Act Professional!

As we get older, this is being expected more and more often and more seriously each time.
But what might it mean?

We call a thing someone does to make their living ‘professional’. That word carries responsibility and all that comes with it, ultimately a very adult way of doing things.
Most companies are operating professionally, because sustainability, accountability, profitability and many more -abilities are to be expected not only by their clients.

As a photography provider, I have been in that very situation myself, but much more relaxed as it wasn’t crucial to making my living. And I never really aimed for anything resembling pure professionalism; on the contrary, I made it clear that I strive for capturing moments with a passion and towards the individual clients.

Professionalism is about meeting standards. The antidote is expectation management.

With Autism?

One could argue that especially some late diagnosis does a number on your carefully crafted internal and external expectation management.
I myself learned as many standards as I could (etiquette manuals, seminars, my own rulebooks), so I could meet and master them and pass for an at times even professional being.

But the actual process works differently inside my mind. Under all robotic programming there lie unkempt feelings, passions, emotions. I was very lucky to suppress (mask) only parts of that fiery force and even incorporate much of that raw human spirit in my programming.

So, despite being autistic, I found ways to even come across rather ‘professional’ in select social matters.
But in reality, it’s my feelings on overdrive, covered by the enhanced ability of rational and cold logical calculation (which is a welcome tool to suppress the weird that humans seem to dislike more than embrace or even question sanely) that I am made of.

Note that those feelings come first and are then coated with the protective layer of all the things that seem to make an autistic person properly autistic by the books (change-repellant routine, avoidance of eye contact, repetitive and pedantic behaviour, vulnerability to sensory impact).

I tend to function best in this world, when either my feelings and emotions are neatly aligned or when my protective methods are at peak effectiveness. Sadly, neither is the case most of the time, as I am a human in a human world.
But I got by, having chosen every measure possible to keep my passion high on the job, despite spending all my energy on its account. And when all energy was spent and neither my own, nor others’ expectations could be met, I had to decide for some deep rest.

With Purpose.

I like to ask about the Why of things, and I aim for a satisfactory answer.
Thus, I wouldn’t be quite happy if I were to act ‘professionally’ only for professionalism’s sake. This is not a decision, I noticed in myself over the years, it is a deeply rooted gut feeling, to let real passion be the cornerstone of my motivations.

So when I was acting through my way professionally, I would be either masking most of my passion with the mental tools at hand, or I have been in a position to utilise vast amounts of my passion to accidentally pass for all expected standards of a given profession.

But in the end, are we here to fit into a preformed picture of ‘professionals’, or is it our purpose to simply share our passions with others through the thing we do, maybe professionally?
That said, not always can we choose our profession freely; but isn’t our job description far less central than our true passion and the answer to why we do what we do every day?

I feel that asking about this critical balance of passion and professionalism might be a great step towards healing for me.

What do I write about when I don’t know what to write about?
Something I never wanted to know about!

Depression might just be a diagnosis of one’s environment, as the same makes for this undesirable condition of the human experience.
But the environment is made up by external and very real internal factors. Job, home, social configuration, seasonal darkness, Weltschmerz, all has a powerful feedback loop through our brain.

We navigate the weird waves of life towards pliable surf, to tickle the mind favourably.

Only sometimes, something so bad goes on long enough, that a terrible sadness introduces itself and suddenly, things that were fun aren’t any more.
Energy is sparse, mornings are muddy, breath is short, discipline is broken, masks are slipping. Sleeping is joyless, purpose is foggy, chores are mountains, focus ungovernable.

When right feels wrong, is wrong still wrong?

All my life I have been un-, sub- and very consciously deducing the underlying structures of what we do and what we don’t.
Religion helped with an undisputable foundation for why we do things, good education and a curiosity-friendly home made finding rules and constants easier, so I could even navigate many of life’s oceans.

What I did was trying to answer the same practical question over and over: How can I be a good child, pupil, friend, apprentice, colleague, traveller, listener, photographer, tenant, representative, driver, customer, uncle, host, writer and so many more roles you might have seen me take on and showing more or less understanding of why I am that then.

Recently, more roles came up: An autistic person, a therapy client, a depressed person, a non-working person.
This is indubitably a life-changing process, one that is way overdue and no less critical, but I notice my old way of thinking here as well.
Ultimately, I am asking myself today: How I can be a good depressed person?

So, what does a good depressed person do?
Ah yes, they look for help. Ah yes, they struggle. Ah yes, they need time. Ah yes, they change habits. Ah yes, they get better, of course. Ah, yes, share their transformative journey to help others.

And who helps me look for help, should I struggle? And who gives me the time to change my many habits? And who can tell me that I have got better eventually?

Maybe one day I will tell others of a place inside ourselves, where the answers lie.
As much as my mind revolves around the autistic way of shaping a unique world view, as much I introduced outside elements to it in order to be a good human in every way.

What exactly is left when that outside clutter cracks, melts away and disintegrates?

What do you do with that?

Am I honoured to find out?

Action and reaction. The first fundamental lesson for the Human. It gets more intricate and complicado from there. But deeply rooted, there are two basic feelings, resulting from our actions: Feel good and feel bad.

Just like the anecdote of a patient crying at the doctor’s, it would hurt when they would do that, the doctor told them, just don’t do that then; we learn to lean towards the actions with that feel good reaction.

Enter foresight. Who wouldn’t want to prevent a bad aftermath of their actions?

So we build a habit of not immediately touching the liquid inside a mug, not throwing fists at other persons, not running with scissors, not calling out bodily features of strangers, not jumping off any platform, checking for glass doors in our way, backing up data, thinking things through before starting them, preparing a place to put the pan before taking it out of the oven, wearing a jacket in winter, being cautious about our manners and mannerisms according to established societal rules, avoiding things that gave us a bad feeling before.

What about that glum stuff at the end?
As a Hyper-Feeler, my brain is in usual overdrive and good and bad feelings are perceived much more intensively, thus making me all the more receptive for all the layers of actions and their reactions.

With my knack for gaming and puzzle solving, I started out from an early age, employing logic and deduction to pull the right physical strings to act in a pleasing way. Works well, once you get the hang of it!

But as with any title on ultra hardcore nightmare torment overkill difficulty, life first shows you the ropes, before letting you climb a ladder of increasing challenge on your own.
Oh, how often I wished for a guide to have consulted for some pointers, before something bad happened before I knew something bad could happen!
Looking back, I can tell stories of lucky findings and favourable circumstances, without which I would never sit in a place like now.

For many years I got by, using my habit of checking each and any corner I learned bad feelings could come from, taking less leaps and trusting my surroundings less than my peers, utilising my brains where I should have listened to my gut, moving slower and being happy with any success I pulled off with that strategy.

As a child, a student, an apprentice, a young traveller, I was mostly forgiven for out-of-the-line behaviour and got forgiving feedback after incidents.
Much different, I’d wager every adult will experience, the situation when grown up and inside a professional environment. There are standards and demands and conventions to meet. Mastering not fitting in and exploring ways to accommodate for the wondrously shaped brain one owns might ultimately lead to bad feelings anyway. Feelings of not understanding being not understood. Feelings of deciding between a mask and an honest act. Feelings of heightened caution one had known all through one’s whole life.

It is hard to evolve while being weary wary.