Childhood; Not Growing Up
Living with low level, high-functioning autism, asperger's, is kind of an interesting experience to consider. It's such a mild condition in my case that it's usually mostly negligible. I do have some days when i feel especially 'aspy,' when socializing takes an especially high level of patience and effort at cognition and comprehension just doesn't come easily. My experience of life reverts to a focus on my physical experience and anything beyond whatever i'm doing by myself is just... extra difficult. It's not easy to explain, especially considering the degree of the human experience that lies beyond language itself.
My mom had four kids before she had me, and now all my siblings are having kids (waaaayyy) before i will, so it goes. Watching those kids grow up is so fascinating and exciting to me, and i view my self as being fairly childish. As a 21 year-old, i feel like my childhood is so close behind me that i sometimes still forget that it's essentially over now. Even in that sentence, i couldn't help but emphasize my childhood as being 'essentially' over as opposed to being entirely over--and yet, i still find myself behaving in ways that i've come to understand, according to the ambiguous "they," believe is a way that only children and fools behave. The extremity of my emotional reactions is often met with some level of discomfort, and on those days i mentioned above when i'm feeling aspy, i just can't seem to bring myself to consider another person's point of view, not because i don't know how or am incapable (save for the following), but it simply does not occur to me that other people have a separate and different experience of life compared to my own. I even sometimes catch myself in these sort of behavioral traps so to speak and observe myself from the midst of them.
I've recently become especially interested in the experience of infancy, especially in the sense that the entire experience resides outside the realm of language and common communication with the like beings that surround us. I find it reminiscent of the indescribability of a psychedelic experience.
I've spent some time imagining what it's like to be born, and i recently heard speculation that the DMT molecule is produced naturally in a human not only in the moments of death, but also while being born. This is something i find easy to believe. I'm aware that i'm biased, being a drug user myself, with an inclination to practicing activities that make you feel good, but what is reality if not a playground for experience with force of will? I see no harm in entertaining theories until they're proven false, and as there is no decisive evidence on the contrary, i'll continue as though what i believe may be true is true, as i have done before.
If the psychedelic experience is anything kin to living in a world with limited or no language, which i believe is exactly something that it is, then those who are familiar with psychs may also find themselves feeling just a little bit more empathy towards small children than others. In addition, my experience of autism has caused me to react to my little niblings with a distinct recognition of the emotions they experience, and the volatile rate at which they switch between moods. I've watched my one nephew's face morph from a sense of some injustice to being entirely overwhelmed by how against him everyone seems to be, and i can feel the tug in my heart and behind my eyes like the jolt when you've been triggered and are about to cry.
I've recently come to the realization that i, as an adult, am what has been termed "a boob." I'm that kind of person who cries at the drop of a hat. It's not terribly uncommon for me to get misty eyed just laughing. When i feel my emotions, they start right at the surface and work their way deep into me, so the sooner i exhaust whatever catharsis an emotion needs, the better. Otherwise, it settles in, and it seeps into the gross heap of metaphorical sludge that is my "baggage." My emotions are very demanding of my attention, too. They take up about as much of my attention as blinders take up a horse's vision. I feel that this may resemble a child's experience of emotions. They're sensitive, reactive, dramatic--but i feel the thing many people forget about children is how resilient they can be, and often are. With the exception of those who are inclined to grudges, most children are endlessly forgiving, and will accept love from a person and the work of a relationship because i believe children have an innate sense of the value and relevancy of relationships, one they have no need to observe or consider, one that is simply a condition of their existence, like the way they can see or hear or have likes and dislikes. It takes no effort at all to Know things the way children Know things.
What does take effort, and a great deal of it at that, depending on the person, is behaving the way we as people are expected to behave. Even in things as simple as being okay with being alive at all. I myself experienced a great period of my adolescence wherein i felt uncannily apathetic at the prospect of any harm that could hypothetically befall me, and the very concept of my being alive was disdainful. It isn't easy for everyone to meet the expectations laid on us when we're conceived. It isn't comfortable for everyone to be a "person" like "they" expect you to be. And something that really confuses me is that grown adults seem to believe as a whole that these simple childish behaviors are not ever okay once you're an "adult," and that if you have urges outside what's considered "normal," that you should keep them hidden and quiet and private. I see a lot of people pretending... which, ironically, is something children do.
I tend to pretend when it tickles my fancy. Many people use sarcasm in their humor, and whatever variations they prefer. Sometimes i get really overwhelmed and the only way i can think of to cope is to pretend like everything is fine and that i don't feel like i would fall apart into a puddle if not for the structure of skin and bones to hold me up. Other times, i get really angry, and i just pretend like whatever i'm upset about is fine because nothing matters and we're all gonna die.
But the most common thing i see people pretending to do is know better. Sometimes we've seen something enough times to mimic the actions and what we do turns out to be what we meant to do, but we can't really know anything. We only have expectations, we make assumptions about how we think the world will respond to our actions based on what we've experienced.
Think about that word. Experience. That's the only thing that makes an adult's statements any more valid in an audiences eyes than a child's. We so often write off the things children say as play and pretend, and we tend not to take them too seriously because they're so sensitive and dramatic, right? They make up a lot more than they really know. And everything is a huge deal when it's the first time, which for children many things they do are firsts. It's hard to be on a kids level when it comes to actions and reactions because it takes so much energy to behave the way little children do. I know i find it exhausting. But when children play, they can run and run all day, chasing each other, climbing things, making loud noises, etcetera, and you'd never know the creatures sleep at all until they're finally already sleeping. Their tiny little bodies are fresh and bright and have so much momentum propelling them into everything they do. All the excitement of doing something a first time is in their lives almost at all times. The shock of feeling a new level of pain for the first time shakes them each time they're hurt. Children are extreme because the experience of being a child is extreme.
But here i am, as an adult, and so many things are still so bright and vivid to me. Each time i'm hurt by a new person, it strikes be deeply and i feel betrayed. Sometimes when i get really happy, really excited, or fall really into like with someone, i almost start to feel a little psychedelic. Delirious joy is not outside my reach.
I've heard some speculation in an especially nihilistic rant that it's possible a person may have already felt all of the most extreme and new emotions they'll ever feel. This makes life seem pretty bland, just living in the grey areas in between.
I've come to a conclusion in regards to my self and my humanity: I am convinced that it's possible to manipulate one's self to the degree of experiencing a psychedelic trip without ingesting any hallucinogens. If you can train your body to lift incredibly heavy objects, if you can practice a level of self-discipline that enables you not to feel pain, if you can play an instrument well enough to evoke perceivable emotional responses from listeners, you can learn to trip on your own. I fully intend to. I believe i will eventually master this skill. Why would someone choose to attempt this? Because i want to. I like the sensation of psychedelics, and i want that to be a more frequent experience in my life, and i don't want to have any dependence on any substance. I think i can achieve a state of being that does not require compromises. That's my goal, and if i achieve it, it will be another new experience for me.
Now this all sounds very strange and probably somewhat unrelated, but i return to my point: Childhood is gravely misunderstood by anyone not experiencing it, which in turn causes children themselves to feel misunderstood. As a remedy, try not growing up. Of course there's very little you can do about your physical state of growth, but of course i mean in your ideology and your perception. Try looking forward to things more often, especially small simple things. Do things because you like them, if for no other reason. When you feel something, let it loose and feel it in full, even if it's uncomfortable. Act out. Do weird things, gross things. Allow yourself the pleasure of life as it already is. Take it in stride, and do whatever you want to.
One of my favorite things about being grown is having experience with life--and i'm not even technically fully grown. I do all these things i've recommended, and i do them with my perspective in mind. I've been alive for two entire decades now, so i think i'm more or less capable of anticipating the next two decades i know i can reasonably expect to live. The things i want to do extend well and far into my future, and they're big things that will take a lot of work and time, and i'm just doing them. I've talked a bit about my opinions on existentialism before, and with the meaninglessness of life in mind, there's no good reason, as well as every "good" reason to do whatever you want to! You have experience and perspective, and you're capable of a lot. You don't have to compromise every time, as long as you're willing to try a little harder, and find a momentum that's only lessened since you've grown so much. It hasn't disappeared. You're still that little creature you couldn't know sleeps until you're sleeping. You still have opportunities to do things for the first time, as the world is so big already and all more or less at your fingertips! If you have access to what others have made available in the form of technology, work or ideas, you can do a lot. In fact, you can do anything.
My mom had four kids before she had me, and now all my siblings are having kids (waaaayyy) before i will, so it goes. Watching those kids grow up is so fascinating and exciting to me, and i view my self as being fairly childish. As a 21 year-old, i feel like my childhood is so close behind me that i sometimes still forget that it's essentially over now. Even in that sentence, i couldn't help but emphasize my childhood as being 'essentially' over as opposed to being entirely over--and yet, i still find myself behaving in ways that i've come to understand, according to the ambiguous "they," believe is a way that only children and fools behave. The extremity of my emotional reactions is often met with some level of discomfort, and on those days i mentioned above when i'm feeling aspy, i just can't seem to bring myself to consider another person's point of view, not because i don't know how or am incapable (save for the following), but it simply does not occur to me that other people have a separate and different experience of life compared to my own. I even sometimes catch myself in these sort of behavioral traps so to speak and observe myself from the midst of them.
I've recently become especially interested in the experience of infancy, especially in the sense that the entire experience resides outside the realm of language and common communication with the like beings that surround us. I find it reminiscent of the indescribability of a psychedelic experience.
I've spent some time imagining what it's like to be born, and i recently heard speculation that the DMT molecule is produced naturally in a human not only in the moments of death, but also while being born. This is something i find easy to believe. I'm aware that i'm biased, being a drug user myself, with an inclination to practicing activities that make you feel good, but what is reality if not a playground for experience with force of will? I see no harm in entertaining theories until they're proven false, and as there is no decisive evidence on the contrary, i'll continue as though what i believe may be true is true, as i have done before.
If the psychedelic experience is anything kin to living in a world with limited or no language, which i believe is exactly something that it is, then those who are familiar with psychs may also find themselves feeling just a little bit more empathy towards small children than others. In addition, my experience of autism has caused me to react to my little niblings with a distinct recognition of the emotions they experience, and the volatile rate at which they switch between moods. I've watched my one nephew's face morph from a sense of some injustice to being entirely overwhelmed by how against him everyone seems to be, and i can feel the tug in my heart and behind my eyes like the jolt when you've been triggered and are about to cry.
I've recently come to the realization that i, as an adult, am what has been termed "a boob." I'm that kind of person who cries at the drop of a hat. It's not terribly uncommon for me to get misty eyed just laughing. When i feel my emotions, they start right at the surface and work their way deep into me, so the sooner i exhaust whatever catharsis an emotion needs, the better. Otherwise, it settles in, and it seeps into the gross heap of metaphorical sludge that is my "baggage." My emotions are very demanding of my attention, too. They take up about as much of my attention as blinders take up a horse's vision. I feel that this may resemble a child's experience of emotions. They're sensitive, reactive, dramatic--but i feel the thing many people forget about children is how resilient they can be, and often are. With the exception of those who are inclined to grudges, most children are endlessly forgiving, and will accept love from a person and the work of a relationship because i believe children have an innate sense of the value and relevancy of relationships, one they have no need to observe or consider, one that is simply a condition of their existence, like the way they can see or hear or have likes and dislikes. It takes no effort at all to Know things the way children Know things.
What does take effort, and a great deal of it at that, depending on the person, is behaving the way we as people are expected to behave. Even in things as simple as being okay with being alive at all. I myself experienced a great period of my adolescence wherein i felt uncannily apathetic at the prospect of any harm that could hypothetically befall me, and the very concept of my being alive was disdainful. It isn't easy for everyone to meet the expectations laid on us when we're conceived. It isn't comfortable for everyone to be a "person" like "they" expect you to be. And something that really confuses me is that grown adults seem to believe as a whole that these simple childish behaviors are not ever okay once you're an "adult," and that if you have urges outside what's considered "normal," that you should keep them hidden and quiet and private. I see a lot of people pretending... which, ironically, is something children do.
I tend to pretend when it tickles my fancy. Many people use sarcasm in their humor, and whatever variations they prefer. Sometimes i get really overwhelmed and the only way i can think of to cope is to pretend like everything is fine and that i don't feel like i would fall apart into a puddle if not for the structure of skin and bones to hold me up. Other times, i get really angry, and i just pretend like whatever i'm upset about is fine because nothing matters and we're all gonna die.
But the most common thing i see people pretending to do is know better. Sometimes we've seen something enough times to mimic the actions and what we do turns out to be what we meant to do, but we can't really know anything. We only have expectations, we make assumptions about how we think the world will respond to our actions based on what we've experienced.
Think about that word. Experience. That's the only thing that makes an adult's statements any more valid in an audiences eyes than a child's. We so often write off the things children say as play and pretend, and we tend not to take them too seriously because they're so sensitive and dramatic, right? They make up a lot more than they really know. And everything is a huge deal when it's the first time, which for children many things they do are firsts. It's hard to be on a kids level when it comes to actions and reactions because it takes so much energy to behave the way little children do. I know i find it exhausting. But when children play, they can run and run all day, chasing each other, climbing things, making loud noises, etcetera, and you'd never know the creatures sleep at all until they're finally already sleeping. Their tiny little bodies are fresh and bright and have so much momentum propelling them into everything they do. All the excitement of doing something a first time is in their lives almost at all times. The shock of feeling a new level of pain for the first time shakes them each time they're hurt. Children are extreme because the experience of being a child is extreme.
But here i am, as an adult, and so many things are still so bright and vivid to me. Each time i'm hurt by a new person, it strikes be deeply and i feel betrayed. Sometimes when i get really happy, really excited, or fall really into like with someone, i almost start to feel a little psychedelic. Delirious joy is not outside my reach.
I've heard some speculation in an especially nihilistic rant that it's possible a person may have already felt all of the most extreme and new emotions they'll ever feel. This makes life seem pretty bland, just living in the grey areas in between.
I've come to a conclusion in regards to my self and my humanity: I am convinced that it's possible to manipulate one's self to the degree of experiencing a psychedelic trip without ingesting any hallucinogens. If you can train your body to lift incredibly heavy objects, if you can practice a level of self-discipline that enables you not to feel pain, if you can play an instrument well enough to evoke perceivable emotional responses from listeners, you can learn to trip on your own. I fully intend to. I believe i will eventually master this skill. Why would someone choose to attempt this? Because i want to. I like the sensation of psychedelics, and i want that to be a more frequent experience in my life, and i don't want to have any dependence on any substance. I think i can achieve a state of being that does not require compromises. That's my goal, and if i achieve it, it will be another new experience for me.
Now this all sounds very strange and probably somewhat unrelated, but i return to my point: Childhood is gravely misunderstood by anyone not experiencing it, which in turn causes children themselves to feel misunderstood. As a remedy, try not growing up. Of course there's very little you can do about your physical state of growth, but of course i mean in your ideology and your perception. Try looking forward to things more often, especially small simple things. Do things because you like them, if for no other reason. When you feel something, let it loose and feel it in full, even if it's uncomfortable. Act out. Do weird things, gross things. Allow yourself the pleasure of life as it already is. Take it in stride, and do whatever you want to.
One of my favorite things about being grown is having experience with life--and i'm not even technically fully grown. I do all these things i've recommended, and i do them with my perspective in mind. I've been alive for two entire decades now, so i think i'm more or less capable of anticipating the next two decades i know i can reasonably expect to live. The things i want to do extend well and far into my future, and they're big things that will take a lot of work and time, and i'm just doing them. I've talked a bit about my opinions on existentialism before, and with the meaninglessness of life in mind, there's no good reason, as well as every "good" reason to do whatever you want to! You have experience and perspective, and you're capable of a lot. You don't have to compromise every time, as long as you're willing to try a little harder, and find a momentum that's only lessened since you've grown so much. It hasn't disappeared. You're still that little creature you couldn't know sleeps until you're sleeping. You still have opportunities to do things for the first time, as the world is so big already and all more or less at your fingertips! If you have access to what others have made available in the form of technology, work or ideas, you can do a lot. In fact, you can do anything.
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