Two Natures

Jan 22, 2023 | Autism, Thoughts, Updates

My life has this golden thread.

One part of the day I have no issue being my best self, but the other half I am a stubborn recluse.
You will see me obeying rules and conventions, but challenging just as many.
My love for the big noises in movies is as present as my tendency for jumpiness in select situations.
I can let my room succumb to messiness, but enjoy tidying up ever so much.
You will see me talk one’s ear off, but there are times I don’t like to utter one word.
Travelling I love just as much as spending an entire day by myself inside my room.
My passion is hugging, yet sometimes touch can be just unbearable.
You will see me find the most creative solution to a task, but an hour later I will ask for petty specifics.
One of my faces is well presentable, the other one not many get to see.

As to why, I couldn’t find an answer to. Until recently.

 

What is the Shape of a Person?

A person has an outline. Like in a colouring book, where lines define the shape and you just need to fill it with colour.
You decide for yourself, what shape and what size you would like to fill in your own life, to aspire to and to appear as.
Most likely, us humans’ shapes will all be roughly human shaped. And that is just how we live in the places we find ourselves in.
But it is always the outer boundaries of our shapes, where things get interesting and where we have work to reshape.

When not in active self embetterment, we visit these boundaries unintentionally: Outside the designated comfort zone, in a crisis, when travelling in general, when we change our surroundings or when we are confronted with stirring experiences.
We then decide on keeping, expanding or reshaping, with the newly found knowledge about ourselves.

And all that is okay and a crucial process in life.
Though when you find more foggy question marks than tangible impressions on one of those visits, it leaves you confused, frustrated and puzzled.

In my life I encountered many of those question marks, whenever I came near my outline. But this outline always has been carefully drawn and was up to any standard I hold dearly.

 

Questions as to Why

Naturally, when you confront a question, an answer is due. Only I couldn’t find answers to those arising questions:

Why exactly can’t I attend parties like everyone else does?
Why do I get so extremely uneasy when I can’t escape listening to the local radio station, but can rave at a festival?
Why do I love rules so much, but am also known as one thinking outside the box?
Why do I have classical music and glitch hop in the same playlist?
Why do I freeze when offered a drink suddenly?
Why can I express my love all day, but later have no more energy for a smile?

Those questions may seem silly out of specific context, but they can hurt really bad when you don’t have the answer to them.

For me it meant that on the majority of days, aka the good days, I didn’t have to worry about those questions.
But when I did reach those foggy areas, I had trouble making out who or what I myself was, as my outline was very much in question then. Those were the rare, but ever so intense bad days.

Early on I decided that I didn’t want to give the bad days too much room in my life. As best as I could I optimized my life to increase the good days.
But that didn’t really solve those questions I kept facing time and time again.

 

The explanatory Thing

Once I found out about a thing that could explain my ambivalent peculiarities and funny distribution of weaknesses and strengths: The autism spectrum.

It made perfect sense and held answers to almost all of the question marks in my life, but would require two major things:
First, the open acceptance of my hidden emotions and second, the reframing of the past, present and future.
Also it would be a hard to swallow pill for those who didn’t know my other face and pose even more questions than it could answer. Furthermore, I didn’t want to latch on to an explanation of things I just started figuring out ways to avoid in my life.

And so that thing became a backup explanation for the bad moments and only worked as a soothing agent for myself, whenever I needed it.

 

Turning Point

Life wasn’t bad by any means, as the blog is my witness, but this greyish area and all the question marks with the heavy explanation theory were always there and couldn’t manifest outside of the back of my own head.

Many years of improving my own human shape, but never solving many of those weirdly connected question marks went by and I decided to set out to find out: Is the long cradled answer valid or not? What parts of my life will change, with either outcome?

And so I set out. After long waiting periods (somehow the demand of psychological aid has increased the past years) I got

 

The Answer

Aspergers.
A form of autism, a developmental anomaly involving a passion for routines and rules, well developed verbal language skills, difficulty to intuitively understand social situations, an eye for details, and also an extremely heightened sensitivity towards sounds, smells, vibrations and inconsistency.

The symptoms in every human with autism vary, as they grew up in different houses, found different ways to deal with them using the own set of skills and share challenges differently.
Some are well aware that they are on the spectrum since their childhood, some find out later in life.

My journey led me to the answer just a few months back.
There are many things I can see clearly now, many situations I have reevaluated, substantially improved and found reasons to many of my paradoxes.

 

The Journey

Of quite some journeys I have told you on this blog and there are more in the queue. One of them, now, is the one I didn’t know I was on my whole life.
The journey of awareness of understanding myself and how I work and how I manage to make people happy.

And this journey I would like to share as well.

The End of the Archives Part 2

Aug 31, 2022 | Thoughts, Updates

Remember when I was all about decluttering my living space?
Back then I knew that upon my return, I would live another life in some ways. And how did that work out for me?

Well, the whole idea was to redefine myself, as the things you own shape you to an extent.
And indeed it feels like some stale old parts have been stripped from me, enabling me to focus on the present and future.
Not only that, but I continued with my clothes the very next day after the arrival. As almost none of them were inside the mysterious cycle of laundry, I got them all out of the closet and well…who needs 80 pairs of socks, anyway? 😀

And I continued: My stash of valuable things I now saw way more clearly, with all the clutter gone. What could be sold, what should be replaced and what I should actually use for once.
Optimisation is the word. Now I have a proper big screen in front of me, a proper new set of front speakers and a camera flash with a rechargeable battery. Feels good!

Most importantly though, I absolutely demolished my ToDo-List™ of things I promised myself or people long times ago.
This is the pinnacle of achievements, I feel. I was able to prioritise more clearly and didn’t have so many skeletons in the closet, so to speak, that would hold me back from actually facing these long-waiting tasks, which passively shaped a diffuse future of things I felt like having to do one day.

Now, many of those things have been done, deleted, converted into appointments or flight tickets and on some days I even felt this feeling of being able to be spontaneous. Visiting friends or doing utterly unnecessary things or tackling the next long cradled wish and being free of but one more sorrow.

Never would I have imagined this half year having such a deep and profound impact on my life. One more reason to be grateful and seeing Sir Oliver evolve.

The End of the Archives

Feb 13, 2022 | Stationary Work and Travel, Thoughts, Updates

To do something you surprise yourself with is a rare phenomenon, at least for myself.
Most of my life, I was all about preserving and holding on to items and routines and this “my stuff” thing.

Nostalgic me wouldn’t throw beloved treasures away. Nooo Sir! That would mean the materialised loss of a potential memory or worse: The loathed position of needing something you no longer possess.

So, my archives grew. Anything I ever claimed possession of, I stored. Some things not for very long, also replacing, selling, even throwing out at some points.
Though always consciously holding my hands over the treasures of old, dating back to elementary school times and even before. You couldn’t throw away those things, no way!

Of all the things I own, it was some kind of sediment. Things that were just there, holding ever fading memories and mostly taking up A LOT of space at the bottom of drawers and cupboards.
But it was somewhat comforting, as I knew I would always find something I look for, as I couldn’t have thrown it out. The process of finding was something else, as this kind of archive wasn’t well structured…

That’s how I left home, going to live in another place for half a year. I packed the things I needed and left only the big things, like the home cinema and all furniture. Also, I left this sediment, as I didn’t need it on my journey.

On an occasion I had to travel back for a weekend.
Strange feeling, to have left and still be back in the familiar place. It was nice. As I had some free time on my hands and needed to pick some items up that I thought would be useful at the other place, I started to go through my stuff and slowly came to a realisation: Now would be the perfect time to REALLY go through my stuff.

As all the things at the other place had already proven to be sufficient for living a good life, plus half a day of free time at my hands I went for it.

I just took everything that was in my possession out of the closets, drawers, boxes and dark corners.

When I had arrived, my room was as clean as it hadn’t been in a long while.
Now, it was a total mess! Intentionally that, as it was MY mess, which I wanted to clean up in the confined time I had at home.

An individual is made out of many elements, of which one is the material things one possesses. The nature of those things defines part of a person’s nature.
As often as I found elements of my past within myself traveling, growing, evolving, I still held on to the items that were dear to me way back in time.
But sometimes it can be quite liberating letting go of things.

Not often hours run past as quickly as at times like those.
Also, it felt like time travel! As I knew I did in fact not need any of those things for my life, I was in a fruitful mood of throwing stuff out.

In the end I had two trash bags full of memories and over 20 kg of paper that all went into the bin.
Some things went into the pool of toys for my nephews and niece, some very little items I kept and quite some treasures went to my dad to make use in the workshop of or finally get rid off.

That night I could barely sleep as my mind was all busy computing the overload of impressions I had put it through.
But one thing stood out: Relief! Not only would I return to a neat and clean room, I now really knew every single last item I own and it is not just a blurry mess of the past – some heavy sediment.

Bonus: I can finally use up all piled up travel-sized bottles of shampoo, popcorn kernels and canned jackfruit I once got from the oracle!

Many people do this on a regular basis, which is a fine thing to make a habit from!
But I always feared this. Throwing out my past seemed daunting and never the stars aligned just like at that special weekend.
Now, it will be easy. As the things to clear out can’t be ancient or nostalgically precious.

In fact, in other areas I’ve already started doing things like this the past weeks.
Making sense of all my folders on my computer’s harddrive, sorting my digital collections and even at work I am lucky to do things like that.

It feels good, actually clearing the deck and amplifying the clear view into the future, as there is a significant little speck less to look back at.
This way, my blog’s name is honoured once more: Sir Oliver Evolves!

Cold Start

Jan 29, 2022 | Photos, Stationary Work and Travel, Updates

One month goes by quickly.

More so, when you constantly experience something new. And this month is not one that’s lost in time, quite the opposite.
I think I have done many things for the first time, in a way, and have taken unexplored paths inside my brain.
This might be the key to time: The more memories (memorable moments) you have, the more you have made of your time.

It is exciting to live in a different place and shape your life around new circumstances. And I have to say: Those circumstances are pretty neat and that I am grateful for.

Even though being in a new city, I have not gone out as much as I would have liked.
That is because of the cold and the grey that waits for you outside. But still, I have done a fair share of wandering and loved it so far.

I even went through the struggle of keeping my hands out of my pockets and on my camera.
The discomfort and pain paid off, which I would like to share with you today:

The days are still short, but on some there is enough light left after work to explore the sights around.

And oh, what sights they are!

I also have a nice hill to climb right on my doorstep and after going up in the dark once, I knew what would be a nice view in the day.

This one goes out to those who like to look at the stars and beyond.

 

In the end, the fierce winds blew me back inside, but I will face it again anytime for this!

Some technicalities

Jan 11, 2022 | Stationary Work and Travel, Updates

We all laughed at that app called “Download SD Card 32 GB”.
Because there is one constant in the hardware we use: The available storage, which can be extended, too, but is then again fixed to a certain value.

Since I used Android smartphones, I liked to tinker with them and understand the inner workings of that operating system more and more.
The recent years I only used the devices and didn’t put too much effort into modifying and tweaking them.

So, now that I wanted to pull it off again, I decided to buy a new device. A tablet, because I would only use it inside the house. I went for the newest model, the freshly released Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 on Android 11 with the mere 32 GB internal storage space, as I didn’t want to overload it. Trusting it would bring me the benefits I wanted.

I got it, set it up and imported all the data I usually do and it was fine and a nice experience and then the storage was full.

This early? I barely surfed on it or downloaded anything! But the evidence showed I had a tremendous amount of so-called “System data”. So much, that I couldn’t install another app or receive another file via Bluetooth (for some instances it is still used).

It looked like this on the widely known app “DiskUsage”, before it was quickly fully blocked:

 

I might add that my device has only 32 GB of internal storage, which are reduced by about 10 GB of the core Android system data.

So 22 GB free to use, right? Right.

Now, I was at my wits end, deleting apps to make room and decluttering my WhatsApp Images by about 4,5 GB.

Nothing helped and one night I was certain I would go to the store and make an elaborate scene and switch to another device.

Though one thing, besides the unaccountable for “System data”, didn’t quite add up. And that was, that my tablet was still running smoothly, even though it shouldn’t, given the “full” storage space.
Some caches were still being written, some apps still worked, even though they shouldn’t. As if only a few operations really asked about free storage and others just wrote away.

Then I looked for one of those carefree options to exploit this and see what would happen.
My Nextcloud client seemed to be the right choice. So, on full internal storage, I downloaded over 13 GB of data from my Nextcloud.

It looked like this:

So, I accomplished it! I successfully expanded my storage capacity! 😀
And in the end, there were some different notifications and I felt that I really reached the limit of the internal storage. The tablet couldn’t even save a screenshot anymore…

Many forums I have roamed and many research only led to an understanding that this behavior (before the exploit) has been around for many years and affects several brands of Android devices.

Whyever Media Storage decides to allot twice as much data, I don’t know.
But after brutally overbooking the storage like that and then deleting all the downloaded data, it went to normal and didn’t fill up like that again.

All my hopes are towards the next software release, Android 12 namely, which might or might not fix this bug for whoever else is affected.

That is all for today, some technical breakthrough where no hope was left. 🙂

 

Edit, 15.01.22: It happens again, gradually, and is fixable the same way. Let’s hope the update makes it right…
Edit, 03.02.22: The Update X200XXU1AVAB/ X200XXM1AVAB seems to have fixed it.

Pulling it off again

Dec 27, 2021 | After The Great Journey, Thoughts, Updates

We spend our time awaiting, scrolling, reloading, checking.

I, with dread, often catch myself making checking my smartphone my main activity.

But what are we waiting for? Why do we feel that responsible for this black mirror?

In short, I think that it has become an integral part of us, of humans and the society.
Just as we have mastered controlling our bodies at a young age and learned to react to sensory input, we now have another source of input we have to incorporate into our minds.
And just as we used to go to places for views or news or literally had to ‘get our hands on’ information, all of that is now much easier and practically unified through a certain window, a portal that carries us anywhere and gives us anything.

With this potential, we can communicate much faster, work together from different places in the world, we can access knowledge beyond comprehension and don’t have to worry to much about our physical situation to achieve that.

But what does it matter, where you are or who you meet, when you have anything and anyone in your pocket already?
Surely, it matters still. But it gets less and less every day. Look around you in the subway, at a train station, in a waiting room at the doctor’s.

We are getting used to it. It is part of our everyday life, as much of it actually happens inside our smartphone.
We even expect swift replies, updates and reports in a manner which would have brought down the best organised postal system of the past.

But what happens to us humans and to our society, when noone just looks beyond their screens anymore and beyond what is happening in that strange place called ‘the internet’?
We might not have arrived at that point yet, but I intend not to find myself there.

Instead, I want to pull something off, one more time.
Just as I banished all communication from my smartphone when I went to New Zealand.

As I will go to live in another place now for 6 months, working for the same company remotely, I have the chance to shape parts of my life differently.

So this is the plan: I will rid my smartphone of any instant messaging service, of every entertainment application, of every social media element and only keep the bare necessities to go places.
Of course I will keep all access to all communication channels on another device, but that one will be restricted to one place, maybe one room only.
I might even look at this other device only at fixed times each day.
Yet my work will be all digital and I will not stop indulging in digital entertainment in my spare time. But I want a clear border between the so-called ‘real world’ outside and the digital, online world.

This will allow me to keep all of my thoughts outside of my pockets. I won’t spend a single thought on whether there is something new inside that pocket. I will walk the streets and I will be there, in those streets. Undivided and without an alternative digital reality and without the chance of fleeing into the warm bosom of the infinite scroll…

But I am a little afraid, too: Where will I find myself then? What will happen when I am bound to my natural means of communication?
One thing is certain: It will be another grand adventure! And I am thankful to embark on this voyage!

Maybe I will find out what it means to be a single organic person, instead of a fused being: Half in the flesh, half floating in cyberspace.
Wouldn’t you want to know as well?