Calc 2

In 2012, I didn’t know I had autism. I didn’t really understand my ADHD. If you’d asked me at the time, I would’ve said I was still dealing with my mother’s death from 4 years earlier. I had no idea that my dad was continuing to emotionally abuse me. The fact that I had PTSD couldn’t have been further from being discovered. I had never tried SSRIs, let alone weed. I didn’t even know I had any mental health issues whatsoever. I lived for the weekends, when I would get drunk and laugh with my girlfriend. Saturday and Sunday were oases that motivated me to keep crawling through the grit and heat of weekdays in my small singles dorm room at my university.

My Calculus 2 professor was woman so old, she used the PA system wired into the walls of the classroom. If she hadn’t, the people in the back wouldn’t have been able to hear her speak. She was about the height of a mailbox, and looked like she weighed about as much as a couple of bowling balls. I wasn’t foolish enough to ask her age, but she couldn’t have been younger than 70.

She was passionate about her subject and her job. But, when she would raise her voice, it would come out through the PA system. One day, she kicked out two girls who were chatting. She went over to their desks, gathered their belongings in her arms, and lead them out the door. You may be asking yourself, “How does a 5-foot, 100-pound, 80-year-old math professor kick two college girls out of her class?” The answer really is quite simple. It’s easy to do, really. All it takes is being terrifying.

I didn’t go to class for weeks after that. It might’ve even been months. I hated myself for not going, and I knew what I was doing was setting myself up for failure, but I couldn’t help myself. No matter what I did, for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to go back. Every time I tried, her furious voice would ring in my ears, and I would shrink away from the thought. Those mornings, I didn’t even leave my room. I would eat handfuls of peanut M&Ms and pretend not to be in if friends knocked on my door.

At the end of the semester, with exams approaching, I panicked. I flew into a storm of studying.

I got a B in the class.

I’ve changed. I have autism. I’m pretty sure I’m a genius. I’m only being arrogant if I’m wrong, right? Well,

Eugh what the hell is this font. Sorry about the long title, but I couldn’t just not say anything. Then again, I had other things to say, which is why I wanted to write in the first place. So, if you’ll excuse me:

Axiom 1: I’m an autistic genius
Axiom 2: Weed is well-known as an apparent creativity boost
Axiom 3: Weed seems to make my autism “worse”
Axiom 4: Monologuing is a symptom of autism

I could probably write some pretty good books about how I view the universe, with weed enough and time.

Solution? Maybe [update1]

I think I’ve finally realized why I can’t get up out of bed in the morning on weekends. I’ll be in bed and want to get up, but it won’t happen until a significantly large amount of time has passed or if I’m significantly motivated to do.

Throughout my life, I’ve been controlled. As I came to realize this, I resisted this control. I was angry enough at the idea of being controlled that I resisted, but smart enough not to blatantly resist authority, in that I would twist things; just enough to satisfy my need to reject control, but just enough to be able to claim that I was following directions. Very Poor Example: I’m asked to draw a picture of a bear. My knee-jerk reaction is to draw a walrus, but instead I draw a picture of a bear in a business suit driving a car. Slightly Less-Crappy Example: I’m asked to stop tapping my desk with the tips of my fingers. My first thought is to tap louder, pretending not to hear, but instead I tap a few more…one less than what would be considering open rebellion.

What I did was make myself unable to be controlled. The problem that this caused was (and I didn’t realize this until now) that this applied to me as well…not only are other people not able to control me, but no one can, myself included.

Is it possible to rebel against yourself? …

How about another, better question:

Is it impossible to rebel against yourself? No, it most certainly is not.

EDIT 1: Think about it this way…I twist thing.  Justify.  Explain.  Excuse.  I tell myself that it’s not that I don’t want to get out of bed, but that it’s because I can’t.  This, in a twisted way, is true, but not entirely.  I want to get out of bed, and can’t, but because I’m preventing myself from doing so.  If you look at it that way, the whole thing really is false, because I don’t want to get up at all.

When I get a writing assignment, I find it hard to work on it.  At least, that’s how I think of it…that “I have trouble doing work”.  However, I think that what’s important to note here is that on my own time, I’ve stayed up until 1 am ‘working’ on projects.  I’ve even literally asked myself the question as to why the same task is easier if I’m doing it of my own accord than if it’s for school.  But I’ve wondered even more often why it’s so hard to get up out of bed in the morning, when I’m the one giving the orders.

Now I know why.  And why even those things that aren’t for school are so hard.  I rebel against control, even if it’s me.

And…Shuffle

(shoutout to Stephen King)

Things like this lift me up from sadness when I’m down…I still don’t know if I’m deeply sad or just sad on the surface, but things like this raise me up from ‘Very Sad’ to ‘Sad’, it makes me start to feel that I might be a bowl of ice cream away from happiness.

Odd

I have discovered that I’m a deeply sad person.  Not sad as in pathetic, but sad as in depressed.

I don’t know what to think of this, as I’ve always thought of myself as a mostly happy person.  However, tonight it suddenly struck me…underneath it all is a low drone…a buzzing in the background that has been there so long it is unnoticed.

I have the following reasons to doubt this discovery:

• My mind is unendingly good at creating problems in order to solve them, since that will distract away from a real problem that I don’t want to face (example: the two research projects that are due in less than two weeks).  This could simply be a gigantic excuse for not working on things.
• Being a teen, it is very possible that in a time span ranging anywhere from ten minutes to ten hours from now I may laugh at the idea of me being depressed, and that I will be right to do so as I will feel as happy as I ever have been
• Things are getting better – I’m no longer making the same mistakes that I was before, and I’ve almost broken all of my bad habits completely.

I have the following reasons to believe this discovery:

• It feels right; the feeling of sudden discovery sweeps me when I think of it.  I get the feeling that this is what I’ve been probing my mind for, and that I’ve found what I’ve been trying to find
• I’ve been slowly peeling back the layers of my mind, and it makes sense that I would realize something like this eventually
• I find that I latch onto simple pleasures, and view them more like self-healing.  I’ve never really asked, though, why I need to be healed at all.  If I’m not wounded, why would I need to be healed?
• Something I will not write here, but a valid reason

Epiphanies

Read the other “how my mind works” posts to more fully understand this

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I have moments of sudden dawning realization and understanding; epiphanies; I recently ( past 3-4 months) have had very many.When I realize concepts, in a sudden flash of understanding, the new concept is applied and fitted to all of my memories that it applies to, which, depending on how big the concept is, makes many, many, many things make sense that didn’t make sense before.

When I was little, (6 years old in kindergarten in a private school that I left before first grade) I was at a pool being chaperoned by someone who I now think of as a 18-19 year old kid (Yeah, I’m only 17, sue me for thinking of those who are young as what they are).

I don’t remember (because I never was told) his first name, but his last name was Graham; we (the other kids) called him “Graham Cracker”.  He didn’t like being called that, thus resulting in us (especially me) calling him by it as often as possible.  One day, I called him “Graham Cracker” one time too many, and he snapped, yelling “Shut up!” at me.

Most kids my age (6 at the time) would cry, some kids that age might run to someone they felt would protect them from the ‘mean grown-up’, but I didn’t – it was what I now know as my first moment of epiphany.  In that moment, I crossed from being an automaton to a sentient being.  In that moment that lasted hours upon days upon years upon decades, I gained self-awareness.

Mr. Graham was no longer a ‘grown-up’: For the first time, I noticed his backpack by the side of the pool.  I noticed how much younger he looked than the other people at the school.  I suddenly saw him as who he was – not a figure of authority who must be obeyed, not a ‘grown-up’ who told what must be done and set rules that must be followed – but a person.  A kid, just like me, and the only difference between us being that he had been born before I was, and was bigger than me because of it.  He wasn’t better, smarter, and hadn’t been enlightened by some godly, heavenly knowledge.  He was a person, just like me.  In that moment that I would refer later on to as “seeing behind the mask”, I crossed from being an animal to being a person, one who was self-aware and sentient.

Today, I realized why I have the need to analyze and chew on things that have happened that I don’t understand.  In some cases, if you follow the rabbit hole down deep enough, you find something that makes things make sense.  Until today, I didn’t know why I needed to seek these moments of epiphanies.  What I now realize was a “placeholder” reason for needing these moments of epiphanies was that “I wanted to find more knowledge”…sure, the shoe fits, but it still seemed like a hollow answer – flawed; wrong somehow.  It didn’t feel right.  It made sense, but deep down, I knew it wasn’t really the answer I was looking for.

“Know Thy Self” – what is probably the most important and most famous philosophical statements in the history of man, written by Socrates.  Socrates believed that his fellow citizens were going through life without taking a look at themselves, what they were doing, or why they were doing it.  They would do things, and do them the way that they did them, simply because they had always been doing it, or because they were told to, by people who were equally unaware of their own blindness.

Today I uncovered why I need to have these moments of epiphanies – although one of the reasons is to gain knowledge and understanding, it’s not the main reason…the main reason is due to fear – the fear of being blind; and not only blind, but blind to your own blindness.  If you take a look back at what I now know as my first moment of epiphany, you will see that what was gained was self-awareness.  I cringe at what my life would be like and what kind of person I would be like now if that realization had not occurred as it did, as early as it did in my life.

The deep fear that I have at my core is that there is some kind of window of opportunity.  Just like children easily learning a second language when they are very young, discoveries like this are probably easier when you are younger.  On the flipside of this, learning new languages when you are older is harder than it would have been had you attempted to learn the language when you were young.  If I look at what my life might have been like if that first moment of epiphany, that first, huge, important step hadn’t occurred and cringe, I look at what huge realizations I might be missing if I don’t strive for them.

The fear is that if I don’t analyze, and instead let life fly by, I will never reach my full potential.  Just as I would have been different had that first moment of epiphany had occurred, I may end up being a lesser being that what I could be if I miss an opportunity to gain wisdom and understanding in the future.

My whole life, in the back of my mind, for some reason I’ve always had this expectation of a moment some day in which something will be said, something will happen, or something will be done that will make everything fall into place.  I thought about why this might be today, and what might have put this strange expectation into my mind, when I realized all of what you’ve just read above.

If I gained self-awareness the first time it happened, what might I gain the next time I have a moment of epiphany?  What if I don’t hear those few words on the radio that start me thinking on a train of thought that will eventually lead me to wonderful and sudden understanding?

In a final thought, I want to say that just like concepts, when I have moments of epiphany and suddenly come to understand something, in a flash of realization, everything in my memory to which the new piece of knowledge that has been obtained can apply to flashes into my mind, and suddenly things make sense.  When I realized that Mr. Graham was just a person instead of a godlike grown-up authority figure, I suddenly saw people for who and what they were…the principle wasn’t necessarily smart, she just had a really big desk!  Teachers, adults, grown-ups, could all be wrong, just like me.

“I think, therefore I am“- Rene Descartes

explaination comes later

I write this for my sake more than yours – do not take this for any kind of illusion – it will make sense later (hopefully) when I write and explain.

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• My dad once told me that his younger brother made himself lose teeth when his younger brother saw that my dad was losing teeth. The younger brother made himself grow his teeth to keep up with my dad.
• The past few months have been filled with revelations about myself. Sudden dawning realizations that redefine how I see myself, and explain certain aspects of my personality with startling clarity. These have been happening more and more often, now up to at least once per day
• I’ve come to the conclusion that I looked at my life – who I am, who I want to be, who I was – and at some point, in my subconscious mind, decided that I needed to change. My standards had been slowly eroded away by the expectations of my environment and the rejection of authority that comes with being 17, while my hopes and dreams had stayed the same. At some point, these two things must have conflicted each other [EDIT: so much] that it sparked a chain reaction. I needed to change, so I started to – and in truth, while it’s something that fills me with hope and joy, it’s something that I didn’t realize was caused by me.

The Way My Mind Works (part 2)

Continued from The Way My Mind Works (Part 1)

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Some of the things that I’m about to say may seem arrogant, and while I may want to argue with you about that, you may be right in believing so. The point of saying such things so blatantly is that they are (I believe) factual for the most part, in that I believe them. If they are wrong, it is not because I am lying, and if they are right, I’m not saying them because I’m bragging.

Okay…with that out of the way, I’ll get started…

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Introduction

These are the things that will be referred to later on; these are things that need to be known in order to better explain things later on.

I’m smart. I have an amazing memory. These are two facts – one may be caused by the other, or maybe they’re the same thing. One philosopher who’s name I forget once said something along the lines of how “bodies should not be multiplied unnecessarily”, meaning that if he had his way, he would call the two things the same thing.

If you put those two things together, you get something interesting, but if you endow a young child (by young I mean 4 or 5) with them, you get something even more interesting.

Let me tell you first what I mean by “smart”, and what it has to do with having an “amazing memory”, to which I’ll simply refer to as “memory” simplify things. I’m smart in that I can understand concepts easily, and my memory is such that once I “get” something, I keep it. If I “get it” once (and I mean really “get it”) there is a good chance that I will have “it” for the rest of my life.

That is how those two things work together – alone, they are equally useful.

I can memorize something if I concentrate on it. While this is effective, it is…well, I wouldn’t call it difficult in a sense, but it requires a great amount of mental effort. If you’ve heard of or know of visualization technique, imagine taking what you want to remember as a physical object, and stapling, nailing, or taping it to your brain. To the outside observer, I close my eyes tightly for about 3-10 seconds, depending on how complex what I want to remember is, and how sure I want to be that I’ll remember it later on.

With concepts, as soon as I get something, all sorts of applications that the concept can be used for flash through my mind like lightning. The moment of realization may be a long time coming sometimes; it’s either all or nothing. If I understand something, I understand it completely and totally. If I don’t understand it, there is nothing gained until I do.

When I was taught multiplication, it took me a small amount of time, but once I understood it, it became a part of me, no different in my understanding of everything else in life. Once understood, a concept is no less integrated into my understanding of things than the concept that water is wet, and that fire is hot.

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The Plot Thickens

So – we have a young boy who understands and doesn’t forget. He’s in Elementary School.

Yeah, that was amazing use of time – Multiplication was explained to me, and as soon as I understood it, I knew it in the same way that I understood that the Earth was round. Multiplication tables came several years later, in third, fourth, and fifth grade. I had already memorized them all by about mid-third grade. From then on, every time I received a piece of work pertaining to the multiplication tables, I would complete it without working hard at all.

Every subject was just like that; I would learn it the first time it was discussed, and wouldn’t work hard for the duration of the year, or until a new concept was introduced. Even when a new concept came up, I would soak it in right away, meaning another set of months without any real mental effort required.

I breezed through Elementary School, straight A’s, and most of Middle School.

Here’s where things start getting…”fun”.

What we have here is a preteen who hasn’t had to expend more than a few minutes of minimal mental effort for a decade. He essentially hasn’t had to work ever, and (knowing this now), frankly, doesn’t quite know how.

In eighth grade, I started getting F’s. I was trying as hard as I had been; why wasn’t I getting straight A’s? I never had to study anything before, since I remembered everything I ever needed to know on a test or quiz. I never had to do homework, since they hardly give you any up until about 6th or 7th grade. That was “stupid” so I didn’t do that, because if they “got to know me” they would realize that I really knew it and could understand what they were teaching. That’s what school was designed to do, right? To give you information? …Right? Wrong, but I wouldn’t be able to face that until several years and a lot of bad report cards later.

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High School

In Freshman year of high school, I learned that I needed to do homework. In Sophomore year, I learned why. I’m in my Junior year, and I’m learning how to put those two things I’ve learned from the years before together and get the homework done.

This is how my understanding has changed; the beginning/top of the list is how I started off, and the bottom is how I am now.

• School is a place where you learn things that you need to know so that you will be an educated member of society
• School is a place where you are taught things so that you will be an educated member of society
• School is a place where teachers tell you things so you will be an educated member of society
• School is a place where teachers are paid money to read you their lesson plans so you might hear things you didn’t know about before
• School is a place where people are paid to read out of books so you might be able to learn something, if anything
• School is a place where people are paid to assign work, which you must do in order to raise your grade; your grade is a number that is sent to college, which you need to get into if you want a good job
• School is where you do work that affects your grade, a number that, if high enough, will let you get into college
• School is where you work towards raising your chances of getting into college

The last is pretty much true in my opinion.  It’s something I need to face, every day.  It is my goal to be a video game designer.  That requires college, which requires a good GPA, which means I need to do well in school.  That’s right; I need to work – and not just work; work hard.

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Similarities

I remember being taught in Driver’s Education that one of the biggest problems an inexperienced driver must overcome is looking above what is directly in front of them and seeing the whole road ahead of them.  New drivers tend to look directly down in front of the car, instead of looking straight ahead, horizontally.

What I had to realize and overcome was not looking at the big picture.  Sure, that teacher is an ass who has no business teaching, and no idea what they’re talking about.  They shouldn’t demand of me what they probably can’t fulfill themselves.  So no, I won’t do the homework they assigned.

Or you can look at the big picture instead of at what’s right in front of your nose.  The homework assigned will be graded.  The grade will go into the grade book of the teacher, and will be figured in with your average.  If you continue to refuse to do the work, your average will fall, and fast.  At the end of the semester, you will probably be failing, leading to a mad rush of makeup work, or you may simply fail, leaving you to either take summer school or to retake the class the following year.  Not only that, but if you continue to fail classes, your transcript and GPA are going to suck.  That means that you are endangering your hopes of getting into college.

What is commonly failed to be seen is that not doing homework is EXACTLY THE SAME as not going to college.  EXACTLY the same.  Unlike homework, which you can find a way around it by making excuses, reasoning your way out of it (for example; I won’t do it, not because I’m lazy, but because the teacher is an ass) or being blatantly lazy.

Something I fight tooth and nail against every minute of every hour of every day is the impulse to refuse to work.

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This is the first brick of a foundation that I will lay to define myself.  It is but one factor that has caused me so much grief and suffering.  Self-deception is a powerful thing, and shouldn’t be underestimated.

While last time I had two cousins that were ready to play, this time I have dinner that is ready to be eaten, and so I will continue this series of self-definition and self-explanation later on.  Trust me; with these basics out of the way, I can move on to the things that are much more recent and infinitely more…interesting.

The Way My Mind Works (part 1)

I put “part 1” into the title because I want to avoid two things that almost stopped me from continuing to post on this blog (before being eventually, inevitably overcome)

1. Wanting to continue your thought so badly that you want to say it all in one “breath” (post) so you won’t lose track of your thoughts (in this case, My Thoughts)
2. Biting off more than you can chew by trying to say too much in one post, and being unable to finish the post

The result is a half-finished megapost that never goes live.  If you cut out the threads that you couldn’t finish, it would be a relatively impressive post, but they wouldn’t call it biting off more than you can chew if it was that easy.  Once started, a thought must be finished, so what I’ll be overruling here is the desire to try to contain all of my thoughts into one post.  It’ll be a lot easier if I break what I have to say into bite-sized chunks.

I have to go now, and may explain why later (it’s not that serious, but requires my attention).  I’ll continue this later; expect the posts to end like this, but don’t worry – this is one thread that I’m not going to let drop.