Blog - Page 7 of 46 - Sir Oliver Evolves

Guilt

Apr 30, 2023 | Autism, Thoughts

The feeling of remorse of not having met expectations because of my own shortcomings.

So I fled the scene. I couldn’t function properly and there were 1000 reasons why. But I couldn’t articulate but one of them, as none of those were the real reason. It might have started with a single reason, but I could not put my finger on it, as every other reason gets more complicated with more entering the mix and chasing off all safeguards.

I had the wish to be my best self, to meet all the criteria of a good time with me.
But then, something changes, some factors go cross, I am not fully prepared anymore, and now I have to put in extra energy to be aware of the new situation.

Guilt is an ugly thing, but can be cured.

Remorse

Shame.

You couldn’t make it! You failed! You are not fit. You do not fit in. Where is your place?

So why are you not able to make it? A good time with people, what is so hard? Other times you can do it, but why not now?

Why do you not function at will? What is so big, so hard, so cruel that it doesn’t let you be your best self?

What is your play, what makes sense here? How can you build good relationships when you suddenly don’t talk much? Where are you going with your behaviour?

What about your good days, can you not be like you are then?

Expectations

What DO you want?

It depends, as always. My life does consist of the external circumstances and what I bring to the table.
Some things can be changed, some things can’t be changed, some things are not easy to change.

We all like certain things and we should be prepared to make sure others can experience them. Starting with basic human warmth, up to selfless acts of kindness.

There are always expectations, hidden, implied, clearly stated, but sometimes only projected onto myself, by myself. It takes extreme measures of self-reflexion to be aware of the latter.

As much as these expectations depend on the situation, they are either met or not met.

Meeting expectations is often seen as the default, but when I can’t meet one, up rises a gap waiting to be filled with interpretation:
What was the reason? Am I okay with not meeting the expectation? Do I learn something from the situation? Does the situation affect my wellbeing?

Aha!
In order to answer those questions, I need to know my values, aka what’s important to me.

Only that is quite impossible without knowing myself, at least for a little bit.

Shortcomings

We are all short of perfection. No doubt, all fail.

Though the individual and ultimate difference lies in handling those shortcomings, which is tightly related to the way we explain those to ourselves.

For the majority of people, failing to navigate the world leads to similar sounding explanations and thus, to similar ways to handle those.

But there are people who, at their core, work differently, which sparks differences in behaviour and handling of external factors. This affects people with autism, like myself.

A Cure?

Guilt plays a major role in the lives of autistic people.
All of the above I have written well aware of being affected by the phenomenon.

And that is the very fact that makes the relentless experience of guilt mostly a thing of the past for me.
I know about my needs now, I can set expectations for myself correctly and I can work with others, who to me always seemed to just make the rules, to discuss those expectations.

Many times I have sat down and couldn’t quite make sense out of my feelings, when I had been overwhelmed by a situation of humanly acceptable expectations.
I felt guilt, without allowing myself to call it that and act accordingly. It is a dangerous power to think that something is how it is supposed to be, while not questioning it against your values.

But the realisation of how you work and who you are is a very hard-to-acquire one. Also, a whole new topic, what your aim in life is.

Nevertheless, it is just that thing, that undestanding of my own nature, which made my life immensly better. Not without help and not without tears and not without pain that was achieved.

One can go quite the mile in the know which painful change is for the better and which discomfort not to tolerate.

I still have to care about expectations, as everyone does, I still can’t meet them all, as noone does, but I know much better why.
And that is a pretty good cure for all those pressing questions that want to inject guilt into my life.

My World

Mar 31, 2023 | Thoughts

From my perspective, which is the only one I can assume fully, my life is taking place inside my own world.
Two grand words, life and world, but they are related.

Life is linear, but the world is always around.

While filling my life, I work with the world around me and thus, make it my world from my point of view.

This world consists of the lives of many others, who may form a society, a family or just circumstances.
It also provides physical places in which I may feel and perceive the world differently.

How big is my world?

As far as I can reach, as I can go, as I can be heard.

Who owns my world?

Anyone I let.
That may not always a free choice, and ever so often a difficult decision.
But when it indeed is my own choice, am I not to be held responsible for who is where inside my world?

And what story could I tell, when I am not responsible for a vast amount of the things happening in it?

Are there rules in my world?

Lots and I love it!
Rules make life with the lives of others easy: The more I can learn, the better I navigate the world and make it mine, rather than onlybeing a guest in someone else’s world.

Sometimes it takes a lot of time to see certain rules or to overthrow old rules, which I liked to cling to just for the sake of continuity.
This has the potential to reshape my world, which is built on rules.

What do I do with my life in my world?

Good things.
Good things are more than things that don’t hurt anyone: Things that make the people in my world happy.

Even if my choices don’t immediately feel like good things to others, the ultimate goal is to make the others feel the good feelings.
And how would I achieve that without being able to be happy in the first place?

I don’t know when I am welcome

Mar 17, 2023 | Autism, Thoughts

There they are, and here I am.
May I join them? I don’t know. What business do I have with them?

Is just ‘I would like their company right now’ enough? Is it weird to just stand next to their conversation and make them acknowledge my presence?
What reason do I really have to join people, to intrude into their bubble?

Sometimes it feels like I am a vampire, who have to be invited in specifically, before they are physically able to enter a house.
Because then there is no doubt about the justification of my intrusion.

There are only several situations when I feel confident to join other people:

Being specifically invited
Being in an established relation (closer friends or family) where I would feel weird NOT joining
Having a certain objective or at least a good reason, which I can communicate openly, so the others know why I am here now

In my stack of values, preserving others’ privacy and current flow (which is almost impossible to guess at) outweighs the desire to join other people who I might be interested in being with.

I like to design my own bubble and change it in the ways I like, letting certain people in and keeping other elements out.
I assume (dangerous, I know) that all other persons have the inclination to take care of their bubble as well: That they like to be conscious about who and what enters their sanctum.
So, naturally, I like to be extra respectful when I feel like getting close to another bubble. Wouldn’t want to disturb the peace.

Although, I admit not always to have judged rightly and sometimes I feel like having gone too far up someone’s bu..bble. Joke aside, this dreaded feeling, of having taken some space that wasn’t meant for me, made me even more cautious and hesitant to approach again, time and time again.

Cue a flirt, which is the very dance of intruding into another’s life, and I am divided: Am I actually welcome inside their bubble or am I only welcome to TRY to intrude (which seems to be a goal in flirting) and only then I will be welcome or am I most possibly not welcome at all from the beginning, which is hard to deduce in absence of the signs of a clear invitation.

On the other hand, I am rather happy with my friendships, which are rooted deeply and I can be confident in the ways I act and feel safe to be welcome in their company, which, thankfully, is expressed regularly and authentically.
Worth mentioning: Most of my friendships are with a single person, not a group. Of those I have but little.

At work, where social bubbles are more complex, given professional relations, scattered projects and parallel to that work-related bonds or feuds, fitting in can be a mystery.
Since I discovered the reasons for the great imbalance of my energy, which revolved around pumping it all out at work and then having measly amounts left for the rest of my daily life, my situation changed for the better: I have my own space now and a clear-as-day task and that makes me happy in many ways.

As much as I need and enjoy being inside a regulated bubble (more on that and all the sensory things at another time), living inside a world made out of the people and relations around us makes concentrating on these very social things a top priority.

Meaningful relations I don’t take for granted and I am aware of most of the efforts to pour into those, but many times I get lost inside the world of you others and the many invisible-to-me circles and bubbles and tend to feel guilty for not being able to just be a part of them. Guilt is also a great topic to shed a light on.
Then I like to retract to the bubble I am most welcome in:
My own.

I think I also speak for many non-autistic people in this:
If you would like my company or just get me out of my comfy bubble for some time, please, do invite me.
Give me the reason to join you, tell me when I am welcome.
Because I might very well not know that.

I can’t promise I will stay long or give a grand human performance, but I will be ever so grateful to be included and being welcome in your midst.

Why Computer Games and Movies?

Feb 28, 2023 | Autism, Thoughts, Updates

Some of my passions are most classic, even stereotypical for many people with autism.
Nerd stuff, you might call it.

Since the days of my childhood I had a fascination for computers and for movies (and series, too) and games, almost in general.

First, computer games and such

Aside of the frantic acquisition of digital goods, when those were scarce and still precious, and the browsing through the files of games and the operating system, my interest in all the underlying elements of the digital world would always be of a special nature, next to the obvious offerings of fun and leisure.

As much as video games are designed to be fun, so much the question as to why some people are so content in playing them daily, all day long for days?

Sure, it is appealing to the whole happiness apparatus, but isn’t ’the world outside’, too?
Or is the world outside more confusing and disorderly, whereas a computer game has a clear set of rules, mechanics, goals and even hacks?

With a computer program, you can be sure of the design (aside bugs and less well-conceived works) and where it is aimed.

A computer game, or even a board game for that matter, starts by painting a goal, stating the rules and explaining every aspect of the particular world in the time the player would need it.
So you always can be sure that you have a chance, and at times a proper challenge if you so wish, to succeed at a game and inside the world of it.

There is always (because computers work in 1s and 0s) logic to be expected.
A soothing thought, indeed, at least for me.

Numbers. Go. Up!

Success is a prickly tree to climb.

Now, why would you climb some prickly tree as high as you can? Well, the others can climb so so high, look at them! You wouldn’t want to be one of the lower losers, would you?
That is what makes a society strive towards progress, that’s why we build higher towers and faster cars and are happy about a raise.
But is it a good thing? Depends on your personal goals. Only those can be hard to distinguish from the ones our society likes to state as a given.

And there is no denying that some successes allow for certain comforts in life.

While in the ’real world’ numbers decide only some parts of our fate, in computer games numbers are the predominant measure of success: Levels, Speed, Damage, Handling, even Money and other denominations.

Outside of games, those numbers might exist as well, but all the hidden and less obvious factors make them far less tangible than inside a game.
Inside the game, you can always trust the numbers and the rules, it is easy, as complex as games often might appear.

If the right number goes up, you are on the right path.

Hardware – an intermezzo

But that is not the only way numbers can go up. Because the computer itself has quite many of those as well, with all the necessary parts of it.
And the whole thing about choosing, configuring and maintaining your hardware and seeing how it works gives great excitement in itself.

Just recently I have upgraded my technical base to a new standard.
So, the numbers went…up!

7700X, 32GB DDR5, 4080, 2TB PCIe® 4.0 NVMe™ SSD, >100 FPS in BL3 4K on Badass
Who ever understands those, now knows. 😀

Throwback: The first ’gaming upgrade’ back in the day looked like this, next to my current model:

Film

Movies are entertainment, as well as series. They convey all the things about life, fictional or not, which appeal to humans.

Made by humans, for humans.

Of course, there is the art factor. Ever evolving and arguably subject to taste.
But my stand on that is less one of usual taste, but far more one of the intention of a motion picture.
What did the creators want to achieve and how much did they manage to pull it off?

Aside from the subject and entertaining value of a filmic work, my fascination seems to exceed even that layer. And ever since I analyse myself, I found that movies are more of a pleasure to watch than I thought would be obvious.

Because any of the most complex human emotions and even worse, intentions, are carefully laid out in a way humans should be able to understand. Moreover, you can be sure (given the pull-it-off thing of the creators) that all the elements seemingly important to humans are to be found somewhere inside the movie or series.
That makes it a nice puzzle, sometimes harder, sometimes easier, to find out the following: Which human emotion is met with which reaction? What do humans want and how does it make them act?

At times I felt as if I have learned many rules of society and human interaction from movies, although always conscious and careful about how much that applies to ‘the real life’.

But there are still countless moments where I am hopelessly lost and have to ’see how it turns out’ later in the movie, because I can’t grasp the intentions of yet another evil cooperation’s master plan.
The only thing keeping the experience going then is the trust in the filmmakers, who must have thought it all out wisely. Also, there is some action to it as well, most of the time.

But the fact that all social interaction is well thought out to make sense in the end, is what makes movies so understandable, comfortable and trustworthy for me.

Cinema – another intermezzo

Not only the content of a movie is usually a well-structured, the technical presentation has conventions, too.
From aspect ratios to resolution to surround sound to the language, the calibration and its whole making.

The way a movie is to be watched is always close to the cinematic experience, which almost all filmmakers celebrate.

And with 7.2.4 and HDR10 and OLED, 24-bit and 192kHz and HDMI 2.1 and 2160p I have not only numbers to marvel at and to aspire to, but also an assurance: The closer I am to the intended experience, the more I can be sure to understand every audio-visual detail the work of art wants to convey next to its story.

So, why computer games and movies?

Because they work like me: Always (though it can take a while) able to deduce what makes them act in the way they do, what drives them and what things they take and don’t take into consideration.

It is easy to follow and to sympathize with structure, order and rules and reason, my autism confirms.

Malaysia Done Right

Feb 12, 2023 | Photos, Trips

To be familiar with a great place on earth is a privilege. But coming back to it after several years is a whole other experience.
My last visit to South-East-Asia has been a rush, but I enjoyed my time in Malaysia the most, so it would be only fitting to come back to the very same country. (plus a very brief stay in Singapore before the flight back)

But I might have waited longer, wouldn’t there be someone waiting as one of the main reasons for the visit…
You might remember the mention of a new friend in the article about my first visit to Malaysia. This old man, who I have met for such short time back then, has become a real friend over the years of exchanging letters. So one part of this trip would be very special.

In the following, I would like to lay out some of the elements that made this trip so unbelievably wonderful and shockingly perfect:

Travel Companion

Many of my travels I did in solitude (though ending up in marvellous company anyway), but not this one.
In order to have a great time, your travel companion should be an angel: Never in a bad mood, constantly appreciating the good things that happen around us, taking on at least half the organisatory tasks, being supportive when it takes me ages to choose, doing her own thing now and then, being brave when it comes to tasting gifted dried fish, not letting a foul word leave her mouth and never wasting energy to complain.
I don’t know where such people come from, but if you find someone who likes to see the good in the world as much as you: Go travel with them, once in a while!

Plan B

I like to plan things. And if I were planning my trip on my own, I would have booked it all in advance.
Luckily, we decided to leave as much as we could to be booked on the way, so that we had only very few things we were fixed on seeing. This is ‘Plan A’: The things that you set your heart on.
A careful evaluation of how that affects the travel plans made our list punchy, but short. Also, the very location of where our trip lead us was insurance enough for the experience we wanted.
What was more important for the feeling of child-like safety (one of the most craved goods in the adult life), was ‘Plan B’.
Plan B is constantly evolving and adapting towards Plan A, making sure everything is going well if something out of your control were to happen. It includes the secondary things like transportation, accommodation and the necessary list of priorities.
I discovered that it is far more useful to care about Plan B, as Plan B knows all the weaknesses of Plan A, makes sure that it doesn’t break apart and also leaves Plan A far more flexible for remodelling on the way.

So in the end, we ate all the nice things, saw all the nice places, visited my dear old friend in Penang, saw the beach, encountered more funky animal than we had anticipated, found some cool souvenirs and finally had some sugar cane juice!
Plan B helped us not worrying and making sure that we would achieve all those points.
This left room for so so many moments of mild freedom, where we were just living in the moment, absolutely sure we were well-tended.

Listen to recommendations

Luckily my intentions of booking all in advance were altered into the flexible approach, as that let us listen to local recommendations.
And following them, easy: If two different parties tell you not to go to the Cameron Highlands, you might want to take it as a sign and travel to Pangkor Island instead. If you don’t get encouraged to go to the East coast of West Malaysia because of the rain season, don’t be sad and don’t go. If someone tells you to try out this restaurant, you better go there. If another traveller writes you notes on scraps of paper of how to take a ferry to the mainland, you go take that ferry! If some people tell you about a temple lit up in all the colours, you surely should check it out. If you book an Airbnb and receive a personal tour guide with it, you are well off following his directions to irreplaceable memories.

Level 2

There are 3 types of activities in a country, also applies to food:

Those made for tourists
Those made for locals
Those only locals know about

A Level 1 vacation would be in a closed resort, with transport to and from the airport and food from the daily buffets.
A Level 2 vacation fears all Level 1 activites and looks for the authentic experience in the streets.
A Level 3 vacation is impossible without consulting locals and having a guide throughout the trip.

We were on the same page, luckily, and went for Level 2 as much as we could. Most of the time, we found ourselves out of sight of any other European, sitting, walking and eating with the locals as if it were natural.
Also we were so so lucky to have made connections with local people and even made some friends on the way, that we accessed some Level 3 on the way.
And who could say they ordered something not written on the menu in Malaysia?

Don’t fear the rain

It is all wet. The air, the toilets, the sweat, the rain. It would be the greatest challenge to flee all that.
We didn’t bother with this challenge. Because we would have missed so many encounters, weather moods, funny places and time outside. So pack your umbrella or your waterproof jacket, next time you go and experience more!