I am Alan Aspie. I am an Aspie. That means that I am autistic. And my talent profile is a bit like rollercoaster. Many "easy" things are almost impossible to me. And some other things... Sometimes I can do in minutes or hours something that several professors have never been able to do - in any time. I'm from Finland. It is the only country in the world where no one notices anything if you are autistic. To me humans are what and especially how they think. I don't mean "about what". I mean "what is the dynamics and structure and structure behind structure of they thinking." My English is awful. Sorry about that. If you invent ideas, values, agendas... and lie that they are from my head, i will put you under ignore -button. And it is the only reason I ignore anyone. I don't have time or interest to that kind of mean and aggressive dishonesty. So... Please... If you want to talk with me, don't use Cathy Newman -style intellectual and logical dishonesty. If I am interested about something, I use to dig deeper than most peoples. Sometimes it gives me some understanding. If you ask me something, I suppose that you want to know about it. (Often this is mistake.) So I tell. And tell. And... It might take 3 hours or 3 weeks, but... You know... You asked because you are interested and I know something little (= 3 weeks) about it, so I try to help me. If you want to ask something, I might answer. But I keep some personal bounders tightly closed. Alan Aspie is of course a pen name I use here. I am planning to write several genres. Autistic self help. Comedy. Young adult. Children. Christian... How that goes? If you want to follow it, you can do it in Aspies Pipeline. I will not tell much more about me. And I am not a topic in any other thread. I try to help other writes if I can. That means that I try to link sources that are immediately available. Some book might bee better reference, but maybe you don't have it. So this Youtube lecture, this article, this.... That way you get the names and words you can hit to Google and trace the knowledge yourself. Do it!
Tervetuloa! I see you've already made yourself at home. That's great! In case you haven't visited them yet, here's our Rules as well as our New Member Guide. See you on the boards! -Kat
Kiitos! Jos satut tietämään täällä muita suomalaisia, jotka ovat tulleet julkisesti ul0s saunasta, niin vinkkaa. I started writing. I don't know how long it takes to make myself at home. I usually adapt slowly. And to NT:s: When I told about digging deep and answering a lot, I forgot to mention the main point: When I focus my attention to some subject, I focus on subject - not a person I am talking/writing with. Neurotypicals "feel” or "interpret” very often that my attention is focused to them - as a person or something like that. It is not. But... I have only one tool to signal that my attention or interest is not focused to that person that "feels” or ”interpret" that it is. That tool is telling. "I am not interested about you but about the subject we are talking about.” And that very rarely works. And usually I forget to use that tool because I am focused to the subject. Neurotypicals use to trust they sub/unconscious interpretations no matter how false they are. If there is intensity and them present at same time, it must be about them. Or... craziness... or... No. It is the subject. And I can't prevent that "he is obsessed about me" -delusion that many neurotypicals maintain.
Your English isn't bad at all. As for Asperger's Syndrome, it's a bit higher in the public consciousness (at least in the US) because of TV's The Big Bang Theory, where one of the main characters is also an "Aspie." He's supported by a loving, if sometimes exasperated, group of friends who guide him through the rough patches. These friends are held up as role models for viewers who are themselves dealing with someone with the syndrome, or so I've been told.
It is. I must check every second word. Can't think in English. Can't translate my thoughts fluently. When I try to write English I must amputate my thinking so that I could have anything in screen. All nuances go away. And... I can smell Finnish words, grammar, thinking... behind my English sentences. I try to improve, but it is so slowly... (And this is not fake-humble bs but real estimate about real situarion.) Sitten mä oon erehtynyt. Info > faq > Staff -reitin perusteella syntyy sellainen harhakuva kuin palstalla olisi kolmaskin julkisesti saunasta ulos plötkähtänyt löylynlyömä. Mai bäd.
More about my aspergerism... Sometimes Aspies are classified to 3 social types. 1. Active but odd. 2. Aloof. 3. Passive I am defenitely "active but odd”. An it does not mean that I try to be odd. I don't seek attention. Asperger's Syndrome is not a personality type. It is more like if you brain was wired differently. Like... Maybe you don't have much intuitive social understanding and perception, but when you start to realise that there are certain things and they mean a lot, you can develop your intellectual social understanding and perception. You can logic out things you can't automatically sense. And how is autistic thinking different? Variations are endless. In my case I use visual thinking in many areas where most people don't. If we talk about whatever I make very fast imaginary structure. It is like pyramid or stairs connected to other stairs connected to... I put things in that structure. And then I can change, move, stretch, shrink, turn... it just the way I like and need. I can add parts and take other parts away. That imaginary tool has a place. It is in the left, just above all I can see with my eyes. I don't see it visually but mentally. Normally it is 3D. Sometimes it is 3d + t or 4D + t. Very, very rarely it is 5D + t^2. Please don't ask me to explain that. I couldn't. If I could, I wouldn't. There is something flow-like easiness and at the same time it consumes really huge amounts of energy. That is the best I am able to tell about it. When that tool is 3D it is quite easy to use 2 or 3 of them simultaneously. Usually I put dynamics in one, substances in second and structures of structures to third. Normally I process them separately and after that I pet them one upon the other so I can see the whole. Neurotypical thinking is mystery to me. I have never had any idea how it happens. If I try to ask it, I don't get answers that help me to understand the dynamics and structures of NT-thinking. I get only some nonsense babbling about substances. It does not help me understand anything.
You may find that that will come with time. I worked for a Frenchman who had only recently moved to the US, married an American woman, and started a business here. He told me that after ten years, he found that he was starting to think in English rather than French. Interestingly, he still thought in French when he was working on engineering problems, because that was what all of his training was in, and he seldom worked with American engineers. Well, you're not alone. English, perhaps more than any other language, is rife with such things. Every time it brushes up against another language, it picks up some of the characteristics of that language, incorporating idioms that began with Yiddish or Spanish or French or whatever. That's what makes English writers like Vladimir Nabokov or Joseph Conrad or Isaac Asimov so interesting ... none of them had English for a first language, so their writing was run through a different set of filters. As an American, I've had the good fortune to live in parts of the country where other languages (Spanish and native American) were spoken in daily life, and I've seen how they've influenced the English that is spoken in those areas. And New Yorkers know how much other languages like German or Yiddish have make their marks on the local dialect, not only in vocabulary but in grammar and syntax. This is a good thing, not a bad thing, because it takes advantage of what English does best as it re-invents itself over the centuries. As for Asperger's: "active but odd" is a good description of Sheldon Cooper's personality on The Big Bang Theory. It also describes a college friend of mine, whom my other friends sometimes nicknamed "Crazy Craig." Craig wasn't really crazy, but he would go from one pastime to another, learning everything about it before getting bored with it and dropping it. He also have trouble picking up on emotional contexts and forming lasting relationships with women. But he was one of the smartest people I've ever met, and he helped me out a lot when I was at loose ends. It wasn't until very late in life that he learned about Asperger's Syndrome, and it was a great relief to him to know that he wasn't the only one with that personality structure.
I can pick emotional contexs. My way is more conscious than intuitive. One area is almost impossible to me. Some people think in clusters. And to them reality is clustered in a same way as they personal clusters. And they treat other people like if they clusters were real, valid, wise and universal. To me that kind of thinking is intellectually extremely low rate, intellectually and morally dishonest, socially aggressive, narcissistic, power hungry... I can understand that someone underperforms because of intellectual laziness. But to assume all the others do the same? That is bloody arrogant and insulting. It's evil. I can understand how they use that kind of projections in their dominance hierarchy battles. But I can't understand how and why they think it is a good strategy. What is a point in fighting about some imaginary position and devaluating that position almost totally at the same time? Isn't that just stupid? Forming lasting relationships... I have been married about a decade and a half. Bunch of kids. It is not hard to form lasting relationships. It is hard to find emotionally, intellectually... compatible woman with mutual attraction. After finding and having a start it is simple. Don't let less important things to mess anything more important. My biggest problem with women is certain kind of very common female self-suffiency. It something (note: thing) is interesting, I delve into it in very passionate way. And for some shady reason very many women react like if I was interested about them. To me the most sexy part of a woman is brains. And these "he's so obsessed about me" -cases.... To put it in a polite way... They are never intellectually sexy, intellectually interesting or socially bearable. But you can't say that aloud. You must let them keep and spread their delusions. I can't stand these "if you exist it means you must be flirting to me" -types.
A lof of Finns behave like if it was shameful to be a Finn. Not me. I'm proud about our country. I love it. And I think it might be interesting to those who don't know much about it. So I use to tell or link peculiar things connected to Finland. It is my way to help other writers to find inspiration, information and loony things.
Late welcome, but welcome, Alan! As someone who takes icy showers on a daily basis, I've always wanted to hop from a Sauna an into an ice swimming session.
This sounds important to you. Could you be more specific? I recall something your wrote about writing self help self-help on SFFchrons where you seemed to be telling people what their values and agenda was when they didn't understand you. I think other "neurotypical" do this to some extent. It also sounds like how people construct and maintain a Memory Palace.
1. I'm quite open about my thinking and opinions. And I try to be specific. If someone "finds" secret agendas or "ways to interpret" "what I really mean" he/she usually finds his/her own thinking - not mine. And I expect them to take responsibility of they thinking instead of blaming me about it. 2. A bit similar. Memory Palace is mainly about - memory. It's past, history, something that was or is and needs remembering. Memore Palace is about using dynamics and structures to deal with substance. This is a bit similar but about what can/can't be, possibilities, categories, logical structures... It's about using structures and substance to deal with dynamics, structures and substance. I don't know how easy it is to use Memory Palace as a freely scalable tool. (I don't use it.) This I use that way.
Summary: In few days my first year here is full. July 31. My English is a bit better. Not much, but a bit. Thinking in English is a lot easier to do. I have got some new virtual friends. I have learned more about writing and thinking. During the first days one forumite started to invent total BS about me and my life and got some support to that bullying from someone else. I used ignore button and it was very wise decision. My limit for ignoring is that: I ignore those who invent BS about me from their own head and put it in public. I think that is very good limit. That shows the level of moral and intellectual dishonesty, that is better to keep away. (And I don't mean misinterpreting or making mistakes here.) I thank all the moderaptors - past and current - from this almost full first year and hope that second year will se even more progress, learning and working.
Apropos of nothing much ...my niece and her husband have just returned to the USA from a 3-week holiday in the far north of Finland. (North of the Arctic Circle) She was there in the same place last midwinter as well. Finland is her new favourite country, and from the pictures she put up on Facebook, I'm VERY jealous. Lovely place. Lots of interesting wildlife, plants. Her husband went wild mushroom foraging with experts and was smiling ear to ear, holding up a few very respectable ceps at the end of it. (I love mushroom foraging!) My niece has taken to cold-water swimming (she went into the Baltic Sea in the middle of the winter!) and participated in a triathelon in Finland this time around. Your country is fantastic. I know somebody here from Scotland who has moved to Helsinki, and is VERY happy there. Happy forum anniversary!
Thanks jannert! If they were recently 3 weeks in Lapland they were there only part of one day. Sun has been up or in horizon level all that time, I suppose? If you have a hole in ice in lake, river or sea, it's called avanto here. Sauna and swimming in avanto makes you feel really good. I don't like Helsinki at all. It's too big. Too busy. Too noisy. Too urban. Too wanna be. Finland produces part of the best foods in the world. Reason is simply: long summer days. What you taste and smell is mainly long hydrocarbons. Part of the most sophisticated aromas are very long hydrocarbon chains. It takes plants long time to produce them. If it takes... say... 11 hours of daylight to produce some very long hydrocarbons, you don't get much of them if you have only 14 hour day. In the beginning and ending of daylight you don't have much light. So... Total amount of those hydrocarbons will be very little. But if you have 18 hours day, you have hugely more those very long aromatic hydrocarbons. Very, very, very much more. That is why best rye, berries, cumin (or is it Persian cumin?).... come from Finland. (North of Sweden could compete, but they pay more attention to quantity than aroma. Norway does not have much farming land.) Unfortunately it's not easy to find good rye bread from Finland any more. People buy tasteless cheap shit. (It's better than say German rye bread but still shit compared to good rye bread. If you cant smell it from several meters, it' not good.)
You know, I never thought of that. The fact that the long growing DAY would have an impact on crops. You won't have a long growing season, like places farther south, but this prolonged light would probably make a difference. Interesting.
