'd have to apply for a continuation of what had gone before.

Thatchers legacy is certainly oversimplified, and probably overrated. She continued to expand government, for instance, during her time in power. Her real contribution was to remove power from the unions. Whether you personally like the approach the powerful unions had to managing the economy is neither here nor there. They were not representative of the people, the existed purely to further the interests of their members, and they should no more have a monopoly of the supply of labour than corporations should have a monopoly of the supply of goods or raw materials.

I have never understood while people who (rightly) fear the power of very large, unaccountable corporations were so happy to have equally large and powerful unions throwing their weight around in much the same way. At least the man in the street can buy shares in any PLC and gain a vote in how it is run. The same is not true of unions.

Credit where it's due - she was the best, and we'll never see her like again.

Pakistan and a moral dilema

2010-08-20T04:32:00.000-07:00

I’m concerned for the biosphere, not being compassionate toward disorganized countries that cannot control their birthrates nor the quality of their children through wise reproductive traditions – human lives are secondary to the health of a civilization as the health of a civilization directly affects human lives by default.

There’s two different viewpoints conflicting here; one is that which is represented above and the other is to blindly walk into the abyss due to the post WW2 fixation on moral high ground liberal-esque values. This is either in favour of the biosphere by controlling humanity below the carrying capacity of each territory so that the natural ‘disasters’ are not disasters, such as in Pakistan.

Ok you say that people should be left to make the choice using their own free will? Im afraid when animal urges dictate our very way of thinking that very claim is flawed right from the start.

If the population of any country, not just Pakistan, was reduced to a sustainable level in balance with the biosphere then floods/ natural disasters would not have killed more than perhaps a few hundred, or thousand rather than a few million – that’s why it’s a self inflated natural disaster, it’s part natural but enormously bigger due to there being so many people for it to kill in the first place – population control and building your home wisely is important for it allows the best to rise above the crowd because there is fewer of them to get in the way.

Altruism and compassion from richer countries giving aid are used to domesticate the foreign populations, like pets on a chain of dependency unable to do anything for themselves – all to continue building the Empire bigger and more stupid and to make the problem worse in the future. It doesn’t help the territories that are conquest either, those levels of population cannot continue to be sustained, the food cannot exist after peak oil for anyone let alone the people who are in need at the moment.

The west also continues to import the third world into its territory regardless and ignores problems at home, completely contradicting the ‘war on terror', it is collapsing from within because it doesn't provide strong leadership to the territory it already has. It’s biggest enemy is itself and us in the West dealt with these critical threats, such as globalisation and corporate internal corruption, then they could more easily build the Empire and increase the quality of the territory they conquest rather than ‘develop’ them to death.

Since the dawn of civilisation several countries have missed the boat so to speak, but surely we need to balance the world in more ways than one before it is too late and everybody suffers? Biology and civilization structures interact to create greater things, but we need to face reality and stop being concerned only with the short term social reality because that’s what pays our check. Foreign policy is drugs, high immigration, oil and cheap labour, and look where that has left our economies.

Regardless of numbers, overpopulation exists when you can’t feed your own population, 20 million is 20 million people to feed, if any of them is starving, they’re either religiously anorexic or they’ve fucked each other too much. They’re going to have to bump off undesirables, that is reality, and feeding them with your happy aid is only going to delay the inevitable.

Be aware to me this a moral dilema, I don't want this to happen at all but I cannot see humanity as a whole going down any different path. The vast school of self-important liberals fail to view this current situation in terms of humankind and what would be best for it in the long run. We have a simple fact running throughout the World, thoughtful intelligent people are having few or no children while the masses of ignorant, cultureless weeds continue to breed without concious. What does this say about nurture over nature? Are too many people missing that initial chance? Do we have to accept that not everyone will make the same grade due to their biology? The best solution to the overpopulation problem would not be resolved by trying to educate third world woman, we know thats a pipedream.

The only way to put humankind and the Earth for that matter back on course is to adopt more Draconian methods. Yes to me it seems self defeating trying to save these ignorant breeding monsters, who are way over populated as it is.What may appear horrible at this stage could be beneficial for mankind in the future. I really do hope all these Conspiracy Theories are right and that the Elite are trying to depopulate 3rd World countries. Reckless breeding has gone on too long and need a check, much like a house clean. When the intelligent people have all been out bred out of existence I cant imagine what the world would be like.

Be aware this is evolution happening here - unlike fascism nature will eventually choose which humans are fit to survive in the future. It gives me no pleasure to say this. But cataclysmic change is going to happen, with all its promised attendant devastation, and neither you nor I nor anyone in power is going to do anything about it. People don't fix predictions. People fix problems. And until the Western world truly feels the burn, then overpopulation is a prediction, not a problem, by which time it will be too late, and the human solution to the eventual problem will be brutal, if nature doesn't get there first and make it even more brutal. In fact and again, I'm not enjoying myself here, it's too late now.

The scope of change required from the human race to prevent disaster is so large as to be virtually inconceivable. We can't and won't do it. Overpopulation, our desire to produce young and make sure everybody lives and overconsumption of resources will seal our fate - evolution has made a mistake by trying to combine our animal past with rational thought, the two tear each other apart but the former wins.

It all sounds deeply grim - and it is. But there is an upshot. While human nature is historically selfish and incapable of focusing beyond its own generation, we have two redeeming qualities that should give us a sniff of hope.

One: we're hopeless as a herd but we're quite nice once you get us alone. There's no reason why we can't ease the earth and its inhabitants into their final days with generous levels of palliative care on a small-scale basis.

Our other upstanding behavioural quirk that should console us a little is this: humans are pretty good at snapping into action once messes are made. But that doesn't avoid the fact severe hardship will happen first.

Prof Stephen Hawking, who reckons the human race has a hundred years left if it's lucky, says we should be looking seriously at colonising other planets. Maybe we'll figure out how once we're forced to.

Or maybe when the Earth becomes so clammy and choking that we can barely breathe, we'll invent an ingenious way to sort it out again - one that's far too costly and boring to bother with now. But until then we haven't got a hope in hot, hot hell.

Oh the humanity…..

2010-07-22T03:53:00.000-07:00

Those who are largely criminal, those only fit for menial jobs, those able people who cannot be bothered to get out of bed each day and those not able to think logically and respond maturely to life either need to be given a fighting chance or forgotten about. I went to a park the other day and it was filled with rubbish. The council comes by every once in a while to clean things up. But the locals come in every weekend in the summer and have picnics and even though there are plenty of bins around, they just leave their rubbish behind, but still moan about what a terrible state the country is in. This is an analogy which is comparable to the way most people treat our planet, they expect to maintain a high standard of living in a civilized society but they don’t intend to give anything back. The rich, the poor, the middle class – everyone is to blame whether they can help it or not.

The champagne socialists and the religious zealots will preach back at me saying "I love people, I wanna have more people" or “people should do things under their own free will…hooman rites!” I'd like to visit these people when them and their kids are starving, living an overflowing trash dump, because there's so much overpopulation and incumbent waste and used up land and resources that there's just not enough to go around and I can simply say I told you so. There's a bunch of additional consequences that pretty little holier than thou comments aren't going to make go away, they are just taking a "heart felt" stance, shooting bile towards people stating the obvious in order to create an emotional response. Either that is to make themselves feel superior due to the fact deep down they probably know they are wrong, or they intend to avoid the truth as it is too painful to face up to. Both are acts of intellectual and emotional immaturity due to imperfections of the ego, but it is amazing how many people do it.

I think less people is a good idea. This isn’t about the people who hit hard times through no fault of their own, it is about the people who are either afraid of the bigger picture or oblivious to it even when it is staring them in the face and are not prepared to make any sort of contribution in order, to do anything about it, and we are not talking about money here. I'm sorry, but we need to either help these people become better citizens of the earth or just not have them at all. We need a society where everybody makes a contribution, and you don’t simply have to slog it out at work and pay taxes to make society and the world we live in better, even the disabled and vulnerable people who cannot contribute physically and/or financially to an economy have something to share. Or in other words the world does not owe us, quite the opposite. The lottery of life has provided us with the gift of existence as human beings, but for some reason we want even more.

It doesn't have to be done by actually killing people or punishing them severely, just limit births and change the nature of our education system to make people more aware of how serious the situation is at a younger age. China and India do it out of necessity. Necessity. Just take a look. I don't think that a group of rich people want everyone else dead. Who would they have for slaves? Who would they have to mindlessly buy their crappy products? Who would they have around to compare themselves to so they can know how rich they are? Sorry lefties I know how much you envy the lifestyle of rich and want to bring them down a peg or two but the simple fact is we've got more people than we have the resources and organizational skills to educate, feed and handle properly and sustainably.

So what we end up with is this huge population of uneducated and/or illogical who are too stupid or too ignorant or too thoughtless or simply too wrapped up in their own little bubble to realize that if the billions who live in abject poverty were to come anywhere close to their standard of living our beautiful planet would be wiped out! Infant mortality was so high in the past that people had lots of offspring to overcome this and carry on the bloodline – it is why reproductive urges are so strong and so hardwired into our biology, like every reproducing creature on this planet. The difference now is virtually every new child survives into adulthood, it is a wonderful blessing given to us by science and technology, but we have to realize that this gift cannot be given to us for free, it is off the back of insights provided to us by scientists. If we want low mortality rates, we have to produce less of them. Yes that sounds a little sterile and faceless but it is a simple consequence reducing fact.

You see the human race in general is not that advanced, it is only a tiny tiny percentage of the population that make the so called advances – and that is only an accumulation of knowledge and insight that the newer generations simply consume, distort and abuse. Our advanced way of life is propped up by the insights of these unique people. Put the average human being in the wilderness and they will be dead pretty soon. The average animal can survive a lot longer simply by using its instincts. All we use our instincts for now is to consume modern goods and services, instead of to survive, and our biology is being rewritten towards this trend – simply because we are given the means to, which itself is based on finite natural resources that are destined to run out, and where does that lead us?. The rich know this, they provide us with all these luxuries for us to buy because they are able to abuse our animal instincts so easily. The very essence of our animalist existence is being abused, and it makes so called freewill look like a complete illusion. On top of this, when the natural resources run out they become more expensive, increasing profit margins even further. It just shows how stupid and how short sighted our species really is on both ends of the social scale and how ‘humanity’ has no right to claim that it is superior in any way to dolphins, apes or indeed any of the charismatic creatures that occupy our world who have existed as a species far longer than 2 million years and never caused mass extinction and destruction of its host.

With a few exceptions, every social class of modern man is to blame, although for different reasons of which some are more morally corrupt that others, but the fact is, what is happening cannot be denied – the rich become corrupt and exploit the environment and the poor for profit, the middle class consume blindly to sustain their semi-comfortable, individualist lifestyles, and the poor who feel they have less to live for in this day and age are more prone to criminal acts, excessive procreation, tribalism and destroying the environment due to their sheer weight in numbers for their simple act of survival, and the fact that some of the richer ways of living does trickle down even to them. The irony is everyone is given a brain at birth to develop a sense of reason strong enough to overcome these impulsive cravings and see reality for what it really is. I mentioned blame before not in the sense of right and wrong from a moral point of view but simply that what is happening is happening, or in other words cause and effect.

The class system is self defeating, both the left and right of this simple minded political spectrum are too fixated about status and labels for their own emotional gratification that they eventually go against what they claim to believe is their ideological utopia, which makes me think that this irrational talk of ideology should be ignored and these people who fail to acknowledge simple facts should either be thrown out of an argument or given the chance to develop critical thinking skills and a sense of connection, otherwise I feel these people are simply too inferior to have serious involvement in decision making. Do not gasp, that is not a fascist statement or bigotry, it is simply promoting the fact that reality can only been seen in its truest form when all facts provided are taken at face value without self interest influencing cognitive judgment, of course we are all prone to it but there is such thing as making an effort.

To simply hate the rich or look down on the poor creates a divide which in the long term will be detrimental to the health of mankind and also our planet. In order to save ourselves from potential oblivion we all need a new form of aspiration that will lift us out of our collective infancy, which will raise living standards for everyone yet at the same time will have less of a negative social and environmental impact. Of course living standards cannot be raised if people are too emotionally attached to a certain way of life, which is why convincing people is going to be very difficult. Either they are shown in real terms what the consequences could be for them and their children and are given a choice as to what path they would rather follow, or we start a fresh with their children who have not yet become addicted through the education system, although that depends on how long we have before the tipping point.

We need to look beyond the one dimensional political spectrum and understand that there are many dimensions to this issue, socialism is parasitic and capitalism is cancerous, fascism is irrational, communism is stagnation, the other option, centrism is either abused by the likes of Tony Blair or is misunderstood by unpragmatic people for being indecisive. We need a healthy system that judges issues on their own merit using critical thinking, using a method of reason that will tame our animalistic shortcomings, whilst acknowledging that there are needs that do have to be fulfilled. The only way we can do that is if everyone looks at life in a more pragmatic way, connecting their emotional needs with the material world in a more disciplined and enlightened way, giving us a better understanding of the world and of each other. That is a philosophy; I know that sort of thing will never happen by choice until an appalling tragedy occurs at immense human cost, either by tyranny or by natural causes. It is the only way our species seems to learn anything, for example the tragedy of WW2, or the appalling state of communist Russia . The way things are going that is exactly what will happen, but at the end of the day that is how evolution works, and that is exactly what our global culture needs.

Discipline the battle between emotions and reason

2010-06-14T04:38:00.000-07:00

How we perceive existence and everything we experience within it depends on our senses and external conditions which are in constant flux with no fixed nature to any condition, which in turn can reduce mental clarity and the ability to focus and will interfere with decision making, changing situations, insightfulness and impartiality. This causes a state of ignorance towards reality, discriminating against circumstance in order to fulfill a craving that is beyond reasoning.

Suffering and negativity within a sentient being is caused by craving, expressed as a deluded clinging to a nurtured sense of existence, selfhood or the things that we have been led to believe is the cause of a positive or negative emotion, then freewill and reality may become an induced illusion, as though it is being controlled by an external force. When it reaches the point where one craves that a certain state of affairs should disappear or change, the illusion is reinforced. Suffering ends when craving ends, which is achieved through a liberated state of mental enlightenment, which in turn leads to clarity and wisdom.

True liberation is not simply freeing a sentient being from suffering, (because that alone will simply push them towards an ongoing cycle of positive and negative situations, which will be difficult to escape from, and will reinforce the craving even further); it is guiding them towards freeing themselves, using a method which is deemed necessary. The negativity (for example greed, hatred and delusion) is a deep rooted affliction of the mind, creating suffering and stress, which needs to be uprooted through internal investigation and discovery, which will reveal the true of one’s self and all things within reach of one’s senses.

A person can only channel this sense of freedom and potential liberation outwards, as the craving has to escape from where it originated in the first place or else it will still manifest, this then leaves a void to be filled by mindfulness, which in turn has the effect of an enlightened perception of reality. Thinking and thought must not be allowed to confine and bind one to rigidity, so a person must learn to regularly mentally ‘detox’ in order maintain a pure mind, and make sure this routine becomes part of who they are. There are many things in life that are beyond our control. However, it is possible to take responsibility for and to change one’s state of mind, as we owe it to ourselves and to the future generations that the human condition can progress beyond the unpredictable and unfocused state it is in right now in order to prove we are beings more advanced than the animals we share this planet with.

Reality check

2010-06-09T05:17:00.000-07:00

Population growth is a real difficulty for many developed and developing nations, and it is firmly embedded in the birth to death ratio. Basically too many children are being born and not enough of us are dying quickly enough. That doesn't mean that a few sections of society have too many children per family unit but that too many people have children full stop, and plenty are neglected. The nuclear family is sold to us as the only viable lifestyle choice and there are important economic and social reasons for this but we need to get real now.

Rising crime, over crowded cities, waste, ethnic unrest, lack of resources like power, water, roads, schools, houses etc and no suitable land available to build more on means alot of people are going to lose out as a result. Most island nations have populastion and immigration controls except the UK, it has to change if the children we do have are to have any sort of a decent future.

For the population to decrease we need people to start looking at a 'childless life' as a viable option and this needs to be sustained for a period. Of course it's a natural instinct for human beings to want to procreate and raise offspring but that is normally checked by the harsh realities of the natural world - something we will have to face on a catastrophic scale if we dont address it. We have have almost negated these factors now so we have to make hard choices as a society.

Idiotic governments who say we need overseas labour are fools. We can't keep expanding the UK any more, especially, when everyone knows the vast majority of immigrants are going to claim benefits. Therefore, I would like to know from you brightspark pro-immigrant fans, when do you stop it because it will have to sooner or later?? We are already on the verge of social and financial collapse and as
good as there in one respect.

We should follow Australia, New Zealand and other countries by clamping down on immigration, cutting child benefit to one child only. This would be a great help in solving the problem. People would only have the children they could afford to bring up. Also stop all this fertilisation treatment etc. It sounds harsh but back to nature, she will will punish us alot harsher if we dont act!

An over-riding obsession with racism that has dominated brainless social theory has allowed champions of multiculturalism and diversity, backed by organisations to use immigration as their most potent flagship. Anyone expressing even the mildest pragmatic concern has been labelled a racist.

The economic reasons for immigration - filling vacant jobs and attracting skills - have been exploded by recent figures and its only purpose appears to have been a deliberately engineered cultural revolution by the liberal left to justify their ideological high horse. The population growth we now face is merely one in many of its consequences.

It's a global issue and immigration is a tiny symptom of the real underlying cause. Medical advances and hygiene improvement s have led to an explosion in the human population of the planet - from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 6.7 billion in 2006 - almost tripled in 50 years! Look at any environmental issue and this is the cause - too many people. And the delight is that we are all taxed to pay for the rampant breeders to carry on making the problem worse. Breeding is no longer a necessity but a self indulgence and it is time the tax system was refined to put an end to its subsidy. Start with IVF - certainly one we don't need to be paying for, then look at all child subsides and move towards individuals being responsible for their own
life choices. And before anyone starts on the "right to have children", yes and you can also have the "right" to expect most of them to die before reaching maturity - that is not a moral desire it is a fact of nature, and too many people cannot seem to tell the difference when they listen to someone who states the obvious.

And before I get slated by let wingers and humanists.. FACT: If you don't adapt and respond to changing circumstances, you will run into problems individually and collevtively. Intelligence is the ability to do this. Ideology is the ability to ignore it. Anyone that doesn't believe that this will not end in massive civil unrest or war needs to take a fucking reality check.

We need to move on from immigration being something only racists and bigots moaned about and global overpopulation that only aloof scientists and malthusians ever talked about and understand that we need to show some restraint before the consequences of our so called 'rights' bite us up the arse.

Politics...The election aside... the reality

2010-05-08T16:08:00.000-07:00

People have moaned n whined about the pathetic state of this country for years. Then they actually DON'T vote that idiot out.

There seems to be a lot of people with very short memories. Every Time we have had a Labour government we have had a recession. Yeah granted this recession is not down to Brown personally. But it is how to deal with the recession that makes the difference. All of you who feel that Labours ideas of borrowing more money, continuing with waste and not making any cuts are in any way going to bring the country out of the recession are barking.

YOU CANNOT BORROW MORE MONEY TO GET OUT OF DEBT.

Yes the Tories are now to make cuts, but that is because inevitably they follow a Labour government and know that is the only way to pay off debt.

And yes the Tories give tax breaks to the rich....But then the rich have more money then to re-invest into the country providing more jobs.

And on the subject of tax credits and the like. Why should it it deemed right for people to have kids willy-nilly and then look to the government to give them benefit. Should be simple, You want kids, make sure you can support them. You can't support them then use contraception and save the country money. Why should I have to pay to bring your kids up? But please bear in mind this doesnt apply to families who do make the effort but need that little bit of extra help, it is all about the 'career moms' who get twice what I earn through hard work every month in benefits.

People have short memories! Firstly, The Labour government inherited an enviable financial position from John Major when Tony Blair came into power. The tough choices that were made by John Major were unpopular but got the country back in a good fiscal position. But this government have blown that and put us in a position whereby the government are spending £4 for every £3 it receives. If this isn’t sorted soon, then we will end up like Greece. It really is that serious.

A solution will not come from Labour here. They are too entrenched in unions and commitments they cant meet. Regardless of the politics, there are 2 fundamental differences between Labour and the Conservatives. Labour will tax you to the hilt and then spend your money unwisely. Conservatives will tax you less and leave you to spend your money unwisely. I know which choice I would take!

By going with Labour you're saying YES to benefit fraud, mass spenditure at a rate of £5000 a minute minimum, Brussels controlling our laws and regulations, an inevitable joining of the Euro, more uncapped immigration from both inside and outside the EU, an ever decreasing NHS and overcrowded classrooms for our children..

Anyone who has studied history knows that the European experiment is just that - an experiment with a maximum 50 year life expectancy and that is probably generous. The EU would have been far better off staying as a trading club but the Empire builders and would be Napoleons still exist in mainland Europe and they have built an edifice which again will not stand the test of history. Britain always would have been better off living outside this madness but at least it stayed out of the EURO and privately even the pro-EU lobby must be thanking their Gods for that.

Just where all this money comes from to bail out Greece is puzzling, the USA is bankrupt, even Germany has a huge deficit and everyone is borrowing on the strength of taxes yet to be collected 10 years from now. The printing presses must be pumping out Dollars, Pounds and EUROs as fast as they can and has we have seen in the recent crash all the 'funny money' generated by banks and computers is not even as real as toilet paper. Where will it all end? - well its not hard to predict the end of the EURO and the break-up of the EU , we should all welcome that and get back to real life as trading nations and stop wasting money on this club which was only ever designed for the rich bankers and money markets who have shown us very clearly their experiment is a failure and they can't be trusted. Hard times ahead but Britain will benefit in the long run if the idea of the EU is consigned to the history books in the chapter marked 'bad ideas of the last century'.

Mostly oil rich Arab states and the biggest Casino player of all- China will get fatter. If we all default the entire of Europe gets re-planted as paddy fields with the dryer bits used for camel racing. It is competition that shapes winners and losers. The European experiment was a huge success in bringing most countries, with the initial stimulus of the Marshall plan to a pinnacle of prosperity in the '90s. But no system can survive unless its undelying wealth creation apparatus can compete.

If your mind can travel back a century or more when the UK was the workshop of the world, we had unlimited wealth and un-dreamed of international power, but our factory workers in Manchester lived lives of extreme poverty, with no health or education and died in their 40's. We learned over many years to balance the needs of capitalism with the needs of people and the EU enshrined these principles so that we all enjoyed a good long life with minimum wages, access to education and welfare. We simply now have to address the issue of competion with the powers in the East, we have failed to do that for the last 50 or so years, and now look at us.

A Guided Sleepwalk

2010-03-03T06:50:00.000-08:00

Hitler and Stalin would blush with inadequacy at the scale of this revolution fought against the free nations of the world without a shot being fired, engineered with financial weapons and aggressive social engineering. The oh-so-moralistic-on-the-outside socialists jump on anyone who dares to defy them with common sense, yet they are determined to ignore best interests of the majority, bombarding them with lies and deciete just so they are given what they want. That level of greed is on a par with ruthless capitalism.

The tragedy is the so called 'free thinking' public are too succeptable to suggestion, as much as they might resist, and willfully point their arses into the air and gladly accept a good rogering, whether they know it is happening or not. What has gone wrong? Are the real free thinkers becoming too much of a minority to make a difference, or is free thought an illusion? For example, (one of many scenarios) you have to wonder what people think about day to day when their daily lifestyles are directly fueling the extinction of the orangutan. People have become so ingrained into their own little non-world that they are too conditioned to even care. As a result they have deliberately been denied the whole facts that they are supposedly entitled to in a free world in order to maximise profits for the products they consume, which is being done directly and indirectly. Some facts might be there but too many people choose to ignore them because it is easy option, fueling the positive feedback loop.

We have become so complacent regarding personal liberties that the negative consequences are starting to outweigh the benefits on a level unseen in the history of humankind. To forcefully take all power away from the people is just as damaging as giving power to the people. Knowledge IS power, but are the people ready to accept the truth/knowledge, as harsh and as brutal as it is? Not a chance we are too conditioned to accept ambiguity that we are ignoring what really matters. Never has britain and for that matter the whole planet been under so much threat wth such little understanding of realisation.

Socialism is not the answer

2010-02-25T10:58:00.000-08:00

We may have been at the mercy of the greedy capitalist bankers recently, but why do left wingers seem to indulge on short sighted issues at the long term expense of the majority? Here’s why, they have no concept of the future or indeed the survival of 'their hive' and the vital decisions that are required. I find that as irresponsible and as uncompassionate as one could possibly get, indulging in assumption, ignorance, passionate indecision and indeed more erroneous decisions as a whole at the expense of real social, technological, ecological, creative, and economical prosperity. They forget that life is cruel to be kind by default, which there have always been winners and losers, eagerly brushing that simple fact under the carpet, pretending it doesn’t exist, at their peril.

The socialist ideal that everybody deserves to win just because they exist, regardless of effort or circumstance will always be countered by an inflated number of losers in practice, unless the true facts of life are accepted. You cannot ignore the facts of natural order, something we depend on for our way of life, not to mention for our very survival. Nothing is above the law, in this case natural law. They appear to be in denial about anything beyond their one dimensional, outdated agenda because they fail to comprehend the insignificance of their own lifespan, or in the case of a democracy their own term in office.

Unlike reckless, capitalistic boom and bust, sustained progress for everybody involves a planned step by step advancement in all areas, in a specific direction, driven by a suppression of impulse and a embracing austerity to fuel the cause, both of which can only ever be driven by either a collective desire to embrace intellect, or by brute force. I know which one I would rather choose, but I also know which one has to be the reality if it is going to happen, and it has to soon because time is running out. You cannot simply put faith in something you cannot control or fully understand (just because it is stirring an animalistic emotion) without eventual consequences that end up going against what they were aiming to prevent in the first place.

Socialism doesn’t work, because it acts, as it must, through the state, and in its interactions with people, there is always at least one party forced to participate who is abused, exploited and not acknowledged according to their circumstances.
Socialism simply satisfies the powerful emotion of envy, exploiting nonconformists like a downtrodden piece of crap.

It is like cancer; it starts out slowly, and grows until it wipes out the host it invaded. Like a religion it purports to offer a solution to human problems and offers people an excuse and a false solace against the inevitable traumas of life, simplified to a point to which the masses are able to comprehend, having it packaged as though it is a miracle solution because in the end people see what they want to see. This over simplification is lethal in practice against a complicated human and ecological world, which exploits every weakness of a flawed system by its very nature.

The concept of socialism isn't how the world works at all and it has never worked that way; it is just a fanciful construct that a few hard-line, supposedly hard done by left-wingers hold onto because reality is far more complicated than they can bare to face.

It’s very political structure denies incentive; innovation and information, which in turn leads to eventual dissatisfaction, laziness, ignorance, waste, inefficient use of resources and possible war. A civilization does not advance like that; the laws of nature which we are effectively dependent on (even in a world of technology) are not compatible with such a concept.

It can never be sustained on a scale larger than a local community such as a tribe or an extended family as everybody needs a reason to participate. Until every single human being willingly cooperates towards a common goal, and sustains it, the system just decays into a complete mess, unless they are forced to, which then goes against the left wing principle. If you leave everything to the common people alone, society will eventually live in caves like beasts, struggling to light a fire, fighting over the scraps, then the capitalistic survival of fittest ruthlessly takes over due to the personal will to exist, resulting in pain and misery on a scale much larger than what the creators of the socialist system wanted to move away from. That is the evil behind it.

boom and bust

2009-12-10T13:26:00.000-08:00

The unholy combination of religious zealotry and political corruption and inertia will see to it that starvation will solve the problem. It's disgusting but that's the way things are in this world....a few random ideas:

We harness nuclear fusion, develop mechanized agriculture basic on electric vehicles, educate the poor, stop child benefit, by law the right to have a family should be based on means, food aid should only be provided to poor people along with condoms and mandatory education, interstellar exploration happens in order to make use of raw materials from other planets and asteroids, anyone who has more than 3 children should be fined and sterilized, economies should be directed towards new technologies rather than providing for the materialistic whims of the shallow majority, every state and law system is completely secular and adopt a one party system where every department is voted in and out depending on strict performance criteria, make sure every murderer is executed and every rapist and pedophile is sterilised, ban religion, give more scholarships for higher education,...oh I think you get the idea.

Sounds brutal and ruthless? Maybe, but the alternative is far worse. Most of us are useless when it comes to actually making/doing something that could enable survival apart from just passing on our genes and there will be one or more main events that cause the majority of the population to disappear in the future.

Totalitarian mass sterilization is surely better than millions of dead in a plague scenario and the problems of dealing with the dead bodies etc, but the ideal solution is to change our attitude towards mother earth and not just to educate more people, but increase their desire to be educated, but this is a mammoth task.

If 'god' has allowed this pending population crisis and suffering to happen then he/she/it is a fascist! Religion is out of date and is turning a huge number of people into brain washed drones. We talk about morals, but at which level are they most justified, for the good of the individual or for the good of mankind as a whole?

Bottom line: The "inconvenient truth" overhanging the UN's Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world. A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days. To those people who think having lots of children is their god given right, its not rocket science just do the math!

Do any of those self absorbed individuals who think it is their right to have children understand the heart of the problem? In raw nature it is an animal urge to have as many offspring as possible so at least two of them survive due to the cut throat environment mother nature throws at them. We now live in a civilised society where most children survive to adulthood and due to consumerism we have a high standard of living until a ripe old age. Do the sums, it is a simple trade off. We are genetically programmed to have a desire to reproduce like any animal does, but we also have something very large called a neocortex which allows us rational thought. Try using it. The planet's resources are finte, as are the resources of our own country, which means population growth has to be finite as well in order to maintain a status quo in living standard. We have three options 1) forced population control by the state 2) mother nature ruthlessly controls the population through famine and disease 3) we control ourselves by expanding our minds and looking out for the species as a whole, which is the best option? Have loads of children if you wish but you will only be condemning either them or their offspring to a far lower standard of living. Disagree with me as you wish but if you want a certain way of life you have to accept certain boundaries. It is about earning your rights with responsibility and they should both go hand in hand. There are 7 billion people in the world now and 9 billion predicted by 2050, and something has to give. We are sitting on a time bomb here and I beg you to think with logic over desire, because isn't that what makes human beings stand out? Try looking beyond your own little lives and think of humanity as a whole and you will see my point, because in the end it WILL affect in your own little lives in the long run. It is not an attack on any individual, but I wish everyone in the world would realise it. Things are changing in this millennium and we have got to a set of crossroads. This goes to people trying IVF off the state and people who have large families and claim child benefit just because they can. There is no such thing as a free lunch. I would love for the world to become educated enough to see that personal population control is the way to go, but there are enough stupid people out there for me to know that’s not likely to ever happen.

It may sound cruel, but I don’t see the benefit in all these humanitarian missions like Darfur. The genocide there is a result of competition for resources (because of overpop). It’s a human tragedy, no doubt, but if you save these people, they’re just going to create a strain on resources somewhere else, and once that strain becomes too great, or one group becomes too jealous, genocide will result again. Bill Gates may provide mosquito netting to prevent malaria in Africa. If you prevent malaria, how many rain forests will these people cut down to feed themselves? How much food will we need to send to place like Kenya (the Maersk Alabama was bringing food to Kenya, right next door to Sudan. When the Earth wants to have fewer people on it, it finds a way to get rid of them. Plagues like the Black Death or the Spanish Flu during the 1920s eliminated millions of lives in heavily populated areas. Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, etc. cut down populations. The original point doesn’t sound so cruel after all. I honestly think we’re due for another pandemic of a sort. Just seems like developed countries have been living too clean lately. People have forgotten the past and are oblivious to the future.

It is not sustainable and what good is being politically correct and ensuring ALL freedoms if it will lead to the downfall of humanity? Curbing population growth through family planning must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming. Governments must reduce population growth by funding better family planning - even if it means shifting money from curing illness to increasing contraception and abortion, and reduce child benefit to just one child. Don’t get me wrong children are lovely and can enrich the lives of parents, but what is wrong with having a maximum of two children who will each receive a great portion of family resources not to mention that the planet has a biological load limit and I’m sure we have surpassed it already.? Voluntary human extinction movement take it a little far, but the ideal has it’s basis in everything that was discussed here.

Which leads to my next point…

"Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."

Democracy just plain doesn't work. And it will inevitably lead to tyranny. By employing democracy, it says that everybody has a say in who should lead the country. The problem is that this implies that everybody does know what’s best for the country and understands politics. My suggestion (as it would be apt to provide a solution albeit a rather simplistic one) is that qualified voting MUST be implemented whereby a person must qualify as intellectually apt in order to cast a vote. This, I know, is drastic but in order to combat this "apathy" as such, maybe such drastic measures are necessary. To end - I have to say that I believe in dictatorships as such where a bunch of qualified intellectuals run a country! But, in the real-world, I know this is impossible because of corruption and stuff but one can dream... The person that can't find "Russia (biggest country in the world)" but needs to find a way to find food and or money to feed his/her family should be able to vote because s/he knows his/her world and how government affects his/her wallet.

Democracy Is Fake When the Populace Consists of Ignorant Sheep Who Can Easily Be Manipulated By the Powers That Be. I like the idea of 'majority rules', except when the majority consists of un/misinformed pawns who have no touch with reality and are easily manipulated into believing virtually anything that could appear to further their personal interests. The majority should be considered, and forgive me for the term, 'retarded'. The powers that be are working only in their own interests to gain money, influence, and power over everything. They are not working for the majority, but pretend that they are, to the detriment of society. The world needs to be ruled by reason, and if people are too thick to understand reason, they can adhere to the concept under a similar whip under which they are currently facing. Eventually as their lives became better, I'd hope that they'd understand why it must be. I've had it with the bullshit. It's enough. I want reason to rule, at any cost. Bring on the philosopher. We need a dictator that has absolute power, yet cannot be corrupted.. maybe we need alien overlords or something. Some may say god will determine the outcome, but if that was the case we would go the same way as the Neanderthals. People are too ignorant, scared, and self-interested to be trusted with the vote, and the candidates are too ignorant, scared and self interested to be trusted to keep to their unrealistic promises, and once they get a taste of power it simply gets reinforced.

Both of these points are examples of short term whims which will inevitably lead to the downfall of humanity as we know it.
‘facts are stubborn things and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence’

john Adams 2nd US president. Argument in Defence of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials, but a quote that can be applied to many things.

A state of mind or a mind of the state?

2009-11-11T15:22:00.001-08:00

So you feel like renting a movie. After a slow drive to the video store in which you try to avoid the police from extorting you, you enter a video store with enough security cameras to see parts of you that you've never seen. You would rent some porno but today you'll be paying in credit card and you sure don't want that census taker knowing you've seen all 50 volumes of clamlappers. So instead you rent film 1984 based on the book with the same name. The zit face behind the counter scans your card and instantly your personal information and spending history is all over the internet. When you get back home you pop in the tape, you would have a joint, but the government has decided that pot isn't in your best interest. Neither is beer, cigarettes, fatty foods, caffeine, red meat, abortions, pornography, motorcycling, flag burning, sex in general or any of the other things you use to enjoy. You sit down to watch your movie and relax the rest of the night when storm trooper-like police bust down your door and carry you away. Seems renting 1984 set off an alarm in all local police computers and got you on the thought police's wanted list. You should know better then to oppose your government in any way, shape, or form. You would fight back but all those gun laws eventually equalled up to a ban on the second amendment. Sound like an impossible world? Sounds fictional? Watch it then take a look at the world around you. Your half way there. Enjoy what freedoms you have left before they're gone.

Countdown to extinction – The Orang-utan’s scorched earth

2009-05-21T14:56:00.001-07:00

I find the plight of these creatures rather upsetting, it really represents for me how devastating us humans are to the rest of the planet and how little we care as a species for all the wonderful things around us, even each other. If anything else was spreading and destroying as fast as we are we would kill it immediately and be talking about how terrible it is what this ‘thing’ is doing. People see the holocaust as one of the lowest moments in the history of humanity but this is far worse. More humans get added to this overcrowding world each year than the total number of people killed in WW2, yet for some reason it is fine to kill off our closest cousin.

I saw program called Orang-utan Diaries, with one of my favourite ladies on TV, Michaela Strachen, who went into the jungle and found a baby orang-utan tied to a tree where poachers had killed the mother and left the baby there. It affected me so much when I saw what members of our so called intelligent species had done. This was not an isolated incident, Michaela was crying, it was so tragic and still haunts me to this day to the point where I have recurring dreams about Borneo and its plight.

I can’t watch wildlife programs like these anymore for the fear of the depressing, yet familiar line about shrinking habitats and how many more years are left before they are gone for good. I do support charities and make donations from time to time, but is throwing money really enough? It is ironic that this shows the very best of what humans are capable of in terms of compassion, but only due to the acts of the very worst. It is as though like WW2, the sight tragedy forces us to reflect and raise the moralistic core within some of us.

Like ever sane human I do not want to die or commit genocide, but to be frank, if 90% of us were wiped out (which could be likely in the future due to lack of resources and exploding overpopulation), it would be the best thing to happen to mother earth for a very long time. Of course I don’t want to be in that 90% nor my closest friends and family but, the fact is, without trying to sound narcissist or self indulgent, I do possess a certain mindset or mental model as a result of my upbringing, which I share with my family and friends. I am proud it, and just wish more people would be aware of the things that really matter rather than be lost of their day to day grind.

Thinking takes effort, and yes you have to take the rough with the smooth, but as a person it can really mould you. They say that people with Asperger’s and Autism are more drawn towards animals and also the physical world more than other people, but I don’t think that matters here. Logical, rational thought on a deep level, combined with compassion is something anyone could potentially practice. You don’t need the IQ of a Nobel prize winner to appreciate subtle beauty and put two and two together.

I think people over a certain cognitive age of development should not automatically be free to every right at their disposal. On a moral level people should have to earn their human rights, and be able to lose them, and not have them handed to them on a plate, expecting the world to do everything for them. The mentality which implies you can behave and act as you wish at the expense of others as a birthright (fellow humans or animals), and still be entitled to the same basic things as someone who shows a positive contribution to society and the world. But please don’t think I am implying everyone should do at least ten hours of community service a week or else they are not allowed to eat! We need a change in lifestyle that’s all, sounds simple but in reality it isnt.

The bottom line is, humanity stinks (with the exception of only rare moments of brilliance). The majority excretes vulgarity, blind over consumption, and arrogance. The ignorant and sickening selfishness driven by being set in our ways is beyond that of any other creature known. We claim to be intelligent and superior and that we own this world, not simply the lease holders, but we carry out acts with such cold hearted, primitive and myopic intent. There are animals that kill, although for mere survival with just the R-complex and limbic system to rely on for their judgement.

Our tendency to resort to over indulgence, so easily corrupted by power and greed, is certainly not a sign of intelligence. If we were indeed placed upon this rock by some all powerful being(s) as an experiment to see how an intelligent species would fare in such a material environment, we have certainly failed, or at least on the brink. If there was an all loving god, where is this mysterious entity now to prevent such acts of evil? The truth is, we have to rely upon ourselves, and what we do, not merely by what we just believe or hope. A man is defined by his actions (as Kuato said on total recall!) which means it is up to us as a collective force to make the difference. If this does not happen things are only going to get worse.

Otherwise may the younger generation inheriting the smouldering, war-torn, polluted, and chaotic world potentially left in the wake of this civilization have the intellectual courage, integrity, creativity and strength to tolerate the insanity and absurdity of this awful culture and bring about actual change where we have failed, if they ever survive themselves. Our culture’s addiction to systemic violence, industrial capitalism and environmental exploitation, as evidenced by the current epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations, seems to be heading in only one direction.

I am not a Marxist, or a complete anti-capitalist, (as it works fine in some industries), or even a raving vegan shouting ‘peace man’ at every given moment, I work for a private company which is there to make profit, I eat meat and ride a motorcycle. Despite this I have come to the conclusion that there is no room in a capitalistic culture (especially on a global scale) for a conscience or logic, and it is all about consuming more and more faster and faster until nothing is left, and then blind panic tightens its grip, and everyone loses out apart from the absolute minority that benefited the most in the first place, another shining example being the financial crisis.

This is especially the case in terms of draining resources, exploiting workers, creating a brainwashed cultural mindset, and of course the destruction of habitat. Humanity effectively has three future paths to follow: 1) Globally each and every one of us change our attitudes and show more moral restraint in our lives, 2) The state(s) or some other kind of enforcement will have to become ruthless at tremendous human cost or 3) Mother nature will eventually fight back, via Darwinian means. I know which one could be the most desirable for us and other life forms on this planet to prosper and have a future, yet the chances of that happening is rather slim.

Back to the original topic, the senseless direction and complete lack of respect and compassion shown by faceless corporate bodies who will not be satisfied until they have reduced Borneo (not to mention the rest of the world) to a lifeless monoculture of plantation. The thought of this just reduces me to a state of turmoil, trying to comprehend why people behave this way, especially if they have children of their own, I mean what sort of world would they have to live due to the acts of their ancestors? Is a short term profit worth the eradication of so many precious species and ecological process that are vital to the wellbeing of the whole global biome?

Wherever you look, man is destroying every beautiful animal and habitat on this planet. Gandhi said you judge a country by the way it treats its animals. When it is all over, and we have wiped out every threatened species, I hope we will feel it was all worthwhile and live like kings for millennia. I have donated money because I felt so helpless and had to do something, but what about these big companies who are destroying all these habitats for ridiculous sums of money, and why is every government in the world so silent? We are not militant enough, and the end is nigh. I never donate to world aid charities because I don’t see them to be important enough and their priorities are wrong. Does that make me cold hearted? Maybe to some people, but personally I think that with a population of 6.8 billion already (and predicted to reach 9 billion in only a few decades), there are other charities out there with much more urgent needs.

It should be obvious that the benefits of protection are more sustainable long term than total destruction; once its you cannot re-grow a whole eco system overnight. Why do they not protect their own country? It is such a shame, a downright tragedy that deforestation will not only threaten their existence and that of others, not to mention that the area will lose a lot of stable, long term commercial success through medicines, eco tourism, and sustainable produce. It is so short sighted to allow this destruction and the governments should clamp down hard on poachers/illegal loggers – take their homes away, or banish their over inflated families to the mainland or a place very far away.

Where orang-utans are concerned it will be one more significant and high profile extinction amongst many we are responsible for, whales came so close, - we are never happy with killing own species so we need to make things as hard as possible for every other. Unless we really all pull together it will not only be those poor little apes of the forest which disappear, due to overpopulation and out of control breeding, as a result of over consumption of so many resources in such little time.

Put simply, we face catastrophe. In order for deforestation to lessen worldwide, and for people to realise what they are doing, we must educate those who put so many in danger and don’t realise the implications of an unsustainable population boom, because they need food and money to live. Traditionally t is always the poorest people who are exploited and forced to cut down tress for the mindless consumerist wants of the richest, and it always the poorest people who have the most number of children due to unavailable family planning or education.

We seem to have this complete obsession with absolute freedom at all costs, the right to do anything we please during our mundane day to day grind. We need to fill that empty void with a drive to better ourselves rather than filling it with over consumption.

I am no child hater, quite the opposite I have a gorgeous nephew and niece, but surely having less children per couple would mean as well that each potential child would in effect have a better quality of life, being able to have a larger proportion of what is available? And surely living within your means and being less dependant on materialistic endeavour would be more fulfilling in terms of making the most of living your life? I don’t know, maybe you do need a certain mindset or wiring of the brain to appreciate the real depths of what this little, yet extraordinary world is all about, spiritually and physically. I fear for the future generations, yes produce as many as you wish, but that will only mean there will be more souls to potentially endure this future scorched earth.

The more I see of humankind, the more I am in love with my pet spider called Sammy.

mental freedom

2009-05-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

Aspergers is not itself a mental illness, just a different way of looking at the world. The only problem is the differences in priorities, which can conflict with the other end of the human spectrum.

We are afraid of what is different. We are a culture that is afraid of change, yet seek it so badly. We are a society of hypocrites, androids, and ignorants. We thrive on the fact that we are the best country in the world, yet somebody shows any disassociation of routine, we are the first to question and get angry.

Generations past were a free-spirited, mind challenging culture that explored all possibilities no matter the cost. The experience was all they needed as a reward. Now, we are more concerned about money and the family-plan that we sometimes place ourselves on the backburner to life. Wake, eat, and pay the bills. What a sad daily structure that we have. Is it any wonder that ‘mental illness’ is more apparent, and that any differences to the norm get frowned upon so much?

These are the choices that we chose to make, and for anyone to say that they cannot do it, I would have to challenge. You CAN do anything, it is whether you chose to do it is another question. I wonder what it will be like in another 30 years. Where will we be, and will the idea of individualism be lost? I can’t wait to see …

The negative side of freedom … hatred and fear of the unknown or unfamiliar. We bomb a country because they do not follow the same principles that we do, it is no different to judging an individual because they dont think or act that we do.

Moral dilemma follows, the underlying message of individual freedom and nonconformity. Self-enslavement is a popular past-time for today’s culture, anything different is considered a condition or an illness. If this attitude gets worse, like a bunch of fools, we are doomed as the civilisation we are familiar with. This a powerful philosophy we are dealing with here, and I dont mean to sound pretentious, but this is an issue that I an deeply passionate about.

Alot of mental issues are born from people who are unsure of their own place in the world, due to the reasons I have mentioned before, why should they be blamed or ridiculed for it? Why are people not so willing to believe in the goodness of others and give them a chance before judging them instead of labelling them as simply ‘annoying’? Am I wrong in assuming the never-ending intolerance of a conservative society that does not accept the changing and evolution of thought mean that we are chasing after something that doesn’t even need to exist.

my baby is bleeding

2009-05-01T14:12:00.001-07:00

Went to change the oil last week in my Triumph, all going well, put the sump nut in tighten up as usual, then pour the new oil in.

All seems well until I notice that it is dripping, maybe I didnt tighten it enough, seems a bit loose, better tighten it a bit more.

*CRACK* the sump pan splits. Oh shit I forgot to install the crushable washer. Bollocks.

30 quids worth of oil dumped into the road and 210 quid for a new sump pan and gasket...expensive mistake! I have changed the oil dozens of times in the past, mind on other things.....!?

questions

2009-04-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

I often ponder on the fate of mankind, I am pretty sure of the direction it is heading, but it really doesnt have to. Does my limited theory of mind capability cause my frustration, or is it because of my logical nature? At first glance the answers may seem obvious. But is it really that simple? I suspect it takes more than just a simple answer.

Why do fear and evil appear to be made for each other, and does all fear stem from being unable or unwilling to understand?

Is dependance as a result of ignorance the product of a consumerist society?

Why is emotion and reason so conflicting, surely opposites attract?

Are alot of people too lazy to think or are they just too scared?

How far will the desire for materialistic gain go before it is too late?

What is worse, a fear of living or a fear of dying?

Why does society in general value short term gain over long term goals?

Is hardship the only way to enforce perspective?

Could fascism potentially secure the future of mankind as a thriving species if morality was viewed from a perspective beyond the lifetime of a mere individual? If not, why not?

Why is communism so brilliant on paper yet so bad in practice?

Is democracy really as good as it sounds, surely it fuels a web of lies and deceit?

Do creativity and conformity directly oppose each other?

If current and past political models do not work as effectively as they should, why hasnt one been developed that does?

Is it mortality that results in selfish thinking, and will this actually aid the downfall of civilisation?

Personality aside, what really defines an act of evil? Intention? Outcome?

Its official

2009-04-11T02:37:00.000-07:00

After months of questioning, doubting, over analyzing, thinking every possibility it was finally spelled out to me in black and white by a professional. I have Aspergers Syndrome. They even asked me how I felt when they said it, bit of a silly question to ask an aspie really, but I simply said 'relieved'.

Not so much a desperation for having a label but more just finding a reason. I do not like to accept situations for how they are, I need to know how and/or why. Even my parents have fully accepted it, which I must say is the biggest relief of all.

I have been virtually convinced that I have AS for roughly a year now, but being told has made me rather philosophical, as it wasnt really a shock out of the blue. Time to stop being all emo with all that angst and self pity, and to start the real journey of self discovery.

The Power of Mozart

2009-03-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

Something about his music just hits the spot. When I am feeling confused, low, angry, or even happy, I can play mozart and hear/experience purity, perfection and youth. His cheeky knack at finding that hysterical sweet spot within his compositions can bring a tear to the eye. Mozart’s means of expression is precisely as ‘simple’ and as ‘complicated’ as are emotions, it explores every avenue, until every possibility appears to have been exhausted, but then you realise the possibilities are endless. Exploring loneliness and affection mixed with a dreamy sense of fun.

His music provides comfort, warmth, and mental enrichment. This is possibly due to such a broad mix of tonality, and a stylish sequencing of notes that would provide a form of musical witticism which could only have been concieved by a bombastic genius, exposing your inner child that never wants to disappear. Light and fluffy on the outside, multi layered complexity underneath, which pulls one by the ears to the depths of hell and the loftiest clouds of heaven.
Whether it is eine kleine nachtmusik (personal favourite), the marriage of figaro, or symphony No 40, it has the effect of an addictive drug, I will get withdrawal symptoms, crave it and when I expose my ears to his creation again it raises my conciousness to another level, providing the perfect escape leaving my mind refreshed. I can physically freeze, having to put all my energy into absorbing this aural feast and feel all the better for it. I can play a single track over and over again without getting bored of it, focusing each time on the different layers of thought that went into its creation.

As much as I love various musical genres such as heavy metal, blues, jazz, prog rock, new age, reggae and various other classical composers, mozart has to be the most timeless of all the artists. If Beethoven is the soul of classical music, Bach being the backbone, mozart is most certainly the face, being able to communicate on so many levels with just a single piece (that sounds ironic coming from me as I am not very good at reading faces!). Sensory sensitivity has its advantages!

Typical monday morning

2009-03-16T05:35:00.000-07:00

hmm what do I do today? what was I going to do today? did I lock the back door? did I remember to make my lunch? oh no im 2 minutes late for work, PANIC! Oh damn I forgot to brush my teeth. Oh shit, I have to say im very well when I walk into the office when infact I feel like crud. I have loads to do at work, where do I start? Oh shit I was meant to put the backup tape in on friday, *gets a telling off from his manager*. Stop fidgeting during a meeting says my manager... hmm did I remember to take my pills this morning...I cant remember. adrenaline levels rising (someone keeps coughing randomly and VERY loudly.. becoming unbearable...server whizzing away, drilling into my soul. Reaching breaking point....time to go home, darn someone is in the bathroom, I always have my bath as soon as I get home! grrrrrrr *bangs on bathroom door...OI HURRY UP I NEED MY BATH! Oh and now someone is using the microwave, I always have my dinner at 6 o clock. GRRR *takes out whatever is cooking in the microwave and puts his own food in there* Oh what now? someone has sent me a text asking if I fancy a drink tonight? Get stuffed you should have asked me last week so I can mentally prepare...!

Is someone talking to me? Im watching this documentary about the death of the universe, stop bothering me! Program is over, I ask what they wanted (40 mins later), im told to stop being so selfish, not sure what they mean so I lose my temper, throw a cup of coffee across the room and storm off. I put on a led zeppelin song, listen to it over and over again while surfing the net. Oh shit! its time for bed, it is 11.59 and 30 seconds... better take my pills, brush my teeth, go toilet. hmm did I just take my pills? I cant remember, better take em again incase I forgot I dont want a brainstorm in the middle of the night.

Same again tomorrow!

A walking contradiction

2009-03-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

I will just go out and say it, I love playing lego, watching thomas the tank engine, making strange gurgling noises, making up strange new words, making strange bodily movements including laying on the floor the wriggling about, playing my musical instruments, making totally irrelevent comments that only I understand but annoy people. Im no different to my 5 year old nephew then (his personality is worrying similar to mine, and I hate to say it but I hope he never changes!).

But then I could spend a whole evening calculating intake velocity, piston speed, and other meaningless bits and pieces regarding my motorcycle, or maybe spend a whole evening listening to a BB king song over and over again.

Having said that I always worry about the future of this planet, the decling morals of society, the ignornace and bigotry displayed across the population, the global financial crisis, work issues and any slight issue during the day that might cause any kind of stress.

I seem only able relate to kids under ten or people twice my age, with one exception, for different reasons. I dont feel too nervous around them and things flow so much easier. Probably because young kids are honest, innocent and curious, not to mention silly! Older people tend to have more wisdom. I seem to have inherited the best and worst aspects of the extreme ends of the mental lifespan, but to be honest I am not one to judge whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

The tired phrase 'act your age' is so overrated! What am I then? A normal 25 year old man, someone who over-uses logic to attempt to steer through life, someone who has a mental age of a 5 year old, a bitter old man who should get over it, or maybe, just maybe someone who is all of these. No wonder I just end up fighting myself most of the time, just for a sense of identity. Not many people have seen all the sides of my personality, most have seen parts of it more than often the negative parts are the surface, the positive parts on the inside. It takes a certain someone to be able to see that inner part, and an even more special someone to appreciate it. Who knows if anyone else will be able to see it apart from my immediate family and a friend ive known for a long time. I am definately not a person who someone can warm to initially, partly for reasons I cannot control, but I guess the goal is learn how to 'fake' the initiation somehow to provide some kind of tunnel into the real part. I cant even imagine how I must seem to people who dont have this tunnel vision. It cant be pretty.

Social Anxiety (Finally making sense)

2009-02-22T14:14:00.000-08:00

Would I be correct in assuming that social anxiety for most aspies isnt just a vanity issue or a fear of being ridiculed, but more of a fear of the unknown, as to us, reading new people and coming to terms with a new personality is like learning a brand new skill for each person, and the number of skills one mortal being can have is not infinate? From what I have read I believe fear of the unknown is very much enhanced for people with Aspergers Syndrome which may be an executive functioning/weak centeral coherence issue, which is why we like routines and order, hate random noise, and have special predictable interests. This is just another example of it.

I have known a friend all my life and I not nervous around him, we hardly even say hello to each other it is just straight into the topic of choice! I am lucky in a sense that he has a few autistic-like traits minus the inability to interact with people, for example special interests, empathy issues, needing space, self absorbed etc so he isnt too bothered about my weirdness, as he is 'outside the box' too (which is a compliment).

With alot of people I come across I seem to make enemies without even doing or saying anything. I think this adds to the anxiety as well, and can lead to self doubt, as I would always wonder what the hell it is about me that just scares people off. Through intellectualizing the process due to recent aquired knowledge, the answer to this is blinkingly obvious.

People who I dont see regularly, and strangers (this can even include family members) make me incredibly nervous, and this has been the case as far as my memory allows. In my childhood I saw virtually all of my extended family at least once a fortnight, obviously at school the teachers and kids are seen every day, so this problem would not be apparent back then, but as people move on and go their seperate ways, and as the social web becomes more complicated, the problems start to surface.

At least with people who see me regularly I am guessing that they know what to expect from me and vice versa. I am nervous when I am looked at not because I think they are looking down on me because of my appearence, (which I previously thought a few years ago as that was all I could think of, but it isnt the issue now especially as my conciousness has been raised towards Aspergers Syndrome) but more the fact I am just unable to react properly with my face and eyes for that particular person, or quick enough, and even worse react to their counter reaction etc and then it ends up in a big mess, and leaves me thinking as though 'thats another person ive blown it with'. Failing for so long to realise every person has their unique subtlety when communicating their personality will lead to confusion and as a result of this ongoing set of events, social anxiety tightens the grip. The long held belief/assumption that everyone thinks like I do has been proved to be incorrect.

The way I have interacted with people, sometimes not being too friendly because I havent understood the way I was supposed to communicate effectively with them and they didnt understand that I didnt understand so due to this situation occuring many times in my life, it has had a big influence on me. Now I have realised it is the shape of my face and the way I move my body that makes all the difference. A far cry of assuming people are weird because they move around in a funny way, which appeared different depending on the person.

Social tasks most people take for granted are difficult and take up excessive amounts of time during complex social situations. It is as though I have several small excessively positive and negative characteristics all bundled together in such a way to produce, well, me.

This is different to generalised social phobia as I am not scared of talking to people, it usually just depends on how often I see that person, the place, my train of thought, the time and atmosphere (noises, distractions etc) at the time of communication, plus the amount of pre rehearsed phrases and rote behaviour I have prepared in advance to sustain an ongoing interaction. If any of these factors are weakened, the anxiety is more intense leading to chain reaction which can result in mental exhaustion and a need to withdraw. At least with my friend withdrawal isnt necessary, complete silence for a while doesnt bother either of us, as far as I know.

I think this conclusion at least for me, destroys the possibility of avoidant personality disorder because although social anxiety is the prime subject, it is aquired through different means and is not always present, although obviously it is there often enough to sometimes become unbearable. Probably repeating what ive said on previous blogs, but it helps reinforce my assumption.

Shoot me before I go too emo

2009-02-08T05:49:00.000-08:00

Everyone ive ever known has been in at least one relationship. How the hell do I go about it, what will my life end up as, am I going to end up as a lonely bitter old man and just rot away as some corpse in his bed left undiscovered for months smelling like a sewer with maggots infesting my decaying corpse? Im not very smart emotionally or socially but I have morals, I know what is right and wrong, and I would never hurt anyone who has no mallicious intentions. As much as I like the 'rational thought' of the physical world, sometimes I wish I could just start my life over again as a NT.

Because people are judged by what they look or sound like the usual 'this person doesn't sound too educated/intelligent' crops up. Im not made to sound intelligent, i'm made to think, its a different intelligence to be able to express intelligence.

But I believe I dont seem smart, but the honesty is in with the fact that I do think like that, and I wish not to anymore, because its just infinite regression...being unable to relate to others with any degree of depth and insight doesn't make me any happier either. Regression is relied upon too much as an ineffective coping measure, but due to habituation it sadly perseveres as a method.

Greater awareness that comes with my way of thinking has exposed me to problems most others don't even know about (mostly philosophical, some contemporary - such as environment) Is it my responsibility to solve those problems, or at least try to? Because otherwise these problems will be left for those who don't even understand them! Voicing these concerns is usually replied by 'you think too much' and although I am too smart for my own good, im also not smart ENOUGH to do anything about it. Imagine leaving issues like global warming to idiots who think the scientists of the future will solve them akin to raping mother earth and giving her the equivilent to AIDS.

Western society doesnt seem to nurture intelligent/different children adults in the same way it dotes over atheletes, sports figures or other mainstream pursuits. School exams are becoming easier, people can just appear on reality TV shows and become instant celebreties with all the frills, sports prima donnas get paid millions for kicking a ball around a field, and greedy bankers get paid billions in bonuses despite crippling the country. We have the odd personality now and again such as Frank Whittle, Einstein, Charles Darwin or Carl Sagan, but even they had to do what they did mostly off their own back and fight to be accepted, appreciated and understood. I am not implying that I am in the same league as those individuals by any means but it is just an example. The mass desire for weath accumulation and greed is the root cause for most mental problems, alcoholism and other related issues, even if the individual affected has no desire for greed or power themselves, the by product from society will always filter down to them. It is no wonder there are so many outsiders with so much potential left standing still, not being able to decide what they want to do or become. Is it any wonder humanity, lacking a true philosophical insight, is on the verge of going backwards? Am I just a marxist in disguise?

Social misfits are seen as losers with no life, and should make more of an effort. That is a nasty, ignorant prejudice because it isnt my primary choice to be this way. It is a like the reverse of asking Forrest Gump, who isnt too bad socially to explain the general theory of relativity. Personally I just cant stop thinking, my brain never wants to switch off, whatever it may be doing. If I have issues with myself I cannot abandon it until the problem is solved, the fear is what if it is never solved? I am hoping us 'geeks' are becoming more accepted in the 21st century, and I hope the media propoganda that tells people to hate and be fearful of nerds, people with mental problems, and people who are different and misunderstood, becomes less potent. Alot of people follow the common group like pack hunters, why cant they form their own real opinions without just agreeing with everyone else? Especially when it is at other people's expense.

Why do people turn their noses up to others who are a bit knowledgable about cetain subjects? Are they fearful, jealous or dont they understand in the first place? To me it is no different to being racist. Is it any wonder people who are different in some shape or form end up feeling rather bitter and low in mood. I know my social intelligence has not developed as fast as my raw intelligence, if anything it hasnt really moved on since I was 10 years old. Is it this gap that makes me feel lost, which gives the impression of me just sleepwalking through life?

I am naturally aware of so much, yet blind to so much as well. It is the inner struggle and the vein attempt to bridge that gap. What if you can think about the future in probability terms, knowing exactly which option is less risky?
It’s not always an advantage: Fear can overtake you easily when you see people acting as if they were blind but without a stick!.

I believe myself as a rational thinker, but when it comes to my inner problems are my thoughts rational? I really cant tell, without knowing what goes on in other people's minds, as something to compare myself to. I am aware of many theories WHY I am like this (which could be AS, personality disorder, genetic makeup, life experiences, nurture etc). But piecing together HOW that has come about is like smashing my head against a brick wall. I cannot just leave it and accept I am 'how god made me' I have to know exactly why and how, there is never an easy answer for anything I experience I always believe there is something more than I can see, whether it is reading from a text book, trying to read a face, or playing a piece of music. Is this perfectionism, or a way of doubting myself when I think I dont understand something? In reality I understand it fully, but always think there is a catch, something else to it, resulting in a fragmented and confused persona, influencing other people's perception of me.

Waiting for nearly a year to go and see that specialist team really doesnt help matters either! Many simple issues combined creates a complex maze for my brain to try and find its way through, the term ignorance is bliss, whatever the subject might be, fills me with rage. Is it any wonder people use alcohol to slow these thought processes down to create a physical and as a by product, a psychological illusion of preventing a potential implosion? I say illusion because in reality although the complex web as a wholeis less obvious when under the influence, single aspects from that web that appear at random become all the more apparent, and a slippery slope is inevitable.

In reality im unhappy with the way things are at the moment. Many times ive heard the phrase do something about it, if only it was that simple. If I really havent got a clue how to go about it, as a result dont know exactly what I want. Is there a neurological reason for this, (executive function, AS, attention defecit problems) or a psychological reason (anxiety etc), or maybe both? The click of a finger really isnt going to work. Of course im being emo here, and over thinking the issue, other people have it alot worse, but this is a psychological thing that slowly eats away. It is a bit like a orangutan trying to survive in a disappearing jungle which eventually turns into a desert.

Yes I am on a journey of self discovery, but I am beginning to believe that alone isnt enough. I dislike the modern way of living and modern society. Excessive mental solitude provokes excessive thought, this current mindset is the end result.

The sad truth is that alot of the time 'being myself' alienates me even further. The broad issue is something beyond my control, and the 'answer' is dicovering the best way to try and adapt to it, but I think this adaption really does require a bit of external wisdom, not just spiritually, but also practical skills to go about things better. Because at the end of the day you cant fly a fighter plane perfectly first time if you havent been shown how (in terms of more effective coping measures that are related to AS). Ive spent far too long trying to figure things out on my own, I dont want to go any further due to the fear of creating a delusional perception of myself and other people. My opinions about society are very generalised, but are based on the information I have recieved through my life so far. I guess the lack of theory of mind, non verbal perception of others and empathy really do hamper things.

Not to mention the fact I wish there were more people on my level, especially women. Dont get me wrong online forums are a great way of exchanging thoughts, but to know people in person is another thing altogether. I am beginning to know who and what I am (sense of self) which has solved a past issue of knowing why things have come about, but in reality this has actually created a whole new issue. I know what I am, but how the hell do I expand this beyond my own cranium?! Other people seem to find it so easy, but then in the future will I have to bring my personal level down to something like awkward small talk and flutter my eye lashes, just to get noticed? I guess I am an idealist, creating a fantasy of wanting to meet the perfect person and live happy ever after.

So many people tell others what they want to hear, agreeing with them to please them, fearful of being their real self in case of rejection. You are not allowed to say this, do that, know about this or that, etc. I guess the point im trying to make is there is no way to win, and some people are destined, due to certain brain wiring in a certain environment, to be in limbo, ie if social/emotional and raw intelligence within a given individual are at opposite poles, there will always be struggle, despite being fully aware of this.

Are you what you think, or what you feel? or is it both? If it is both I have a severe problem because they are on different levels of efficiency for me. Is worrying at the expense of happiness inevitable for self aware logical thinkers who lack sophisticated emotional and social skills? I cannot 'feel' my way out of this hole like alot of people might do, I have to physically climb out of it, using a well structured technique. I could spend my whole life developing this technique, or I could be shown the technique and adapt it to suit my own needs.

One could sit there and hope to be lifted out of the hole if they shout for help, but what if nobody in close enough proximity can hear you, or understand what you are trying to say?

Incase anyone reading this blog is wondering what on earth im venting about, the following points regarding modern society cover the sources of my main issues:

* People who resort to ignorance and/or defy logic/wisdom before making an assumption.
* People who see excessive materialistic gain as their only goal in life.
* The stereotyping and purging of people who do not follow mainstream views.
* People who play off fear and use their power at the expense of others, for example religious preaching, egoism, bigotry and capitalism.
* People who are in denial about any of their shortcomings, especially when they hide it at the expense of others.
* People who 'judge a book by its cover' without even reading the introduction.
* People who are complacent and mentally lazy and do not make an attempt to understand or accept.

To branch off from my own personal problems and to move towards a more general viewpoin, it is logical to assume that the majority of people's problems do stem from the above in some shape or form. Of course it is an ambiguous list, but I believe it does cover all that is negative about modern society, although please dont think I am promoting liberal-esque political correctness here as I am not referring to undesirable comments made on TV by opinionated individuals, but more like ongoing actions lacking decorum that impact on other people's lives in a negative way.

So much energy is directed towards the image of the exterior of any given train of thought that we have become blind to what it is made of, whether it is society as a whole, individual human beings, or the planet we live on. If it looks 'right' then brilliant we will accept with open arms, and vice versa. That seems to be the attitude of human nature, and I am sick and tired of it. If we are living on borrowed time, maybe we need some kind of event to bring out the best of us, we seem to be too comfortable with our current mindset and way of life.

My mannerisms and reduced ability to interact socially/empathise in the usual way may have influenced my judgement, but everyone should be allowed to think and act how they like without living in fear of being ridiculed, or at the expense of other people. If I want to be 'weird' in the eyes of others (in other words be myself) why is that seen as negative, resulting in isolation and being shunned? Shouldnt we embrace individual and independant thought with open arms?

Also, my views against religion are strong, but I would never dictate to somebody how to live their life, unless that way of life was at the expense of others, for example when religion is brought into politics or used as an excuse to inflict harm. I agree with alot of the religious philosophy, minus anything that defies science. Love thy neighbour is a beautiful phrase, but it should be used in a logical context, in reality religion is more about psychology than physical fact, and I can see its appeal. If people could combine the best of both, and discard the outdated aspects like blind faith towards something that cannot be proved, (ie instead of convincing oneself that there is an imaginary being called god who has control over everything, use it as a metaphor for your own personal vision) the world would be a better place, we could understand more about each other from a physical and emotional/spiritual point of view, both being important to humanity's future, rather than sticking to rigid traditional writings when people were ignorant about science. I for one would rather shoot for philosophical wealth rather than materialistic. Knowledge is power, but I guess it is wishful thinking to believe that society would change for the better overnight. This blog does cover a few issues, and a result may appear slightly lacking in direction, but in terms of my own thoughts, and society as a whole, maybe that is exactly the point, a lack of direction.

Misunderstandings and social anxiety

2009-02-01T04:29:00.000-08:00

Part of my social anxiety and being clueless when it involves people revolves around the follwing question: is it worth trying to relate or communicate when all that effort put towards stringing a sentence together is probably all for nothing? Not to mention the fear of the unknown, as unpredictability is virtually a dead cert when it comes to non verbal cues because people are not thinking the same thing as you or me (something I was totally oblivious to until a few months ago) but now being conciously aware of this, it sometimes makes the anxiety worse! I somtimes have the desire to live in denial and accept the consequences. Not so discouraging if I see a person regularly, the minefield is a little easier to pass through, but still laborious.

I believe the AS experts misunderstand as well (based on what i've seen, this opinion may change of course). An example is the tests where you look at photographs of people and/or their faces and/or their eyes and have a multiple choice of emotions to estimate what each person could be experiencing.

Complete tripe, in real life only a short glimpse of someone's facial expression is available, or even more demanding multiple facial expressions, on top of absoring the conversation and having to prepare your own response. It is a bit like having to process mental arithmatic at the same time as having a torch shining in your face, at the same time as stringing a potential conversation together. Unless you are a savant, mental arithmatic is seldom done *that* quickly.

Of course some sums are easier to work out than others. If you compare 100 x 2 to a smiling face, and 237 x 37.238 to a confused face, both can be worked out but obviously at different speeds, causing instability to the recepricol exchange. A smiley face can be picked up and put on almost instantly, to realise someone is confused may be totally bypassed. But stare at the confused face for a while and it will become clear in the end, but at that time the person may have called the police!

I may be wrong, the test procedures may be more sophisticated, and what I have said is based on what people have told me. My point is even informed people, if they dont have it wont have a clue what it is really like.

My reason for this thread is my recent meeting with my manager (who I informed that I have AS months ago) when he told me my body language was inappropiate in a meeting in a small room full of 20 strangers. He said that if I am ok in a small meeting with people I see every day then I should act the same in the meeting in a room...oh I just give up! Basically my point is if the other individual has not experienced it first hand then misunderstandings are inevitable.

The reason I was pissed off is because it is an insult to my intelligence. I am just as smart as him, probably even more, but he has a social knack with people either getting on with them or influencing them. My colleagues just said it is his indirect way of making sure we know who is boss and uses any situation as an excuse to impose, and everyone has had their fair share of it.

I have accepted this but it has highlighted how many times situations like this have happened in the past. I just get the impression that he sees me as someone who is simple with very little grey matter who can be manipulated at will. But then who can blame him when my verbal communication with him can be compared to that of an 11 year old. Then again that train of thought might be me resorting back to paranoia and assuming the worst from people I dont understand. It is a constant mental war of attrition! I am not as bad as I used to be but other people just act as a catalyst.

Having said that, just because AS is one of my primary topics of thought, doesnt mean it will be the same for him, and if I didnt make my point about the condition in the first place then how will someone even attempt to understand? I guess it is a two way scramble of communication, I havent got a clue how a NT subconciously reads people so how can I judge them for not understanding when they have something that is second nature? It is not as easy as pretending to be blind just by shutting your eyes. Think ill stop for breath, will add more to this in the near future when im in a better frame of mind.

The truth is I HATED being alone all the time when I was younger, but was socially oblivious, only wrapped up in my thoughts, not being able to ‘figure people out’. People made no sense to me and were entirely unpredictable, yet I longed to be normal. I spent long hours in bed at night thinking about my interests, but couldn’t find any way to make myself say hi to anybody. Then as time progressed I got more and more frustrated at my family and associates' inability to think as I thought, and my inability to act unreasonable as everyone else appeared to do.

the dreaded word

2008-12-17T08:25:00.001-08:00

I don’t think I have ever told members of my family that I love them; I have never hugged anyone and felt comfortable about it, and I have never been in love with a woman. The reason is I don’t really know what it means or what it really entails. Of course I can consciously think of an explanation, such as to care about someone or a mutual attraction but why say something I don’t really understand? How am I supposed to act and what am I supposed to receive in return? The only two things I can think of are doing things for each other such as favours, and sharing common interests, but then that could apply to the average acquaintance.

I am 25 years old; I have never had a girlfriend as sad as it sounds to the NT. One could accuse me of being asexual or even homosexual, which is far from the truth. I have my fair share of lustful urges towards women like any other heterosexual man. I have had my fair of opportunities, I have talked to women and not got very far, a conversation would last about a minute and then the awkward silence would hit with a vengeance.

Of course you cannot miss something you have never had, but I would really like to know what I am missing, as everyone seems to base their whole life, decisions and cognition over it. As much as my life is based around routine and my interests, I do often ponder over what I could have, whether I am really human.

Of course I have emotions, but I am barely in touch with them or what they really are. It is a human desire to attract a mate/companion. I often picture my ideal companion as being exactly like me, just in female form, due to the fact I am unable to comprehend or appreciate any other way of thinking. This was and still is my perfect partner, as unrealistic as this, because perfection is impossible.

The word love and the concept in general scares me, it sends a shiver down my spine, to tell someone I love them is no more painful than trying to look someone in the eye whilst maintaining a conversation. Challenges and situations I have heard of in relationships are very scary, something I don’t think I could ever cope with, the fact that two people with mutual interests don’t get along, it goes against my beliefs, despite the contrary being true even in my own experiences.

I am not some cold inhuman robot who is about as charismatic as a cactus, I am eccentric, geekish, loyal, and very rational. There is just this invisible barrier, like a social exoskeleton, all scaled on the outside, but rather warm and soft on the inside. How is anyone meant to know if this sort of person is suitable for them if they cannot even see it?

I remember several times I have talked to girls, usually at a pub, they have approach me, for some reason I get bored with what they have to say, then afterwards when excuses have been made, I could spent a while just looking at them, this may seem very odd, but all I try to do is consciously work out their face, because I struggled so much to do it all at the same time when I had my opportunity. If I did this before the conversation ‘the eyeing up routine’ she would have probably slapped me or called the police!

Ive never approached a lady, call it shyness if you wish but if I dont have a clue what to say, dont have a clue as to who is interested and who isnt, and end up being overwhelmed by this scanning procedure, who can blame me for not trying? I could always go to everyone I see, either ask a corny catchphrase such as 'hi, where have you been all my life?' attempt to chat about the weather (which makes me feel dirty and just feels forced), or go straight in there and dictate facts about the general theory of relativity. None of those scenarios would logically work.

I know the feelings of attraction and longing, but it is always too late before I am really aware of them. I have passed the lust/shutdown/meltdown stage and life has moved on before I am aware of them.

With all these difficulties is it worth the extra mental effort to find out what love is? I guess family love can be shown in many different ways such as doing practical things for each other, but when it comes to attracting a mate, I am clueless. And if I ever did start a relationship, that demanding 24/7 being there for each other at the drop of a hat would destroy me. One may argue that I shouldn’t make such an assumption before it actually happens, but is that a risk worth taking? I would love to try it in moderation, but is that what the other person would want? How am I meant to tell if they would never say anything?

My whole mentality is based on rational thought, when emotions crop up this crumbles, with music being the one exception where emotion and my brain seem to have an understanding. People say that you don’t need a rational reason for everything in life, especially where relationships are involved but, at the very least, I would really like to hear a truly persuasive irrational reason!

My whole reasoning behind this 'in moderation' claim is the fact I have a young niece and a nephew, I go to see them a couple of times a week, which I really do enjoy, they are honest, simple and are really funny, no real conversation is needed, just have to throw soft toys at them! but I can only endure it for so long, or else I just shut down, same with conversations I have with people, then with hindsight I can reflect on what a good time I did have, but I cant make that judgement at the time. Can you imagine the emotional burden of a close partner or even having kids of my own, which would require nearly all of my attention, not to mention the net impact to myself and also to them having to deal with the 'hot and cold' levels of devotion. I can see the joy people get from children but without appearing selfish, the burden would be too much for me to handle, and I am guessing it would be the same with a close relationship, I supposed I value my mental freedom and also my internal routine too much.

In a survival situation I would be an asset to a potential mate, I have a fear for potential danger/predators, very alert physically (and mentally sometimes!), yet in this day and age we are meant to be all cosy and discuss feelings....

This may sound all gloom and doom but, I can hardly say I am severly depressed at the moment, never say never. What troubles me the most is that there could be noone else like me if the opportunity doesnt arise, but then if AS is genetic who would want their child to have such a condition, but then with the correct support from a young age, why should it be a curse when it could be a blessing? Pure speculation in this article, but realistic.

conformity

2008-12-12T13:05:00.000-08:00

Something amazes me about society, how this invisible rulebook has to be followed in order to appear normal, get treated equally and avoid being shunned by the masses. We are always verbally encouraged to 'be ourselves' when infact the exact opposite is true. Whenever I be myself, I get called names, people snigger behind my back or even worse just go quiet when I enter the room. I always end up my own worst enemy, sabotaging my success with this self-loathing, being sensitive to criticism. I have the same right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness as everyone else. I don't always seem to know what to do and say and what not to do in say in public, whether it's at work or school

The phrase 'cheer up it may never happen' may seem harmless enough, but if I want to sit down, stare into space with a blank face then that’s my choice. My mind is still happy, thoughts racing around about the cosmos and music, I don’t have time to form a happy face in order to conform! If I was to force a happy face my mind would go blank, just as it would if I was trying to work out someone else's facial expression.

There's a tangible peer pressure, a kind of nationalistic bullying to toe the line. In other words - get that new car on credit, get your large widescreen TV, dress correctly (that is, suitably edgy and with the right labels), have a suitable number of nights out with friends and then, and only then, are you a suitable mate, and the real life can begin...to hell with that.

Either that, or i'm just sick and tired of shallow British girls...I don't have it in me to plough most of my disposible income into 'looking the part'...a trait that sees you left behind in the UK of today, and get accused of being homosexual.

A colleague has reminded me time and time again that a man of my age should be going to night clubs, pulling birds and getting wasted. I get asked if I have a girlfriend yet, I have been asked when I’m going to finally get a driving license. Who the hell said there is a time schedule, let alone if it has to be done in the first place. Procrastination is one thing, shyness is another, but not wanting to conform is totally different. Sexual desires aside, if I actually knew how to socialise with women, do all the eye to eye gaze and small talk rituals, if I didn’t get overloaded by constant background noise, and if I didn’t feel as though my personal space is constantly invaded, and if I lacked morals, then sure id go out on the pull in nightclubs. A man cannot drive a car with his eyes closed, unless he is told exactly when to steer, apply the throttle, brake and indicate at every given moment that it is required. Even if he learnt when and where to do all these functions for a given journey, what if a deer ran out onto the road, what if he needed to use a different road one day?

I can talk about my interests like a never ending machine, got ridiculed for it many times. So what else is there for me to discuss with people? The weather? What I had for dinner the previous night? What benefit would that actually give my brain? Small talk is known as the oil that lubricates the wheels of social interaction. I am baffled, how can talking about your dinner enhance your social status? Surely the majority of mankind can see past the shallows? Why are people afraid of the deep end? I am an all or nothing kind of guy, my conversations tend to be non existent, or an in depth discussion about a worthwhile topic. It depresses me as to why people are afraid of this. Surely this is substance over style? But maybe that is exactly the point; do people prefer the easy option? It might be more difficult to break the threshold with people who are wired to be weird, but if only I could advertise the benefits without having to feel overwhelmed, cheap, exhausted and dirty.

My sister once reassured me that odd people are far more interesting, if that is the case then why do weird/eccentric/odd people remain on the outskirts of the social world? Why do they never get a shot? There is a rulebook that most people are given as a birthright. Some people such as me are denied it. This subconscious book has programmed people to be able to pick up body language, and facial expression as though it is a sixth sense. The eyes can be seen as a window to the soul, another mind and soul can be understood, probed, manipulated, loved and hated.

What rulebook was I given then? I look into someone's eyes or look at someone's face and it feels like I am looking at nuclear fusion. I try to understand another point of view and it feels like I am taking mental cyanide. I try to be like others, and I end up feeling exhausted, frustrated and need time to cool down. But then how come all I think about is the cosmos, music, motorbikes and ww1&ww2, mentally picturing scenarios, with a melody and/or rhythm in my head. This book must have a different author; it told me all those years ago to understand logic, systematic processes. It told me to automatically pick up music, have perfect pitch, and be aware of things that really matter. My brain has its own priorities. Are they superior? I am not one to answer.

At the end of the day does being a geek with intense interests who is prepared to live life his unique own way deserve the punishment it brings? There is no blame to be put on individuals, just frustration towards this invisible impenetrable wall that doesn’t allow the required two way mental passage. I would never throw away the book I have given, but I would love to borrow the other one for a day, just to see what it is all about.

geekazoid

2008-12-01T14:25:00.000-08:00

On first viewing my special interests would appear broad. They wax and wane in magnitude, but never truly disappear even if the empowering desire for a particular subject dissipates. They dictate introspection and anticipation, fuelling a dream-like state of being compared to daily living. I have several augmenting long term interests that I alternate between at the moment, but never more than 1 or 2 at any given time. I will jump from interest to interest within a circle of interests which can last a day or several months, it will last as long as my attention span (which can be incredibly erratic) allows it to. The topics in question are as such that I am able to endorse an interest despite getting a bit bored of a specific subject within it.

The ongoing broad topics will always exist, but during a state of captivation, it will be an interest within an interest occupying a single minded fascination, which can incorporate the T34 tank from world war two, the planet mars, saxophones, the Ducati 916, the moon, trenches of world war one, organ music, and afterwards the general theory of relativity. During conversation I can dictate facts from these topics with robotic utterance, only displaying the facts which are subconsciously engrossing to me, possibly missing out imperative information with my focus being on specific moments in history, objects or statistics/literature.

I can research and expose myself heavily to the point of mental fatigue, then move to the next project, one at a time. The trigger can be a television documentary, conversation, picture, sound, dream or related experience. I can either follow an obsession to the end or snap out of it and move straight onto the next one, depending on the previously stated provocation.

Currently music, astronomy and motorcycles are my main interests with an immeasurable desire to obtain information and knowledge like an intellectual urge, providing me with a mental rush, allowing me to filter out the random chaos created by people and society. My brain has requirements for different types of knowledge which can be broken down into sensory, factual and experience. Some interests cover several avenues of knowledge in this respect, others may only cover one.

They can also be divided into primary and secondary interests. Primary interests presently dominate my psyche, secondary interests used to be primary but are their intensity is limited unless exposed directly to a trigger, for example viewing a large oak tree and in turn causing a temporary but primary condition.

On the contrary to stereotype, I am not a complete expert at any one of my interests, more like a jack of several trades, good at many, master at none. But still, I am far more knowledgeable than the average Joe about the topics in question, and I know deep down if I had the attention span to concentrate on one or two, discarding the others; I probably would become a master. I am impulsive in my intellectual feeding frenzies, when my brain is in awe as a consequence of being exposed to a trigger, everything else is insignificant. As mentioned before the different interests satisfy different areas of knowledge and below is a summary of my special interests as far back as memory allows. A percentage score has been included to reflect how much each type of input is satisfied. I have an inflated drive for factual consumption, certain types of sensory input and a personal paradigm of experience appropriate for my needs.

Sierra cosworths Sensory 15%, Factual 60% Experience 25%

This started when I was around 7-8 years old. My father had a Ford Sierra saloon, and he once took me to a rally meeting. I believe the first car I saw there was a shell oil sponsored sierra, and it was that first visual experience which was the trigger.

I bought two toy models with pocket money and I would bring them into school and play with them in the playground mostly on my own, but sometimes I would play this game in the schoolyard called ‘the parking game’ it became a routine every lunchtime and then a couple of other kids asked to join in. We used to roll them down a gentle gradient and the ones that got the closest to a fixed point won. I would experiment by adding weight for extra momentum, and putting blue tack on the rear axel to slow it down. I would pressure my mum to go to retail outlets to see if they had new toy sierra cosworths, most of the time they didn’t.

I used to have knowledge about the engine capacity, top speed; amongst other useless facts and figures about them I still have those two cars, in a sorry state regarding the paintwork but a sacred part of my innocent youth. It was the shape; combined with that initial exposure to that rally car, combined with the fact my dad had a saloon version which sustained the obsession. Soon after he discarded it for a new car the obsession disappeared.
Astronomy/cosmology Sensory 20%, Factual 70% Experience 10%

I was around 10 years old when this fascination arose, I fail to remember why it began, but possibly it was when I first saw my grandfather’s old pair of binoculars. I used to read many books by Patrick Moore and my teacher was taken aback when we did a class topic on space. I used to explain to her facts about who designed the V2 rocket, the first man in space, what powered the sun, the distance of the earth from the sun and how far the moon was from the earth. I was knowledgeable about the planets regarding their order, size and number of moons. I also knew what a black hole was. Most of these facts she didn’t even know! The school library only contained two books about space which the whole class had to share, but I had around 10-15 in my collection and brought them all in.

This fascination faded to a secondary interest over the next decade. It has come back with a vengeance recently, with subjects such as atheism, evolution of life, string theory and general theory relativity becoming a huge part of it as well. I’m a big fan of the late astronomer Carl Sagan and his works, which tie in perfectly with this fascination.

I can be engrossed in literature, view documentaries (factual) or just sit there and gaze at the stars (sensory & experience). Always something new to learn.

Nintendo 64 Sensory 0%, Factual 10% Experience 90%

I was the only one in my class who owned this video game console, everyone else had a Sony Playstation, spent most of my spare time at secondary school playing on this, and became rather skilful on many of the games, to other people's annoyance, it became the basis of my life during sixth form, as well as weight training.

Trees Sensory 50%, Factual 20% Experience 30%

This one didn’t last long, I had a dream a few years ago which I remember quite vividly based on the video game Donkey Kong Country. I was living in a tree house based community; we never touched the ground, living exclusively in the treetops. I then started reading about trees, saw a picture of the general Sherman redwood tree in America, the most massive organism in the world, and was amazed. It was only specific species of tree that I became interested in, this was almost entirely based on their appearance. The shape of Redwood, Oak, Ash, horse chestnut and bonsai trees will never leave my mind, the shape of the leaves, the texture of the trunk, the way they grow to receive more light depending on their surroundings. These aspects fascinated me more than the scientific details, hence why sensory and experience both score quite high.

I naively chose to do a Higher National Diploma on countryside management because I believed I would be in contact with more trees. Sadly this course was mostly theoretical causing me to become disinterested, realising I was just obsessed with observing them, admiring their predictable static form, the patterns, the curves and in awe of their age. I still admire old trees, but I am not transfixed like previously. I will still stop for a few minutes to observe an ancient oak and zone in on its details. I do have a huge concern about the destruction of ancient woodland and the rainforest, like a subconscious hardwiring that occurred during this phase. A horse chestnut tree got chopped down last year at a local park, and I was incredibly distressed when I saw the stump.

Weight training/nutrition Sensory 5%, Factual 35% Experience 60%

This was definitely an obsession rather than a fascination; it developed during my response to teasing, to be strong enough to stand up to them physically. As it developed onwards, I become aware that this could be the ultimate source of routine. I could plan the times of my workout, what I exercises I do every day, how many repetitions and how many sets I do for each exercise. I had a notebook with each two hour workout; I timed myself doing each exercise within a set time, having a specific order. If someone was using the equipment I was planning to use next, I would attempt to take it in turns, or just use passive aggressive influence to get them to hurry up, such as standing next to the machine huffing and puffing. When I used to skip classes during college I would go to the gym or my bedroom for a workout.

I did 5 workouts per week which lasted roughly ninety minutes; the endorphin rush afterwards was quite pleasant. I ended up seventeen stone with 15% body fat (I am now twelve stone and ten pounds, with a slight beer gut). My diet became very strict; I planned to consume certain foods at certain times of the day, with an incredibly disciplined balance of nutrition. This sense of routine and personal discipline made me feel safe and healthy which helped me stay mentally stable proving a solution to my other problems, like a personal sanctuary shielding me from the unpredictable outside world whilst releasing my anger. I still do weights but only three 30 minute sessions a week, just to stick to a routine as that is something I need. My diet is still bland and systematic as I eat exactly the same food at exactly the same time every single day, just less excessive, although I will eat my mums cooking on Christmas day.

Motorcycles Sensory 30%, Factual 20% Experience 50%

This started when I was in need of transportation and eventually became obsessed with classic British motorcycles. The following passage describes my riding experience from my perspective:

She stood in the darkened alleyway, with just the ethereal glow of a sodium street lamp casting rippling highlights across her projection. I reached out with trembling hands. She was still warm, inviting… I straddled her, whispered how much I needed her today, and how I was going to ride her. So saying, I couldn't contain my libido any more; fingers shaking, I guided them to my pocket and extracted the precautionary measure; then I arched over her and inserted my ignition key. She resisted, she grumbled but eventually spluttered into life.

When riding I am completely in contact with it all...the process and experience of riding, and the environment of the road, and the beautiful scenery engulfs the senses, and the need for constant awareness fills the mind, blocking out all the stresses and strains of modern life, a passing glimpse of nature by direct experience that no routine car journey can ever provide.

With the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes... then the music starts, fear becomes exhilaration, the only sounds are the wind and the roar floating back from the exhausts, filling every possible sensory part of my body. Riding is tiring, exhilarating, adventurous, and sensual, accidents happen, and it has its ups and downs. Am I substituting a human being for a motorcycle?

There are some motorcycles I cannot stand, (overweight Harley Davidson’s and screaming inline four bikes, the most popular genres just don’t appeal to me, just like the majority of people don’t appeal to me, only a select few I choose to admire, they have to display the correct character, charm, shape, sound and soul.

World wars 1 & 2 Sensory 25%, Factual 70% Experience 5%

I think it was the TV comedy black adder goes forth that was based in the trenches of WW1 that started my fascination, and then from then on world war two. I tend not to be too fascinated in the general history, although I am aware of a lot of the facts. Regarding the First World War I am just fascinated by the method of trench warfare, particularly the battle of the Somme and do a lot of research into the concept when my brain decides it is ‘in the zone’. Regarding world war two I am fascinated by certain battles and machines (particularly the T34 & tiger tanks, the spitfire and the mustang for their shape, sound and importance, I have seen them in action and the sound, sight, shape and smell all have an effect). I often ponder on what it would be like to be on the battlefield during that specific time period, visualising and acting out battles in my head using those machines in question, not that I would want to be there for real of course. This is now a secondary interest.

Psychology Sensory 5%, Factual 40% Experience 55%

After bad experiences involving associates just over a year ago, I was beginning to question why I behave so differently to peers and unable to ‘fit in’. I conducted research into learning, anxiety and behavioral problems and came across Asperger’s Syndrome. I researched, and considered other psychological conditions such as the various personality disorders, but the original theory stood its ground. When I was at a low point after yet another misunderstanding a few months ago, I realised I needed to know for definite.

Ever since I have been reading forums, books and other online articles, allowing me to relate to their content almost perfectly, it has allowed me to perform a self diagnosis literally because it makes so much sense. The experience percentage is high simply because I am certain I have a condition and experience it in real-time. In the future I want to interact with other people sharing this condition, to learn further and appreciate the fact I am not alone. These factors alone have provided that drive which in turn has imprinted on my brain. After my necessary research this has now become a secondary interest, but I have been left aware of many aspects of psychology and will passively seek to further my knowledge where possible.

Music Sensory 65%, Factual 5% Experience 30%

This my main interest sharing top spot with astronomy for several different reasons, as mentioned in another article titled ‘what makes my brain tick’

I took up the Cello was I was 7 years old as a curiosity. As time passed and with my parent's support I completed several exams in musical theory and practice. When I was 15 and after years of ridicule from some of the popular kids at secondary school I decided I wanted to learn percussion instead. At the time I wanted something to hit in order to release frustration, and eventually it totally replaced the Cello, which I eventually gave up. I was asked to join a band after my sister told them how good I was, but after several misunderstandings and miscommunications I was told to leave; I lost confidence in my ability and gave up after a 4 year spurt.

Eventually I just sat around on my bed plucking away at my sister’s spare bass guitar. I realised actually I am rather skilful at this, being the perfect blend between the musicianship of the Cello and the rhythmic dynamics of percussion. In effect it was as though I had been playing this instrument for at least 10 years, with just the technical side to perfect. When my sister left a covers band and I was asked to join, they were amazed at my ability. People ask me how long I have been playing and they accuse me of lying to them. I enjoy playing the bass guitar with the band I am in, but it isn’t as dynamic an instrument on its own, hence why I am about to take up the saxophone, partly because I am transfixed by the sound. I am able to mentally practice musical instruments, visualising which notes/strings I am producing in conjunction to the fret board, figuring out a whole song just in my head. I have a perfect sense of rhythm and perfect pitch as well, being able to whistle any note I am asked (being unable to sing).

In terms of musical consumption, my perception is rather different to most people. I can listen to a piece of music on a loop over an extended time period, but boredom will never arise because every time I listen it is different experience. Blues, jazz, prog rock, metal, new age and classical can all massage my psyche in ways which many people couldn’t comprehend. I constantly have music in my head; there is never a point in my conscious being where music fails to be there. I have also been collecting vinyls after the past few years (I got bored of collecting postcards and needed a new challenge).

People call me ignorant and arrogant when I claim to be a musical nut despite not being aware of half the bands they have. Try living in my world where even half of those bands are not required when a song can be improvised or created just using your own mind, or experience totally different form of sensory and emotional stimulation after each listen. I can cry, I can have a mental orgasm, and experience huge tingling rush down my spine, limbs and face all at the same time. If I wasn’t a dreadful procrastinator there is every chance I could have made career out of it.

To conclude this interest, my obsession with genres can alternate as well, I used to be transfixed with thrash metal, the aggression really coincided with frustration towards many people, I collected relevant vinyl’s, putting them in order of date released, although now they are in order of album title. I am definitely mellower now; music constantly defines my sense of being and my state of mind and long may it continue.

People people people

2008-12-01T13:19:00.000-08:00

I’m a moaning sod today so I will just come out with it, people ANNOY me.

Listed below are characteristics of alot people that I have to deal with every day, some characteristics are unintentional and they probably don’t mean it but it still wears me out. I’m totally generalising here based on my own experiences, but still here goes:

- People who ignore you - They don’t return messages for days, don’t have the guts to tell you the truth, don’t realise there are people who do give a damn about them, priorities appear to lie elsewhere.

- People who stick their nose in - I have nothing to say here, it just bothers me like hell.

- People who like winding others up - I see this as a lack of dignity on their part, trying to transfer it to the next victim. Shallow at best.

- People who live for nothing but small talk and consumerism - All they seem to thrive on in life is reality TV shows, soap opera's, their domestic life, what they are eating for dinner, rave about their new microwave, throw perfectly good items and food away, appear to obsess about what other people eat for dinner and watch on TV. Don’t people want to use their brain for once?

- People who enforce the social laws - These are the sort that assume a man is gay because he doesn’t have a girlfriend, give someone a dirty look if they dont wear the social uniform. 'Gee this guy has long hair, wears glasses and has a goatee beard, better stay away from him then.' Those who ask why I never go to night clubs, people who tell you to get a life when you talk about your interests.

- People who think they are funny - Go on about things that happen in their life, and expect other people to think it is amusing. Expect you to follow their sense of humour. On the flip side few people understand my humour but I accept that I am an acquired taste, more substance than style.

- Bullies - Speaks for itself, bullying is one of the most disgusting forms of mental torture one can endure. It can take many shapes or forms but the consequences are always dire.

- People who don’t use their brain - If it wasn’t for people who use their brain we would still be sitting in a cave chatting about the weather. People eat their food, watch their TV, totally ignorant to how it ended up on their plate or in their living room all they talk about is how it doesn’t taste as good as it did yesterday or how they get upset when a Soap opera character dies. Humanity may be seen as intelligent, but only a small percentage. This is more of an attack on society as it stands today rather than individuals themselves. But people don’t do themselves any favours. Humanity isn’t doing itself any favours at this rate. 9 Billion People on this planet in a few decades? Heaven forbid.

- People who talk loudly, and shout alot - Why does one need to raise their voice over everyone else? It just makes them appear arrogant, aggressive and possibly not very nice. But it is us quiet guys with more integrity who end up alone. Why does conflict always end up in a raised temper? I for one hate being shouted at, more than just an ego thing, it rips through my senses like a dagger in my heart.

- People who appear to mean well - May say cheer up, oh bless you when I talk about my concerns about the rainforest, then they ask me if I have watched I’m a celebrity in the jungle get me out of here. Frustrating as hell. They appear to understand a point you make to them which took a great effort from yourself, but then go on about their makeup and hairdo a minute later.

- Hypocrites/liars - Tell you something or agree with something, and do or say another. Be your buddy to your face, spread lies and rumours behind your back. If you don’t want to do what I suggested just tell me otherwise I will get the hump!

- Criminals - Speaks for itself.

- Religious people - To be more specific people who don’t have any intellectual integrity. Science is avoided because it takes effort to understand. Fear of the unknown, fear of the awe and beauty of the mysterious cosmos. To believe a book written when the believed the earth was flat is insane. Nothing wrong with faith in certain respects but let’s have a bit of perspective here! Having said that I don’t have anything against alot of the older generation like my grandpa who are set in their ways because that is all they have ever known.

These are generalised views, and of course I could be alot more specific and please don’t think badly of me if you have any of these traits, I’m pretty sure nearly everyone has at least one of them (probably even me) and I’m not exactly about to go out on a social purging spree! Because my brain works the way it does, this blog just gives an introduction as to what I have to face and process every day. I just don’t understand why people behave and think in certain ways; whether that is a good or a bad thing I will never know. My mind is incredibly one tracked everything that happens in my life has to be planned, and when people, unpredictable that they are, get in the way of that I get distressed and feel hopeless/empty/frustrated.

Aspergers Sydnrome

2008-11-29T05:24:00.000-08:00

Listed below are traits relating to asperger’s syndrome, supplemented with a personal description as far as my memory will allow. My long term memory is commendable, allowing me to remember as far back as junior school. I have spent a substantial amount of time concluding how and why I believe Asperger’s Syndrome has affected me. It is an arduous process trying to compare it to anything else, as this is the way I am and unable to grasp any other way, despite trying. I have included a few selected examples, but please be aware these are only a fraction of the number.

It is as though sections of my neocortex are attempting in vain to compensate for missing or crossed wires, adopting a task which goes beyond their parameters, i.e. processing emotions. The result can be mental fatigue, and possibly portraying a hebetudinous posture, when infact my brain is just working harder than it should, affecting mood, short term memory and ability to multi task. The relief when I am not emotional or in contact with emotional people can be compared to taking mental amphetamines.

Being unable to understand other people's thoughts, motives and behaviours, and being accused of selfishness for failing to consider other people's feelings, is frustrating, as I am not aware of my unbecoming approach. Similarly I become impatient when others lack predictability.

I have had epilepsy ever since I was a few months old, although under control now. The seizures were quite severe when I was a toddler and doctors informed my mother the chances of developing a learning disability were high, which I guess is partially true emotionally and socially speaking, although at the moment I refrain from the possibility of this being the cause, as this cannot be proved.

• Are often bullied in school – Victim of name calling, and was taken advantage of recently. Seems mildly trivial compared to what others are exposed to, but I believe asperger’s syndrome increased my vulnerability, taking their comments too literally. I have memories of other children sniggering, querying what I was doing in the top classes when I appeared such a 'thicko', possibly due to poor executive function, hence being unable keep up with the rest of the class, possibly as a result of teaching style, despite comprehending everything. Many teachers were perplexed when receiving my high SAT exam results, especially when I was in the top 3 for the whole year in science and mathematics when I was 14. The same goes for GCSE mock exam results, which failed to coincide with under performance during the year.

• Have trouble making friends – Able to approach people when special interests are involved, with a slight sense of haughtiness, believing people who share them must think exactly the same way about anything. Otherwise I am hampered by limited social knowledge/initiative to interact any further, causing me to reluctantly resist the rudimentary steps, however undesirable that approach is. I never had a large circle of friends/associates at school (2-3 during a given time period, emotional interaction was scarce, and felt incredibly uncomfortable if the dialect was beyond a one to one exchange). Non-verbal interaction never arose as it mainly involved interests in cars, computers, and playing chess. Friendships/associations usually emerged through my mother introducing us as a result of her own social life involving their parents. I don’t believe it was the person inside drawing me in, more the hope that they might be knowledgeable about a particular area of interest. My brain prioritises lust for information over social intuition. I am either too distant or too intense, and altruism does not come naturally, even if I desire deep down to be more gregarious.

• A very quiet voice – People more than often request that I raise my voice, or ask me to repeat my recent peroration, despite hearing myself perfectly, causing frustration as my sensitive hearing means the internal volume is constantly inflated, which relates to my annoyance towards innumerable random noises. When I hear recordings of myself from childhood or adolescence, my intonation appears significantly different to others in terms of prosody and volume.

• May be sensitive to touch or random noises – Could never and still cannot tolerate loud chewing or breathing, random background noise for example several conversations or thumping music in background, I can be driven to distraction. My tolerance threshold within loud public places is low unless I am there to view a band with only a single sound source. I have a high detection of stimuli (especially aural) to steal my attention which is why I have found it difficult to concentrate in classes at school and at work and being unable to sleep or focus on tasks unless I wear ear plugs.

• May be clumsy – Was substandard during physical education at school, being the last to be picked for team games. I am always correctly being accused of clumsiness, with a reoccurring habit of knocking over cups of coffee at work. Have to be told that I have made a mess otherwise I am oblivious to it.

• Can take things too literally - During English class when I was about 12 or 13, the class was given the task of producing an essay regarding the differences between tabloid and broadsheet newspapers. For the majority of my essay I wrote address details regarding my paper round, the difficulty of pushing broad sheet news papers through a letter box, not to mention the broadsheet impact on trees for using excessive paper. This is the earliest I can remember, amongst others. A recent example was taking ambiguous text on an insurance document too literally, which resulted in a magistrate’s court appearance for driving without insurance despite having a comprehensive policy. This is on top of banter which I really struggle with.

• May have trouble understanding other people's emotions – Due to Alexithymia-esque characteristics I cannot forebode emotions, especially in an unfamiliar or unpredictable situation which requires at least basic intuition. I can understand intellectually if in black and white and given adequate time to work it out by comparing to situations I may have been in. Individual's moods/prosody can affect me maladroitly, which was an issue at school, and is a huge issue at home and at work. Failed to pick up cues in the past from women, presupposing the notion that they were acting weird, as I was oblivious to their hints. Limited adroitness when striving to understand my own emotions, requiring excessive cognitive effort to apprehend what emotion I am experiencing or have experienced in the past. This has often resulted in meltdown or shutdown when the emotion is not profound. My childhood/teenage years were spent initially oblivious to them and eventually internalising them.

I fail to believe that I have really made a true 'emotional' connection with anyone, or at the very least barely realising it. Regarding family, the concept 'emotional connection' hasn’t really emerged until recently; rather I believed that we do practical things for each other to show we care. It is obvious a smile could portray happiness, but I have recently learnt that there is a variation of smiles, resulting in a failed attempt to determine them. When I observe a face, a checklist procedure has to be carried out: are they happy? No. Are they sad? No. Are they bored? No. Are they angry, No. Going through the list can be more stressful than any benefit it would provide, especially when nothing is achieved. Having said that it is alot easier doing this whilst watching people on television due to the generous amount of time allowed for study and lack of distraction.

• Poor at multi tasking - I cannot easily comprehend anything else whilst performing a current task either at work or at home. For example being rude to someone who is attempting to communicate with me whilst I am watching a documentary, one example among many. When doing a task at work I get frustrated when asked to put it aside to do something else, which I internalise. I cannot join a conversation or help anyone if my mind is fixed on something else. I believe my executive functioning skills are mediocre.

• Do not like changes in school, work, and home life routines – I must turn up for work exactly at 9am and leave exactly at 5pm, to the second, and experience difficulties working in other offices when occasionally when requested by my boss, otherwise I feel very anxious. I consume exactly the same food daily, at virtually identical times. I can become agitated if disturbed when my mind is fixed on a task, ranging from watching a documentary, executing a task at work or absorbing information from a book. My mind has to know in advance what it will be exposed to regarding any potential situation, otherwise anxiety prevails. The words maybe and possibly are personal irritations.

• Have a strong interest – Interests dominate my thoughts, feelings, desirable conversations and behaviour. Anything else I am obliged to think about is a burden, the intensity of this increase in times of anxiety. See the ‘special interests’ article for further details.

• Have difficulty reading the sounds of people’s voices – Interlocution is bothersome and awkward with prolonged silences. My boss has told me about my phone manner. I find conversations with strangers and even people I know rather awkward and people with unpredictable or extreme tone of voice are difficult to converse with or reason with, as overwhelming confusion can influence my logical thought.

• Get confused if a person's body language and words don't say the same thing – Multiple and conflicting signs counteract my one tracked mind, providing my brain with excessive stimulus to process, mind blindness the net result. Conversations with less familiar people will dry up apparently due to a 'need' for an exchange of non verbal cues. Eye contact isn’t essential with familiar people because they are used to my mannerisms. Eye contact feels exactly like staring into the sun regardless of who it is, it can be my mother, dad, sister, boss, anyone. Even more so when I am preoccupied and cannot make a conscious effort towards studying a face.

• Feel lonely and unwanted – Not because I am alone but more the fact that believe I am ineffective in the art of giving and receiving expression and points of view from other people, like firing social blanks. Misunderstandings with family members and the few friends/associates I do have are frequent, even more so with the involvement of voice tone and facial expression. During secondary school 6th form and college I was usually left in the form room alone during lunchtimes, or alternatively I hid in the toilets. Everyone else had each other for company. I didn’t know how to explain my inner turmoil to my parents. It arrived during secondary school when the social world properly arrived, and things may have appeared quite normal to them. Their only knowledge regarding the extent of this was in May 2008, although it started roughly 15 years before that. I could attempt to copy what other kids did but was never fulfilled. I required solitude in order to recharge, and is probably why I spent many lunch times alone. I seemed to have more enemies than friends, for no apparent reason, a concept which appeared true until this point.

• Like doing or saying the same thing over and over again – Immense difficulty when obliged to converse, with reliance upon pre rehearsed phrases, facts and figures. The same film, piece of music, and factual conversation can be ritualised, over and over again, which has been commented on. The consequence is frustration when I am unable to understand why they see it as weird, I love to talk about my interests. A ritualistic game called the parking game used to be performed to excess at junior school. Weight training was carried out to excess with its incredibly repetitive philosophy being the main appeal.

• Not know that another person is upset or annoyed, until the other person shows it clearly – Limited emotional understanding requires black and white facts. Incompetence can overrule my understanding of, picking up on or acting upon other people's emotions unless they are verbally explained to me. A physical display would require an extreme and prolonged procedure for me to fully pick up on it because subtleties are frustrating.

• Not know if a person is joking or not. They have difficulty understanding if someone is using irony, sarcasm, or slang, or if they really mean it – A joke can be understood if clearly stated beforehand that a joke is about to occur, for example on a television show like the Simpson’s. Sarcasm provides an equivocal state of mind because I cannot tell if they are being sarcastic or if they are telling the truth despite understanding both sides, but I cannot make a decision. I can perform sarcasm myself, simply because I am the one carrying it out.

• Not understand the interests of other people or why other people do the things that they do - My mind is one tracked, believing everyone thinks like I do, hence making false assumptions at school, only recently I was told otherwise. That mindset promptly dissolved, as I can snap out of undesirable habits using brute force conscious thought once I am enlightened. I struggle to understand alternative opinions hence people implying that I am selfish and self centred, increasing my frustration as I take those comments personally, not understanding why. Conversations with strangers or people I don’t too well feel forced, unable to adequately read a face, process thoughts/emotions and implement my own facial expression within a corresponding time interval. Any of these must happen separately, so speaking involves looking away, causing an awkward scenario with people I attempt to interact with or vice versa. Even more so when I became more aware of the wider world. Arguments can arise with people who conflict my point of view which I believe is perfectly rational and logical, but they fail to realise. The same could possibly be said from an opposite angle when I attempt to understand people and I don’t 'get them'.

• Have or had nervous tics in the past – Used to twitch my head during junior school, moving onto screwing my face up which I still often do. I currently tap my fingers like playing the drums, tap my teeth together and subconsciously shake my leg or foot. I chew my finger nails and the inside of my mouth to the point of drawing blood, a habit since junior school. I tend to notice merely when it is pointed out, and only recently because my consciousness has been raised towards it. I can physically channel anxiety leading to a release, which provides a soothing ambience.

• Have ability to see and remember the details of things that other people miss – At work I constantly spell out to engineers certain methods of improvement, I remember facts and conversations from the past that people fail to remember. At Junior's school I correctly told other children, alas without malicious intent, they were failing to do their mathematics correctly which I got disciplined for. I still remember pin numbers given to me by associates several years ago. Thinking in pictures and applying the words accordingly supplements my long term memory giving the impression of daydreaming. I have detailed obsessions within my special interests i.e. the Russian T34 tank of WW2. My mind plays back images like a video recorder. I can produce a mental illustration of tank battles, rocket launches, playing the Cello note for note when I hear classical music.

• Be very good at remembering rules, laws, systems and important facts. This is useful in many types of work – We follow a standard procedure at work, if engineers break from this I must tell them otherwise, becoming angry if this is ignored. When I know for definite somebody is telling me something incorrect I have to bluntly make it clear. I can do that even if I am not originally involved in the discussion/scenario.

• Be better at writing than at talking to people, because they are careful to choose words that mean exactly what they want to say – I like taking my time over things that matter especially expressing my inner thoughts. I can perfect what I can say in the future, it gives a partial remedy to my poor short term memory when using given a base point of reference where conversational skills are not needed. I am not an articulate genius, but writing helps to guide visualisation which in itself is the ultimate way to grasp a concept. Despite that I have a habit of rushing through things whilst under pressure or exposed to external stimuli, like at work or school. The energy that goes into the give and take of verbal intercourse distracts me from saying what I intended to.

• Enjoy doing the same thing many times over, which most people find boring – I listen to one piece of music over and over again for extended periods of time, taking a completely different slant from every juncture. I used to continuously watch the same films during 6th form, and read the same space books at junior school in a ritualistic fashion.

• Many people with Asperger’s Syndrome are good at practicing scales on the piano, at adding up long sums, and at searching through books and papers to find information and mistakes – I become transfixed when researching interests and enjoy practicing invariable pieces of music on my bass guitar, especially blues scales. As mentioned previously I can read a book over and over again.

Arguments opposing a diagnosis of asperger’s syndrome, and counter arguments to reinforce my claim using a process called critical thinking (which involves the notion of considering both sides of an argument but the side with the most rational body of evidence reigns supreme).

• It could be just a personality disorder based on experiences at school – My mother has stated multiple situations that hint towards asperger’s-like behaviour for example running away on my first day at school, pointing out capital cities and countries from around the world before I could walk. What explains my lifelong fascinations? Why have I always opposed a lack of routine as far as my memory permits? School and my childhood were abundant with routine, so the issue never became apparent. It was during 6th form when weight training began, satisfying my needs during that particular time. The argument towards the case transpires because more questions crop up during the counter claim, which can be answered by the original claim. Also, a psychologist has explained with confidence after analysis that the chances of me having personality disorder are slim, partly because a rational attempt is being made to draw a valid conclusion, and partly due to her judgement based on experience. When emotions are not involved, rationality is virtue I can capitalise with ease. Avoidant personality disorder was suggested previous to this, although I do attempt to interact with people I know in the only way I know how, despite the awkwardness.

• Cannot recall enough of my childhood to be absolutely sure and why was nothing ever picked up? - Alot of my childhood within the family circle was quite normal, being relatively content. There was abundant routine, we went swimming every Saturday at half five, had certain meals on fixed days of the week at virtually the same time (half five) and obviously the school day did not have an ambiguous time structure. I even played on video games with my cousins, although that initial interaction is not needed with family, because you cannot choose them. Despite that, all I would ever do with my cousins would be to play video games, I was not overly aware of them as 'sentient beings' so to speak; I just wanted to reign supreme at super Mario kart. My awareness of sophisticated social activity remained secluded until sixth form. My substandard level of social recognition remained with me from Junior School in stasis until that point, progressing only a very small amount since due to my consciously driven perception. During that period I realised I was severely falling behind, being accustomed to providing my own entertainment inside school and college where introspection never became an issue. Only afterwards did I question why failing to look at people and ending on bad terms was developing a perpetual trend, even more so when I would fail to understand my error. An incident a couple of years ago arose when the frustration reached a climax, the consequence being a meltdown and a hostile situation.

• Did have a couple of friends at school, have a good friend at the moment - We were geeks and seldom on the popular end of the scale. I initially knew them through my mother's circle of friends, sharing interests being sierra cosworths, video games, science or computers. That world that differed to the mainstream as these interests provided the single reason for any kind of interaction, although to my parents I would have appeared content and normal. With hindsight, the priority was not social interaction but rather information exchange about our related interests and less reciprocal. The vast majority of more recent associates or friends were established through family members. An attempt was made to fit in with a group a couple of years ago, but through no apparent fault on my behalf they took advantage of me and it ended as frustration, a meltdown, impulsive behaviour, and a hostile reaction towards me.

A friendship I currently have originated from junior school, as our parents knew each other very well, hence why we knew each other in the first place, so not awkward small talk required, our conversation almost exclusively comprise of space, music, psychology and motorbikes. Seldom social demands during childhood, my portrayal of people was never appropriate for developmental level, as though I was 'always 8 years old' socially and emotionally until after college. My nature is to assume everyone is congeneric to me and would share my cogitation, especially people with similar interests. Frustration would germinate when I eventually become aware that reality conflicts this philosophy. During secondary school peers were interacting with new friends and forming relationships with the opposite sex and I along with the limited number of individuals I knew from junior school were still acting in our traditional way, where a sophisticated social level was imperceptible. The development of my social/emotional brain became indolent despite the above average ability of my academic brain, according to several teachers. I wasn’t inspired by the general peer group/stereotype; the limited number of kids I collaborated with shared a commensuration in terms of social/emotional development. I could only confer with to them individually (which still applies now) and were all into computers, science and machines. They eventually matured and I was belated.

• Lack of eye contact could be a lack of confidence - I am unable to consistently look at my friend or family members in the eye let alone strangers. When I do look at people in the eye at work, the situation is a formal exchange of information. It can be compared to looking at a bright light rather than just a paranoid fear of looking at somebody and being the target of a stare. I am able to cast my eyes at someone when that is all I have to focus on. The online autism 'eye test' is manageable due to it being an artificial situation lacking conversation so I am unhurried during my study of the eyes. In reality the practicality is reduced severely and may be accused of stalking. I can study eyes comfortably on television with partial success but it is a conscious effort.

• Can do conversations – Small talk can occur for limited periods at work. Fundamentals issues are them not being face to face conversations, The use of pre-rehearsed phrases will reign supreme, for example 'hi how are you, good weekend?'. I become soporific, and dread having the obligation to perform it every time I walk through the door or when someone communicates with me at random. I cannot maintain an eye to eye exchange, instead compensating by looking 'through' them. I feel compelled to join conversations which relate to special interests, attempting to manipulate it towards my interest with a blunt approach of dictating facts or figures. Conversations are usually based on my interests but can only maintain for so long, depending on the victim, before mind blindness and awkward silences emerge. I am exhausted and bored after a small period of seemingly 'informal' conversations. I have always related better to much older people but seldom with people of my own age, with the exception of my friend.

To conclude I can simply state that I have suffered over the years for my lack of natural social skills, not understanding why. Many issues have caused confusion leading to ultimate frustration in the form of self harm. No one had explained that the world is different for me because other people through no fault of their own were negligent towards my perception of the world, and the same can be said in reverse. I don't understand most people and generally it is vice versa, but my ultimate goal is to achieve conscious permutation. Some people call me an "old soul" and marvel at my wisdom and mature knack for knowledge, but the evidence towards me having the emotional and social capacity of someone in their early teens is pronounced.

I am more at ease now I have stopped trying to conform to the masses. I believe I possess an irresistible childlike curiosity of the world and the universe. I am constantly informed that I am in my 'own little world' by average people who just worry about what is on television, although I believe I am more enlightened by the physical world than the majority of the community. That is the trade off, the physical world and the social world, the question being which one does one hold more dear? I assume that the majority of humanity would compromise between the two, and the minority go either way like a spectrum. Enlightenment is one step, followed by an understanding and subsequently wisdom, but I now realise after all this time that they both depend on each other, being equally important when discovering the truth about humanity.

Into the depths

2008-11-27T09:52:00.000-08:00

This blog has been written in order to supplement my personal article about paranoia and empathy, it may contain some of the same information and descriptions, but it delves a little deeper, more of an attempt to understand my negative thought process and why it is present, it might bore you to tears, as it is almost an autobiography specifically about times in my life that have shaped my thoughts and beliefs. I think this is a good way to understand and realise things about myself, to become less self absorbed as a result.

I am a deep thinking person, as mentioned on a previous blog, my deepest thoughts occur in picture and musical form, with internal words offering a brief narration and description of these thoughts. To internalise words can result in a fragmented thought process, where this necessary but personally unnatural form of thinking occurs, which can lead to false and negative conclusions.

Beliefs about one’s self and other people can become imprinted, automated and stereotyped. To use words is a habit, a necessary evil; they can be repeated, slightly changed like Chinese whispers, and misinterpreted when they are kept, locked away in the memory banks, picture memories are always crystal clear, but the changing words change those memories subconsciously. This narration that supplements the recreation of painful experiences can be loud and clear. An event is played consciously and relived. This process has taken place so many times it becomes a subconscious habit.

Beliefs as a result of negative experience become hardwired, are difficult to shift, can lead to a self fulfilling prophecy if a new but similar situation occurs. A stubborn, impulsive and habitual act of defence can occur without thought, like a negative unwanted skill learnt through physical and/or mental experience.

I have a very good long term memory; this comes at the expense of my poor working memory, and my tendency to remember defining moments of emotion with ease, the unwanted words become louder, the pictures get clearer.

A few examples of those situations:

School & College

During junior school I had a few friends who were geeky like myself, we shared interests, and we were naïve about the real world we spent most of our time talking about our toy cars and computer games. There was no reason to be angry with the world or people, due to that childlike innocence even my ‘cool’ peers at the time probably showed as well. I was able to copy their behaviour, I could fit in with the fellow ‘geeks’ by repeating quotes id heard off the TV and video games, and I appeared to be quite content to those around me.

It all changed at my first day at secondary school, the first thing one of the others kids said when I first walk into the form room was that I looked like Frankenstein’s monster. Comments such as that kept on coming throughout that school year from many kids at school. I froze and internalised it, creating the belief I am completely ugly, believing everyone in the world thought that about me, not realising at the time that people have different opinions and thought that everyone thought the same thing about everything. I was so mad that I couldn't let out my anger. I was just like hiding it. I just didn't feel like being at school anymore.

Over the next few years I took defensive measures such as hiding in the toilets at lunch time, wearing a hat to cover as much of myself, and being in denial, I didn’t revise for any of my exams due to the continuing self doubt and chain reaction of negative beliefs that I wasn’t even good enough or smart enough to do my exams.

Unknown at the time, but fully aware now due to my discovery of Asperger’s syndrome, my lack of social intuition and inability to learn in the same way as the other kids at school resulted in my withdrawal. Although I was in the top classes, as per default from SAT exam results, the other kids kept asking the teacher why I was in their class when I appear to be so stupid, especially when asked a question by the teacher for example, which reinforced my lack of confidence in my abilities, let alone my physical appearance. I hated myself in more ways than one.

I managed to get good grades at GCSE regardless, but that still didn’t change my hardwired views. During 6th form, my next form of defence was to start weight training, make myself look big and strong, carry on wearing the hat, and wore several layers of t shirts under my jumper even in the summer to make myself look big and strong so nobody would ever dare say anything. This resulted in further social withdrawal due to even sincere people being afraid of me as well. I avoided classes, only turning up to around a third of them, I was told to give up physics because I failed to complete the course work. A lot of the time I stayed at home playing on computer games all day, avoiding even being in the same room as my parents, let alone talking to them.

My weight training became an obsession; it dictated my life at the time I loved the routine of being able to plan my workouts at exact times on exact days, eating the same foods for nutrition at certain times of the day. It was like a comfort zone, a real predictable way of living. And the release of my frustration during the exercise regime worked quite well too.

This carried on at college; I made a silly decision to go on a course for countryside management, purely because I had a special interest in trees at the time. This obsession came and went in months, and I felt depressed having paid for this course and having to see it to the end. I failed to connect with anyone on my course, again withdrawing. With hindsight I still have a HND to my name and should be proud of it, and the fact I passed without even really trying.

Family

In reality I couldn’t ask for a more supportive family, they would never intentionally hurt me emotionally, and have provided me with everything I could ask for. Being a little bit old fashioned they were a little strict on discipline. For a NT child, discipline isn’t a bad thing in the traditional sense. Telling a child to stop being naughty is fine when the child is aware they are doing something wrong.

Seeing the world in a different way, being told off for something scared me, especially at the same time my beliefs were becoming more defined. I became scared of my parents in some ways, through no fault of their own. Sensitivity to abnormal tone of voice, made me become shocked at being told off, I would internalise everything said to me, and I still remember it today. To a neurotypical child with no issues, this would have been beneficial, but I believe it supplemented my negative process of self doubt. If kids tell me im stupid and ugly, and my mum and dad tell me off, then they must think that too. These thoughts stuck in my head like glue.

Asperger’s Syndrome was not well known when I was small, so in no way would I ever criticise my parents for bringing me up the way they did.

After college until May 2008

This was quite a turbulent time; I became more outgoing with my best friend (who I had known since infants school), yet at the same time still having those hard wired beliefs that had developed. I created a dividing line, based on my special interests. Due to the thought processes described in the first few paragraphs, I believed that anyone who shares at least one of my special interests would not see me as ugly and stupid. This was partly because since I was a child I do tend to latch onto people who share an interest (hence friendships I had at junior school), and partly because it gave me hope that there may be people out there who could see me in a positive way.

I could be scared of the general public yet go up to somebody who was in a band I liked, or had a vintage motorbike with ease, asking them questions about it. Looking back at it I realise it was more of an initial contact based on objects using the person as an exchange terminal, rather than actually having the desire to get to know them personally, which didn’t even occur to me at the time.

As the months and years rolled on, it hit home that my other peers had relationships with the opposite sex and even had kids or got married. I never questioned my sexuality, as I am definitely heterosexual (get your tits out etc etc!) But I never have the guts to speak to women, possibly hampered further by the fact I am bad at small talk and non verbal cues, something which women find more natural as far as I know. My friend introduced me to a woman who was 9 years older than me had two kids, we didn’t have anything in common apart being a fan of the type of music I was absolutely obsessed with at the time.

Something seemed to click and I thought I was in love with her, exclusively at the time because I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that there is someone else who likes this type of music. I wrote her a letter telling her that. But then after a couple of weeks I started listening to another type of music, I wasn’t interested in her at all. Was it actually the obsession with that sort of music I was infatuated with?

After completing my CBT, I was outside a pub on my own when a group of bikers around my age asked me to join them, at the time this gave me a mental rush. Was my belief that people who share my interests are totally compatible actually true?

Of course this ended in tears, I was often the butt end of their jokes, often not even realising it. I was accused of not having any backbone, when they were sarcastic, it wasn’t as if I didn’t understand the sarcasm, more that I couldn’t tell if they were being sarcastic or not, I couldn’t make the choice. I couldn’t look them in the eye, when there were women present in the group it was even more difficult, I kept looking away, I was accused of being homosexual, was ridiculed because I had a friend who was homosexual as well, but I just half heartedly laughed it off.

When they turned up out of the blue asking if I wanted to come to a pub, I always declined, because my routine was being broken. When in a group conversation I hardly took part, all those eyes, faces and words bouncing around was too much for me to take in, but I was ok in conversation one to one. I had a nickname which I really resented because I felt degraded stimulating that belief that I was ugly and stupid, forcing me to rein act that first day at secondary school (both of them stayed together, if I ever thought someone believed I was ugly, the stupid part would be there as well and vice versa), and also because nobody had ever called me that before so I was confused as well. I couldn’t work out why we were all into bikes but they still thought I was stupid and ugly. I thought that surely if we are into bikes we should all be the same?!

In an attempt to fit in I told them jokes that people I knew from school thought were funny, they were bemused, I thought again if we are all into bikes and I find these jokes funny, then shouldn’t you? The frustration was building, but the severity still unknown. I was trying hard (maybe too hard) to latch onto them and feel part of them. When put on the spot I would be lost for words, and then they would laugh, further reinforcing the stupid and ugly view. But they seemed to still say hello and how’s it going so I still assumed they were good mates.

Then one day one of them called me a twat, the adrenaline kicked in I had a meltdown my views on people had turned to dust, I couldn’t figure out why, and I throw my pint of Guinness in his face. He went livid and started hitting me; the rest of the group told me if they ever saw me again they would kick my head in. I couldn’t understand why it had ended like this.

Some of the group weren’t present that day, they still gave me a chance, but eventually they turned their back on me as well. Telling to meet me somewhere at a certain time then never turning up. This happened several times without me taking the hint. I was naïve.

Afterwards, I have only had one real friend I have seen regularly. A lot of our conversations were similar to the ones we used to have when we were kids, lots of silly words, quotations from movies and immature comments! This was a nice feeling, made me feel like I was reliving more innocent times. It was ok to appear naïve in that respect. But eventually, this wore me down slightly; I knew I was capable of better, and so was he.

During this time I became aware that I wasn’t the same as most people, did some research and came across Asperger’s syndrome, it created a few more questions, but answered so many more. I was distressed when I mentioned it to my mum she thought I was being silly (reinforcing the stupid and ugly belief), made me more resentful of her at the time. Every time she used to raise her voice, and when my dad used to tell me off or just say home truths, I would have a defensive/offensive reaction. Scared im not being taken seriously enough, a belief that occurs with everyone I come into contact with, if I don’t have any acknowledgement telling me otherwise.

Now I realise, that people don’t know what I know and vice versa, I was oblivious to the fact that people won’t know what I am thinking and what I have experienced unless I tell them. Just coming up with Asperger’s syndrome out of the blue, of course it is going to sound silly with nothing to back it up, especially when the person is used to how I am.

The ‘stupid and ugly’ theme has become part of my subconscious, but I realise this now, it explains why I act and react how I do in such a habitual manner. The condition Asperger’s syndrome explains how I think and feel in its rawest form, mentally and physically. It explains how I see objects, people, how and why I have made assumptions and expectations about people. Thinking with pure logic, using intellectual integrity & humility, and facing up to my shortcomings will make me a better person. Realising I am not stupid, or inferior, just misunderstood and different and something I can admire. I admit I am grumpy, have a terrible short term memory, a complete geek, totally useless and awkward when talking to women, lacking theory of mind, and having hardly any friends. But even these alone don’t make me a bad person, and they certainly shouldn’t make me feel ashamed of myself.

Although realising and facing up to personal issues is a huge step, it is only one step. I have automatic responses to certain emotional and social stimuli, hired wired from beliefs and experiences, when lacking acknowledgement and feeling ignored they kick in again. This can be from not receiving a reply to a text message or someone not hearing me when I am not talking loud enough when I believe I am talking at a normal volume. Anger, frustration and self doubt surface again.

It came to a conclusion in May when after music was coming from next door, which was torturing me inside, I put a letter through their door informing them that they have neighbours. Their music didn’t seem to bother other people but it was driving me crazy. My dad told me off, I walked off, he told me to find another place to live on the phone, and I attempted suicide. Years of internal build up finally drew a conclusion there and then. I made the impulsive decision that I was just too unlikeable and not fit for this world and stabbed myself in the neck.

This gave me a sharp wake up call afterwards, as they say actions speak louder than words, my parents never even realised the extent of my problems,

I do often question the Asperger’s concept about myself, especially when I have good days, and when I can be talkative, often thinking I just have a personality problem. But then that question can be answered by the fact that using pure logic, I am able to realise things and face up to things about me without being in denial or hiding away from them. Painful eye contact might be fuelled partially by confidence issues, but the fact I cannot feel back or emotionally lock on or exchange anything from non verbal cues is the clincher. In my opinion confidence problems and a lack of intuition are two separate things, but when combined they create a powerful force that can become unstoppable unless emotions are worked on and understood.

Asperger’s alone didn’t trigger my beliefs, but I believe it made me more vulnerable and more susceptible in terms of adopting them. Only understanding my point of view, and believing one person’s view was everybody’s. The lack of intuition and taking what people say literally has made me feel left behind by my peers ever since my school days.

I may have narcissistic and borderline traits, and mild social phobia, but this can be understandable considering the circumstances and my general childlike emotions and view on the world. Pure intellectual procedure has allowed me to come to these conclusions, with no external guidance or help. The fact I am able to realise these things myself should in the future if I am successful enhance my qualities, and reduce my shortcomings (even if it may never totally exterminate them). I don’t want to fall into the trap of arrogantly convincing myself of things for short term comfort, as I know this is detrimental for my long term mental health.

I may experience depression and I may feel low again in the future, but having thoughts spelt out to me in pure black and white makes things all the more clear than having to keep them hovering around inside my mind, allowing them to crash into each other, like an out of control nuclear reaction, which may result in a full reactor meltdown or complete shutdown of the reactor core before things get out of control. Breaking things down, and logical analysis act like the rods, soaking up extra particles that may get out of hand, allowing the ones that do get through to become clearer and easier to handle.

Now things are clearer, I can work on creating personal rules to follow in social, personal, employment and family based situations, rather than struggling to make my own paranoid or self centred conclusions every day. I can write down facts about myself that I can refer to, to remind myself of how to act. Instead of concentrating future mental effort to the point of mental overload to try and understand myself, I will be able to channel these thoughts towards my interests and for more practical processes. My brain has been a slave to itself, being used for things that it should never have done.

One can only process so much at a given time, and if these processes are purely concentrated on your own self, the amount it has available for other things in life are severely limited, and possibly making me appear stupid for real, and creating a catch 22 situation.

To be true to one’s self, intellectual integrity, courage & humility are required, to do this strengths and weakness must be enhanced and reduced accordingly. When you are true to yourself, it will be easier to be true to others, and one’s process of thought can become ever more efficient. Being excessively self absorbed is a lack of these incredibly simple but difficult to master skills. I can’t guarantee they will be applied in every situation to come across, if I make the positive effort to apply them whenever I am able to, they will become the new habitual process, allow the real me to thrive.

A personal truth in the present should not be feared if it is a variable, as it doesn’t always have to be the truth of the future. The goal is to define the difference between a variable and an absolute. People are too afraid or maybe dont have the ability yet to look deeply into their actual problems, and this is something I am overcoming.

Metaphors and expression

2008-11-26T13:14:00.001-08:00

Bit of an informal blog, I find it easier to describe my feelings using metaphors, a bit like a thought experiment that I can relate to, some are a bit weird, but they make sense to me, so here are a few:

Attempting eye contact is like a heat seeking missile that cannot lock onto its target.

One can only afford so much fuel to burn...

Being social feels like riding a motorbike at 100mph whilst trying to balance a pint of guinness on my head....

If society is an organism, each person is a cell, then money is the cancer.

Comparing my peers to myself is like comparing a cheap easy to eat mc donalds burger to a fillet steak. Yes it will be cheap, easier to chew, and quicker to eat, takes less effort, but what nutrients does it have? Will it fill your tummy so well? Will it taste as good?

Maintaining eye contact feels like looking directly into the sun with a telescope.

Social contact makes me behave like an air cooled engine stuck in a traffic jam.

100% freedom is no different to a virus invading a body. the planet is like an organism. humankind and the freedom to over breed and consume, is like a virus, if we carry on the way we do the earth as it currently is will die.

My brain is like a computer with a huge hard drive, fast processor but a tiny amount of RAM, and the wrong software!

I end up looking at the world through a pair of powerful binoculars rather than a crude, short sighted panoramic device that tries desperately to fix onto an object it cant even properly see.

Does one drink out of a social cup or a social jug?

I am like a 5 year old child and an 80 year old man trapped in a 25 year old man's body.

Lack of acknowledgement, logic and routine feels like a petrol engine trying to run on diesel.

I wonder how much grey matter the universe holds

My mind feels like a house plant that is too big for its pot.

My emotions can be compared to someone playing around with the volume switch and changing channels at random.

To compare a NT to someone with aspegers is like comparing a Sherman tank to a King Tiger!

To compare an aspie to neurotypical is like comparing a pine forest to a jungle, neither is superior, just different.

A coping measure can be compared to

Friends, relationships and people can be comapred to different types of stars:
Red dwarf - A little boring but steady but long lasting and totally reliable,
Brown dwarf - Tries hard to relate but will never quite understand, long term associate maybe
Average star like the sun - can take it or leave it
Blue giant - Intense, fun, but only healthy in short bursts
black hole - Mysterious, annoying, and they will eventually grind you down and ruin your self esteem, a bit like society in general
Red giant - Full of energy, personality very outgoing but it has to end at some point

Every day is like firing the afterburner and then running out of fuel. And we all know a jet engine doesnt work without any fuel, if you are unlucky the engines will cut out in mid flight and the result you fall back to the ground, but then you might be at 29,000 ft or just off the ground. If you are lucky all the fuel will run out before you have even taken off, but in the long run that situation isnt healthy as a plane that could never take off has no function.

Another problem is, the plane is so heavy that it needs that afterburner to take off, the fuel tanks have a limited capcity, but the pilot doesnt know how long it should be on for.....

Its a fine line. Does the plane need to be that loaded up? Can it do its duties with less baggage on board? Do the engines need to be more efficient? Can the plane fly somewhere else a bit nearer? Maybe the fuel was of the wrong type....its an ongoing battle especially when you being the pilot are not able to recieve the data he or she needs. All he or she wants to do is fly the plane to its destination drop off the goods and fly back home with a different set of goods.

Every flight out is to deliver something totally different to a different destination, without being aware of that destination. A journey into the unknown.

I run on unreliable rechargable batteries, which can lose their charge at random intervals. Bad days are when they have to be re charged. If there is too much sensory and emotional input during the recharging process, the mental energy will not be enough to sustain a response.

Impulsive behaviour can be compared to issac newton's third law of motion 'for every action there must be a reaction'

My Paranoia, Interaction And Empathy

2008-11-17T13:15:00.000-08:00

Here are a few questions I often ask myself, and eventually torture myself over.

Do I say the wrong thing? Are people just caught up their own problems to care about other people's? Do I scare people off by appearing too intense? Does my painful lack of eye contact freak people out? Am I not taken serious enough? Are people talking about me behind my back? Do I just appear to talk shit? Is the person just busy at the moment? Are they in a hurry? Did they even understand what I tried to tell them? Do they even care? Am I just totally unlovable/unlikable? Is there any other way I can get through? Why cant I just get people? Am I actually inducing the Self-fulfilling prophecy? So many questions so little answers. I only have myself to give them.

Over analysing, although beneficial on many of my pursuits, is definately like a cancer when relating to interactions with other people. I cant help it, as it is the way my brain functions.

Being paranoid and low self esteem all the time is a disease, not desirable but something that cannot be switched off easily. Identifying the thought as a paranoid thought is the first step, (and took huge mental effort) but overcoming those automatic responses is a big hurdle. The cause is complex, and a secondary condition that is running parallel with aspergers syndrome. My inability to read someone's eyes leave me feeling like a scared animal in front of a car's headlights, I feel I am being attacked, judged, and as a result punished, the empty gap that is created by my poor non verbal social skills is filled by paranoid thoughts.

My long term memory is vivid when relating to the negative things that have happened in my life, no matter how trivial it may seem to other people. It has left a long lasting impression due to it being rooted from an essential time of social and emotional development (adolescence). My empathic skills are not exactly something I can boast about either which in turn, enhanced the impact, thought what those kids were saying was what everyone in the world thought about me, anyone who looked at me or talked to me.

If I feel I have been blanked by somebody, whether it is a friend, family member, colleague, or an associate the adrenaline rises, I feel resentful, I feel angry, I self loathe, I feel insignificant. Who or what has the power over my thoughts?

This blanking can be not invited to an event (not that I might go but, just being asked is enough for me), appearing to ignore something I say, not answering a text message for at least a day.

I was betrayed and blanked in recent years by so called friends that resulted in me loosing a lot, including my self dignity due to it ending in hostility. I tried my hardest to fit in, digging myself further and further into a hole, eventually being rejected.

I believe my problems have stemmed from bullying at school the cause of it had nothing to do with having AS, but it alienated me from who I authentically was. Looking back at it, the bullying was probably tame compared to what some children go through, but it still had a long lasting effect. For years those comments made to me by the other children will never leave my subconcious mind. I picked up survival habits by locking myself away from potential danger, or reacting to sudden potential threats with aggression, although I do internalise alot of this aggression and take it out on myself. I used to wear a hat 24/7 and very bulky clothing to conceal myself and to avoid extra sensory input, too scared to reveal the real me. I then took up weight training to make myself look big and powerful, so the bullies would never dare say anything to me again. This withdrew me even further.

It has shaped my personality. Being incapable of reading people through intuition, these responses will always awaken when I feel like a victim (even if I am not actually being made one). It is getting worse, and has spread to situations that are relatively mundane, like someone walking past me down the street or an unpredictable tone of voice by a stranger. Being shouted at by a family member after a misunderstanding fuels this concept with great ease, pushes me into freefall and the consequences on myself are not pretty.

I have an ambivalent view of myself, there are parts I admire, understand and cherish, there are parts I loathe. Aspergers Syndrome is a curse and a blessing mixed into one. I am worried I will end up lonely bitter and cold, due to this invisible barrier between myself and society.

As much as I loathe myself to say this, people who I believe to know, and people who appear to know me can appear cold and distant, and probably not even to fault of their own. I dont want to go down the path of Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver, but being left alone to ponder on my thoughts, without being able to naturally express myself in the way I desire deep down, I can see it going that way.

I may seem a bit melodramatic and I am not always in this state of mind, but it comes about too often and with greater intensity each time. The only thing I can try and do for now is tell myself I am a good person, deep down I dont want to do anything bad by anybody.

The worst thing about paranoia itself, and also energies associated with touch, noise, scent, light, (a side effect of aspergers), is that the very best friends and family I do care about deep down, I risk driving them away due to the way I am. Paranoia then comes in again with vengeance, making me think that I am going to lose a friend. I then worry non stop that this may be the case, and the worry does not stop until I see them, or speak to them, then my intelligence comes back to life again, it feels like a mental rush, like drinking 10 cups of black coffee.

Needless to say, that 'will call you on weekend' is no good either, as ambiguity and poor theory of mind do not mix! Paranoia leaves me needing to know NOW. There it is again.

I am attempting to challenge these thoughts, and sometimes, depending on the situation can work, but it is so hard wired into my psyche sometimes there is no escape. Using diversions is a good short term trick, but they have to end at some point, and either when im at work or getting ready for bed there is definately no escape.

To anyone reading this, no im not crazy, or schizophrenic, I am fully aware of my problems and partially aware of what caused them. Brute force brainpower helped me with this, my poor control of emotions is primitive and this is always at war with my grey matter, either can win depending on the situation. I just wish people close to me could be in my shoes for a day, because I feel I will never be able to convince them just using words, it is like an endless battle. The more I try to reach out the further away the goal is.

Sometimes I wonder if it worth the effort, I dont want to harden up even further into a total mindset of resentfulment but the more I try, the more resistance that appears before me. Friendships and families can be wonderful at times, but they can also be intensely frustrating and painful. I am struggling to figure out which one reigns supreme. The self-fulfilling prophecy can be potentially poisnous when it comes to ones thoughts, the harder the struggles to prevent it, the more inescapable my destiny seems. Fate, it seems to me, loves irony. Wanting and preventing, what is the difference?

It is a seesaw sort of pattern as there are longer and longer periods when resentment and anger are the predominant feeling punctuated by spurts of great fun, energy and togetherness. Do these glimpses of pleasure outweight the rumenating negativity? I am starting to doubt it. It is difficult to overcome because of the chemicals that are released into my brain and body. A brief sense of acknowledgement and a gesture of understanding is all I require regularly, but that doesnt happen alot of the time, so my self questioning kicks in to plug the gap. I can unintentionally carry out a preemptive strike that is an expectation of attack, betrayal, and the rationalization of a defensive counterattack, again rooted from past experiences, and the desire not to appear stupid.

Of course I for one would not need 24/7 attention as I need my cool-down space too after an overwhelming sensory or emotional experience.

Maybe I am just too bored at work, understimulated during the day. Maybe part of the resentment is because I could have achieved so much more academically in the fields of science and music instead of being dominated by emotions I never really understood at the time and cutting myself from everyone and everything for months. I wish I was a vulcan! Bah humbug I think I will just melt away into my music and forget about the world before I go bed....hmm how much is psycho-analysis I wonder...

The fact I am brutally aware of all this makes it all the more painful as I cant think of a way out. I dont think it is a personality disorder, as there are some times that it doesnt exist (although not too common I must admit), it is more a personality quirk that has got out of control due to being missed at an earlier stage. I could just shut myself off and totally block out all thoughts, but I know this is NOT the path to choose however easy it may seem short term. The solution is understand deeper into the problem, and practice new social skills, and learn more about the human mind so I can grasp other people a bit better. This is a long term objective, but to me it seems the only way.

That feeling that there is no way out resulted me in attempting suicide a few months ago, I am scared it will happen again, and self control will be lost. The paradox of who I am and who I appear to be are in conflict, it is my goal to change this.

White flowing beard

2008-11-13T12:23:00.000-08:00

The question is, what IS god? If god is just finding that essential Elysium in life, and the beauty that surrounds it as einstein described it then I agree with that. I would rather called it something different to a personal god though, as a matter of fact there is another word for it, it is called Pantheism. But if god is an intelligent being that designed and created life on earth with a purpose then I oppose that concept, on behalf of the whole scientific community and everything it has achieved so far.

I agree that you can’t beat wisdom or love for a satisfied mind, although infinity does have its boundaries for a mortal life form's ability to grasp, being analytical I will always want to know more, and the pleasure comes from trying, understanding and being in awe of the mystery.

In terms of sentience, it depends which way round you look at it, we are all sentient beings, as a result of billions of years of evolution and chemical reactions. This vast amount of time is beyond what most people can even begin to comprehend. If god is exactly that, then it does exist. But I don’t understand how all the planets, galaxies can be made by someone's bare hands (so to speak).

I think alot of the time religious theists just can’t deal with the fact we are here by chance, fear of the unknown, a desire for an authority figure that is as hard wired into human psyche as fight or flight, they lack humility and respect for who and what surrounds us and why it does. By chance includes, the formation of the sun due to hydrogen being squeezed together by gravity, resulting in nuclear fusion, a rogue asteroid hitting the earth, resulting in the dinosaurs dying off and warm blooded mammals dominating the earth, (and not because Noah denied them a place on his creaking wooden ship!) If god made this happen, I’m dying to know exactly how he did it! Because the answer of 'well he just did get over it you non believer' is insulting to my intelligence and analytical way of thinking. The phrase 'prove that god doesn’t exist' is just a shallow way to conveniently avoid the burden of truth.

I don’t doubt people have religious experiences, but I reckon these can be described scientifically quite easily. There is a reason behind our conscious and subconscious mind, and I am afraid it is due to those neurons and synapses working together! You feel a channel of love and warmth from god? Maybe the placebo effect, endorphins, oxytocinare, Vasopressin, dopamine and norepinephrine are the culprits? Yes the feeling is wonderful, and can be quite powerful, maybe to an intensity you have never experienced, and boy id love to experience that too, but there is a physical/chemical reason. The power of individual thought in a relaxed state of mind should never be underestimated. I have spiritual experiences myself, but I also understand the cause which itself gives me even more pleasure.

The ONLY creationist theory I could ever take remotely seriously is if aliens started the life that exists on earth, but this doesn’t really extend to the formation of the sun or the universe. From an agnostic point of view this will always be possible, but highly unlikely when considering the scientific alternative, because it would ask more questions than it solves, for example where did the aliens come from in the first place? Did other aliens make the aliens that made us? If so did another group of aliens make the aliens that made the aliens that made us? The questions leave an ongoing chain.

Some people like to ponder the unknown, and some people are either afraid of it or in denial of it and religion conveniently plugs that gap. If that makes them content with their life then fair enough, but I just cannot do that when my mind is racing towards the mysterious and awe inspiring vastness of space.

The concept of god is so ambiguous it can be interpreted in so many ways ranging from ancient scrolls to Einstein’s theory. To me the phrase 'do you believe in god?' means very little on its own.

Gravity defines our very existence on this tiny little planet, and the existence of the universe as we know it, it is that 'invisible force' which binds everything together, looking it from a spiritual perspective, it can be seen as *the* divine power or god. I for one can picture space-time in my head just from reading Einstein’s description. I can imagine myself inside a craft, obeying Newton's laws of motion. When my craft approaches a large dense object I can imagine in pictures how it would influence my trajectory. Maybe an equivalent mental image of god can be produced in a religious mind, after all, god is only a thought, but at least my images created from rationality.

I would rather connect with the environment and the universe using my senses and mind to perceive it, and from the scientific evidence rather than taking for granted something that has been written in an ancient book, by people who had less knowledge of the stars and science back then (when they thought the world was flat, and the sun literally fell into the sea at dusk etc)

I personally believe that if everyone on earth was agnostic, it would be an awe inspiring place to live, but of course I have to accept this will never happen. I would be proud to be a part of the human race if it did. Instead there are wars, out of control over population, extreme variations in living standards and health, instead of more development into energy from nuclear fusion, space travel, and other ways of having a sustainable population for the benefit of our descendants (idealistic I know but it would be possible).

Don’t get me wrong I am all for a free society, each to their own, but surely we should unite and think properly about what is real and what isn’t rather than just turning a blind eye, or even worse show signs of extreme myopia (so to speak) and not even consider the evidence for and against? From a logical point of view, (and I admit idealistic) what if every single human being had this vision? We would be on the way to the stars by now. Science is answering more and more questions as time goes on and as we learn more, the amount of room 'god' is able to fill gets smaller and smaller. Sadly, everyone is different, and (without intentionally sounding arrogant), some more intelligent and complex than others. I don’t mean to say that more simple minded people are inferior in terms of ability to be human, but my point is that I do accept that idealism and practicality seldom mix.

From science we learn as a species, from religion we stay still and go nowhere as a species. The self-reinforcing delusion is an ancient and as a result, quite powerful human trait, which points towards the theory that maybe we are not that advanced as we like to think we are as a species, from that I mean the subconscious and conscious mind are not yet talking to each other in the same recognisable language. It is only certain minded individuals who have the focus and the courage in themselves that make the steps towards the next advancement, whether it is artistic, technical or scientific. We underestimate the power of the subconscious mind; make false assumptions without proof, which to me is disheartening.

Factual wisdom never plays any part in that which people call their own (view/faith/belief), nor examination. The self reinforcing delusion of mankind's religions is not one based in truth or wisdom, but in comfort, or respect that it is their inheritance of their parents, or some other likewise reason. We will never make great strides inside a comfort zone. Why does a chick hatch out of an egg? Why does a baby leave its mother's womb? Global Secularism at the very least is the only way forward if we want to achieve unity. I don’t need religious guidance to have morals and integrity.

Karl Marx stated that religion is utilised by the ruling classes whereby the masses can shortly relieve their suffering via the act of experiencing positive religious emotions. It is in the interest of the ruling classes to install in the masses the religious conviction that their current suffering will lead to eventual happiness. Therefore as long as the public believes in religion, they will not attempt to make any genuine effort to understand and overcome the real source of their suffering.

From a logical viewpoint, that appears to be correct.

If our ruling emotions are the equivalent to those ruling classes (such as fear, anxiety, emptiness, depression) then it has the same effect. No wonder alot of people follow religion as though it has been ingrained into their psyche, as those apparently positive emotions become hardwired, just as any form of defensive mechanism one creates to stay safe in a given negative situation. Because a whole society/civilisation, generation after generation, has sustained this comfort zone, why change if you believe it is ideal? I think the brain is like a lump of plasticine which gets harder to shape as you get older, but can be manipulated in so many ways at a young age.

It is true we all need something to believe in, and we can. Ourselves and each other. Soul searching combined with intellectual rationality would mean the need for religion could cease to exist. That scares alot of people, hence alot of resistance towards science and the lack of self drive in alot of our society.

Each and every one of us are children on this planet, but we use the child-like traits many different ways. Some are overpowered by fear, others like me are overpowered by a wonder and urge to ask questions. But like children who have their parents to look up to and seek guidence from, what authority figure does the helpless child in an adult's body have to look to for guidence? I concentrate on my wonder of the physical world, and that satisfies me no end. In other words, I am a Pantheist.

Here is a view from Einstein, which I admire, (courtesy of wikipedia):

'Einstein distinguished three styles which are usually intermixed in actual religion. The first is motivated by fear and poor understanding of causality, and hence invents supernatural beings. The second is social and moral, motivated by desire for love and support. Einstein noted that both have an anthropomorphic concept of God. The third style, which Einstein deemed most mature, is motivated by a deep sense of awe and mystery. He said, "The individual feels ... the sublimity and marvellous order which reveal themselves in nature ... and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole." Einstein saw science as an antagonist of the first two styles of religion, but as a partner of the third style.'

The awe and mystery itself is a belief, is it any more valid than the first two? Maybe we will never know, and that scares people due to our relatively short life span of 100 years. Less than a blink of an eye on the cosmic calendar.

a few quotes from Carl Sagan which really hit the spot:

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.

Adolf Hitler: We Will Fight the Atheistic Movement
We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.
- Adolf Hitler, Speech in Berlin, October 24, 1933

“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.” - Abraham Lincoln

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” - John Adams

“Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.” - Benjamin Franklin

“Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man.” - Thomas Jefferson

“The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man…” - Thomas Jefferson

A U.S. president who believes in an ancient book of Jewish fairy tales. How reassuring…

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

At the end of the day, religion is a belief in a supernatural power recognized as the creator. Faith is a belief in the trustworthiness of a person or philosophy. You can have faith in a number of things, but not only to God, I have faith in string theory :-)

This blog was never meant to be an articulate masterpiece, and I do understand I will probably appear as a bemoaning idealist, but I just had to get my thoughts out in the open.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/28/religion

My way of thinking

2008-11-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

Imagine constantly having music and images in your head, every thought, and every alacrity is based on those thought characteristics. I am not skilful at verbal communication, I tend to forget words, forget the meaning of elongated words when attempting to converse. That scarcely makes me slow minded and unintelligent.

I can mentally create melodies, have perfect pitch, and emotions are partially liberated when associating them with certain pieces of music, something I cannot do verbally. It can be incredibly uncomfortable just saying ‘I love you’ to a family member. It is highly conceivable that I don’t understand the concept of expressing love in terms of language or non verbal cues.

Every day I have incomparable but distinctive mental images, sometimes I delineate myself in the trenches of world war one, another moment I could tour the solar system, become marooned on a desert island, or maybe walking through a rich woodland with a continuous flow. Letters and numbers are associated with colours, and have been as far as I can remember, acting as a coping measure when remembering words or phone numbers. My expression of any thoughts and feelings when communicating using language is often carried out using metaphors, comparing myself to objects (usually machines) and describing how unique attributes affect their performance and ability to operate, but only when I have understood them. Noise and over thinking, can insinuate the effect of virtual amphetamines in my mind.

Dynamic objects and certain sounds can be described as visual poetry. When they are directly related to me in an ambiguous situation (for example faces, voices or body language, and the fact I desire aversion whilst at the centre of attention) I have to cast my gaze away to fix on something predictable because I am consciously overwhelmed, transfixed, or simply in awe of predictability corresponding with visual beauty, (like a moving snake, water, or a comet). Emotions can be vehement when relating to objects, in touch with the lines and the curves. I have to occlude my vision and clench my fists when listening to certain music so it channels into my psyche, with a tingling feeling that channels down my spine through to my fingers like a faculty.

I can understand the theory of evolution and the laws of motion not just from reading them in a book, but by visualising organisms, generation by generation modifying themselves to variable situations and habitats I can imagine them being in. To endeavour a description of my understanding, applying only words is a laboured task. I beg to ask why other individuals cannot just welcome the fact I can comprehend using this style?!

I can perceive the curvature of space-time dictating to an object how it should accelerate forwards; imagining the source of the force acting upon it using the influence from co-existing heavenly bodies. Whether solid or gaseous, being able to visualise the laws of motion acting upon them.

To communicate this by mere articulation is lightly skimming the surface. I have given information verbally that I perceive these particular things, but to characterise each visualisation is like illustrating a complex pattern to a blind man. I would be obliged to create a model of the pattern, like Braille, so the individual could attempt to feel the configuration using the sense of touch. But is he able perceive the varying colours and shades? He could possibly grasp the structure, but not the character.

Of course language is essential for communication, but I struggle to comprehend any further than to exchange information or to use it as a narration. But what is narration without being able to get a glimpse, curve for curve, colour for colour? Thinking in pictures is a rich and wonderfully amazing form of understanding things, but expressing the notion to others whilst doing it justice is a hurdle.

Eye contact, body language and prose are awkward due to the unpredictable nature. Attempting to consume a conversation whilst consciously trying to fathom their eyes is overwhelming. My senses in terms of just eyes and ears are nothing special, although my brain processing these inputs the way it does is definitely out of the ordinary. I can be attentive to a piece of music repeatedly making it a different experience with every occurrence.

I can attempt to compensate for my difficulties with prose, body language or eye contact by concentrating on one at a time. If I can force and maintain eye contact during a conversation which I have pre-rehearsed, I will speak in monotone. If my tone of voice is normal, I cannot look someone in the eye. I have a one tracked mind in every sense of the phrase, only able to process one sensory input at a time, at my own pace, one emotion at a time (whether it is my own or someone else’s) if someone appears to be annoyed, and there is a chance I have misjudged, I have to appear annoyed as well to avoid complexity. If someone is nice I can attempt to mimic.

I can only realise my true emotions in solitude, and attempting to express them afterwards is perplexing to the individual and me both. It makes relationships awkward even with my closest family members, although writing things down or drawing sketches to reflect on things does help, it creates a base point of reference, like an easy to access external hard drive, it frees my brain up from having to undertake more than a single conscious task at a time, although only realistically practical at home.

With no mental vision there is limited purpose. That may resemble arrogance, although being unable to pose in the shoes of another person, the only thinking style I can apprehend is my own. Communication in the traditional sense is a notion I am forced to exert excessive mental energy towards achieving. To type this article took a large proportion of my thought.

When someone is curious as to why I bear a certain opinion I cannot explain it there and then as it is saved as a mental video. The sound, colours and contrast are present and translate into words then to consequently translate their response into a mental image requires time and aspiration, but it is the only way I can achieve creative cognitive task. When I do have to think in words and be effective, I have to talk to myself.

I can reluctantly effect small talk to a point, where I utter pre rehearsed phrases, but this soon disappears, depending on my confidence and motivation at the time, I can either lecture monologue about my special interests (where the mental translation has already taken place previously) and disapprove when a word is spoken by the individual on the receiving end, or alternatively I freeze mentally, unaware of what to say or do.

My thinking method is superior and inferior, for conflicting reasons. The downside is the aftermath of my interaction with other people, which in turn has overwrought my state of mind. Anything negative that has ever been said to me was visualised and will be in a state of suspended animation. My long term memory is definitely superior to the average person (although I have a mediocre short term memory). This is not always positive due to my disagreements at school/early adulthood and the effect it has had have stemmed from teasing and ambiguous situations. Maybe these have been visualized excessively, consequentially stuck in my head as my own exaggerated version. An alternative method of describing it is simply, taking it personally.

The positive side is my aptitude to think deep. I can lose myself reading a factual book (language again) but I aid myself by creating a vivid mental image of what is being said which supplements my understanding. I have a tendency to close myself off from people because I need mental restoration, but I can still exchange information if required; I have to put into pictures everything people have said to me during a given day in order to understand. I can think more efficiently when remaining silent, having multiple layers of thought with immense precision.

I obtain many fine details, and bind them to form a concept, hence why I believe my mental imagery is quite special. Sections of my brain are equipped to place information into file folders like on a computer. It can be compared to a computer with a behemoth hard drive, a spirited CPU, but with a humble amount of random access memory and incorrect software. If I am to access files in haste or receive excessive complex sensory input in too much bulk I will crash. The software is not talking to the CPU; the random access memory is not supplementing my executive functioning.

The inputs I depend on are sensory, anything verbal has to be visualised in order to create that sensory input myself. It is why I have trouble with unpredictable situations, loss of routine and non verbal communication with individuals. Words become a necessary evil, like a signal being sent to my television set, and then projected into sounds and images. Having to deal with visual unpredictability slows my ability to visualise when I have too much input to project on the mental screen. Hard to explain here and now, but even more difficult to comprehend the time.

Ideally I could connect my brain into a computer which could in turn project my mental images onto a physical screen, the music I create in my head to a loudspeaker; I believe people would be in awe but obviously that won’t occur! I have to bumble around with conversation, stuttering, speaking too loudly or too quiet, butting into other people’s conversations, because of the fear that a unique image I have at a given time will be forgotten forever. This is on top of having to work out why a certain shape of mouth and why eyes shaped in a certain way apparently reflects their inner emotions and feelings.

I can have incredibly strong emotions, although during the event they are primitive, either intense or nonexistent. The emotions are basic sad, happy, or angry. At the time could believe deep down that I hate someone with a vengeance and wish they would perish. But during reflection, visualising the situation hours afterwards I would realise I was simply frustrated at the time due to something said to me which put me on the spot resulting in being overwhelmed. Frustration is a big factor of my life due to situations like this and misunderstandings occurring.

To visualise an emotion is difficult and probably impossible. The one way round it and it rarely successful is to choose a musical piece I believe reflects my state of mind and listen to it repeatedly. The emotions become more defined as I am filtering through my mental storage bank, I search through them one at a time, consciously creating an imaginary situation as to what each type of emotion would reflect, then with luck I may find it, I was feeling ‘embarrassed’. Because the music partially enhanced my emotional ability, I was able to create a clearer path as to pinpoint it. If I don’t have a music player to hand I would have to create the music myself in my head, although this has limitations.

To understand someone else’s emotions is a far more challenging, I would have to imagine myself in the situation they described, which is limiting because I barely in touch with my own, although at least I can partially understand, as inaccurate as it may be. The physical world makes eminently more sense, having a radiant beauty of its own, for example the Spitfire, Triumph Bonneville, T34 tank, and Jaguar E type. To realise what they were used for and their artistic appeal creates a sense of awe and attractiveness.

Despite the above, 'when I am in the zone' and free of anxiety or distraction, verbage can erupt and flow from my brain and mouth, as though the words and pictures just appear in perfect harmony, this is almost exclusively related to my special interests, attempting to narrate visual thoughts, it is why I can only liaise specific details regarding specific subjects, which can jump from one to the other because of the sheer volume of words required to describe every detail, the amount of time in the world to explain everything is limited.

It can be compared to peering world through a pair of powerful binoculars rather than a crude, short sighted panoramic device that tries desperately to fix onto an object it cant even see properly, it is the only way to seek out the understandable truth and to even be aware that the puzzle exists in the first place, hence my child-like wonder of all things around me and beyond.

In general society to me seems illogical, directionless, lacks creativity or a positive future, depressing yes, but why exist in delusion? If something doesn’t make sense I am urged to learn about it intellectually, the only alternative is to become restless. Without unique minority individuals society as we know it will devolve, into primitive, consuming beasts.

To put it crudely, I can take satisfaction from my naturally weird persona, but on other occasions I loathe it due to an ambivalent self perception, based on alternative mental priorities. I crave companionship and contact with people, but the amount of mental energy required for maintenance, let alone the lack of ability or knowledge to begin is colossal. A seemingly endless mental chain of random visual algorithms, destined to distract.

Like firing an afterburner and consequently running out of fuel. A jet engine fails to function without fuel, if the scenario is unlucky, the engines will cease to work in mid flight, resulting in freefall and eventually a messy impact with the ground. This could occur at 29,000 ft or just off the ground. With any luck, the fuel could run out before take off has occurred, but the long-term situation cannot be healthy, as a plane which never takes off has no real function.

Another downfall is that the plane could have so much weight where it needs the afterburner to take off, but the fuel tanks have a limited capacity, although the pilot has no knowledge of this weight or how long it should burn for.....

Does the plane require that much cargo? Can it perform its duties with a minimum amount of baggage on board? Do the engines need to increase their efficiency? Can the plane fly to a location which has a greater proximity? Possibly the fuel was of the wrong type? An ongoing battle especially when you have the responsibilities of the pilot, but not able to receive the required data. The single desire is to fly the plane to its destination unload the goods and travel back to the original destination with new cargo.

Every flight is to deliver something totally different to an alternative destination, with limited knowledge of its whereabouts like a journey into the unknown. This metaphor describes my state of mind when I meet someone, and attempt to look at the individual in the eye and interact. Asperger’s syndrome is a curse and blessing combined. Self discovery is an almost infinite journey, but potentially fulfilling once guided towards the correct path. Is it any wonder I am misunderstood? The more information I consume through life experiences, the greater the awareness of the differences in my methods of thinking and feeling. Ramification at its most stressful is the art of giving and receiving from other people.

If I continue to be perplexed regarding other people when I process emotions and non verbal cues then so be it. Processing emotions, body language, facial expressions and attempting to raise my consciousness to people and their psyche is a burden to me, as they lack predictable/logical form, but pondering the future of mankind, landscapes, music, machines, the natural world, and the cosmos is more fulfilling, and hugely stimulating, an expansion of the mind moving forward rather than standing still, but whether it is more stimulating than theory of mind I will never know. Evolution aside, the human mind will always be exactly that, we are a single species on a piece of space rock orbiting a gaseous ball fusing heavy hydrogen together to form helium, creating our life energy. I believe if it wasn’t for autistic traits we may possibly be sitting in a cave chatting about the latest fashionable topic.

I can force myself to become interested in what someone is attempting to convey. I may randomly phase in and out of my dreamlike state due to a conscious effort to maintain a coherent picture of what I am receiving, but it is almost impossible to also keep a reliable track of mind states and to create associations especially with the information I am absorbing in fragmented form, trying in vain to make use of and interpret body language, and remember a myriad of facts about the person. The only alternative is to try to pull everything together afterwards. When another person comes into play in addition to the first, the probability of maintaining that ability would be virtually zero due to the multiple lines of extra communication.

The human brain can consciously perform only one task at a time, but unconsciously can do a large number of things at any given time. When the brain modules or mechanisms which are responsible for the unconscious do not function conventionally, it is not possible to compensate by doing them all consciously in a limited time frame, resulting in an overwhelming scenario. One at a time is possible, but is a drawn out procedure.

On the flip side to this, and distractions aside, I have the ability to subconsciously process music without making an excessive conscious effort. I can mentally practice my bass guitar visualising the strings and frets, mentally picturing myself playing when I hear musical pieces, knowing exactly what pitch it is in. I used to do the same when I played the Cello as a child which is likely a result of my brain re-prioritising, at some point. I hope I don’t appear self-aggrandizing, but the concluding point is that I do not believe I am any more disabled or abled than the majority of human beings on this planet, just differently abled.

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