Let's Talk about Us

I've joined a spiritual group that meets on Wednesdays. A thousand repetitive instincts are currently working to make sure I never return, but I've set my intention to keep up with it, because it is casual, moderate, and interfaith. At my first meeting last Wednesday, I think I realized why these instincts are so impossibly flighty. I have no concept of connection.

One of the main tenants of this group is the connectedness of all things. I've looked into it. It's the food chain, the circle of life, the works. In that way, it makes sense, but trying to apply it to my personal life is like dividing by zero. It just doesn't compute.

Growing up in Utah, sometimes dubbed "Mormonia," when you're not a member of the fold and are raised to embrace that fact, you belong to "US," and the Mormons belong to "THEM." It's the same when you go to a Catholic high school. If you cross yourself with a smiley face, it's because you're part of a smaller "US" compared to a greater "THEM." If you're not Catholic, Mormon, Evangelical, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Zoroastrian, or even Atheist, suddenly, tiny you, of "US," are separate from a titanic "THEM." So long as you embrace that separateness, you will never belong to any one of those groups. That's tricky when looking for a place in the world.

That doesn't just apply to religion, mind you. When developing a personality and a relationship with people at large, if you don't want to be too mean, too nice, too smart, too stupid, too funny, too melancholy, too analytical, too spontaneous, too dramatic, too down-to-earth, too admiring, too condescending, too passionate, too apathetic, too macho, too effeminate, et cetera, but you look around and see hundreds of people who are too much of something, suddenly, "US" shrinks to 12-point, Helvetica "ME," and "THEM" becomes the remainder of this blog post.

Twenty-four years down the line, the insanity of this mentality has suddenly become clear. I am actively resisting belonging to any particular group out of fear that belonging to that group would alienate others in other groups. In so doing, I have distancing myself from every group and wondering why no one has decided to join me. Maybe it's just the word "alienation" that's taken me to this extreme. I've been friends with people from all sorts of different backgrounds, so why is it so hard for me to accept that they could be friends with me if I belonged to something that they did not?

I'm going to stick with this group. If I'm going to learn how to progress in life, it will not be alone. Maybe that's the secret to overcoming Asperger's. The more time I spend around people, the less trouble I will have with seeing the truth that there really is no "THEM." It's all "US."

The Upcoming Year

Wow... I'm really having trouble remembering the last couple of weeks. I think that's just the nature of the year: January starts off with the slow, post-holiday hangover, continues into March's bowl of cosmic cereal, realizes it's been dawdling at about August, blazes through the rest of October and November and explodes into exhaustion at the end of December. Then the cycle starts again. Whee.

Seriously, though, the holidays were a particularly blurry blur this year, and now 2012 has begun. I sacrificed the midnight "Hurrah!" so I could see the year's first sunrise over the dunes of Death Valley. And you know? It didn't matter that I had traveled by myself. I was surrounded by similarly minded people, and the night before, I was invited to dine with a family who then purchased my dinner (part of the "New Year's Special" menu, a.k.a. the same mediocre fare for ten extra dollars). All in all, what could have been an unbearably lonely weekend turned into a lovely experience, and how ironic that it should take place in the shadow of the Valley of Death.

I'm not making as many resolutions this year. Frankly, I overburdened myself for 2011, "My Year," and I forgot 75% of them before February even hit. I believe I had intended it to be the year of the relationship, when, in fact, it turned out to be my most independent year ever. I sacrificed the late nights for the most sunrises I'd seen in years, but I also sacrificed most of my sense of belonging to anything.

For 2012, I'd like to reverse that, but not by making a checklist of all the same old friends I haven't heard from in years and painstakingly contacting all of them to rekindle something that had never ignited. My adventures in 2011 taught me that relying solely on any one person is not healthy or enjoyable for either party. The people I've met on my landmark quests, though our relationships have not endured past a conversation, have reawakened two things that had been missing during all the time and effort I'd put into maintaining crumbling relationships of the past: curiosity and joy.

A socially healthy person (at least in this society) makes new friends throughout his/her life, so attain social health, the time has come to start expanding. If I can talk to a new person every week, it would lead to the sort of breakthrough I spent the last year convincing myself was impossible. All I need are guts, practice, and a willingness to let slide. It's a big risk, but one I'm willing to take if it means being a social animal once again. Of all the people I meet for the first time, at least one has to stick around for the second. Maybe two. Maybe that will lead to a bunch. Then, perhaps, I can stop feeling like a monk outside the abbey. After all, even monks have their brothers.

Winter's Heat

The signs of oncoming winter: fewer leaves, more sugar, less daylight, more precipitation, less time at work, more time on holiday... But in one aspect, all things run contrary to the natural workings of the world. From mid-October to late February, I go into heat.

I don't know if it's the temperature or the spirit of sharing, but something switches in my body, and I become a moody, hormonal mess who is ready to jump on the hunt for lovin'. Rarr... For the last three years, I attempted dating during this season. Before that, I used the snowy weather as an excuse to get others into the hot tub. Invariably, the results were as follows: disappointment, disappointment, disappointment, disappointment, a little bit of longing, and a lot more disappointment. I'm detecting a pattern here...

In any case, as the sun goes down and the Christmas lights come up (yes, they're already up in Glendale), I'm feeling the stirrings again: the discontent, the longing, the lust, the madness, the fear of not being good enough for someone I haven't even pictured in my mind yet. It's all coming back at once, just in time for the holidays.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

The big difference this year is that I'm not using the internet to find anyone. No internet, no find, no date, no projection of expectations, no disappointment. But the heat is on. Woof. There's a knock at the door and a threat to blow the house down, but this little pig needs to stay practical, put the kettle on, and keep warm with wolf tea this year. The house is still under construction. Until it is built, there shall be no breaching of doors or chimneys.

One Year Since

I admit, I'm a little off on time. Technically, it should have been last Saturday that I noted the one-year milestone for this blog; however, as I was about 300 miles north without access to the internet, let alone electricity, now is as fine a time as ever to look back.

The launch of this blog was, as are many of my hare-brained ideas, met with utter ambivalence, though it did once cause a prodigious argument on my Facebook profile, back when I had one. It became utterly critical for me to keep writing and publishing, writing and publishing, always with humor at the forefront because, I figured, no one wanted to read anything else; life was depressing enough without me adding to it. It took less than a month for me to start obsessively monitoring the weekly view statistics, cranking out more entries when I didn't get enough responses on the previous ones. I wanted feedback. I wanted dialogue. I didn't get it. People were hung up on the title. Finally, that's when I realized how tired I was of the constant posting and the constant monitoring, of setting myself up to use my personal information to please other people. I was giving myself away and getting nothing in return. At least whores get money for their services.

It's taken me a year at least to realize that I don't actually have to please anyone. Mostly, this came from re-reading The Way to Love, which I don't feel obligated to chronicle chapter by chapter anymore. Check it out if you want to learn more. From it, I have learned two truths that are gut-wrenching in their difficulty, based on my ingrained habits, or programming:

1. I don't have to please anyone.
   • Pleasing another person fuels a desire for further pleasure and becomes, above all other things, a chain. Realizing this has made it so much easier to overcome my fear of talking to people. Not giving a shit what they think about me, because there is nothing they can do to ruin me, has made dealing with people so much less stressful than ever before.
2. Happiness is not a destination.
   • I devoted nine years of my life to the search for a "soulmate." In so doing, I lost a great deal of my creativity, my focus, and my self-esteem. What I learned is that the soul does not need or even have a mate. Can we call the Enlightened Ones who did not marry "incomplete?"

For the first time in recent memory, I'm finding the very thought of a relationship repulsive. To me, a new relationship, while pleasurable to the senses, would be a spawning pool for insecurity, distraction, and self-deprecation. The idea of returning to the old habits of paranoia and codependency, of making sacrifices for the personal benefit of others, makes me physically ill. When I talk about the last year of adventures that I've had, my married coworkers wag their fingers and cluck "Wait 'til you get married and have kids; then we'll see about your freedom." There is absolutely no appeal to this.

However, I do sometimes still feel alone. It's not easy converting your love for a physical human to a love for something intangible: a feeling, an idea, or a deity. Yet, I seldom feel alone when in solitude; it is when I am around people that the feeling strikes. I spent my birthday camping in northern California, alone. I had no problem driving, dining, or sleeping alone; nor did it bother me not to have a cake and presents. In fact, it was lovely all around. The trouble came at dinner time the second night, when I was camping at Mount Madonna. I was alone at my table, surrounded by people chatting with each other. Need I say more on the matter?

So, after a year of delving into the inhibitions surrounding Asperger's, I've reached the following status: I am now secure enough to choose Will over Obligation and start building my social base, but after the years of a false journey, I am disillusioned enough to see no real point in building such a base up again. People are too busy for me, and I for them. A thousand moments of solitude eventually drown out a moment of loneliness.

Though the foundation and the walls are built, there is still an empty space inside. Building on the progress of the last year, the new quest will be to find what will best fill that space.

The Way to Love (Part 1)

I'm re-reading The Way to Love by Anthony de Mello on account of a realization the other day. I'm smart, something my peers, professors, and parents have all admitted, even myself. However, pure intelligence comes at a high cost, that of the soul. By soul, I mean that energy that not only gets a person out of bed in the morning but also instills joy and a sense of purpose. Read it as you will.

This thought train started rolling last week when my friend, who has asked me to write a short musical for him, asked a simple question: Would you like to work with a lyricist? Immediately, the thorns shot up, the mask was back, and I slunk back into the corner with my poisonous jaws at the ready, while inside my lair of instant defense, the worm that already lingered there began to gnaw at me again. With every nibble came the crippling doubts of why I had failed so spectacularly at this one task when I had promised to succeed. All of this took place in the span before I could even form a rational thought, and I sputtered a little, asked instead to work with a musician, and went home feeling miserable. Why? It wasn't that he had said anything with intent to offend or put me down; it was the fact that I had shat out inferior material and presented it as something to be proud of. It was a song, yes, but it was soulless.

To be a skilled craftsman, artist even, a person needs feeling and expression, a message, if you will. What I've noticed in my work as of late is that an idea will spring into my head, and I'll start writing it without thinking it through. I've never completed a full outline, and it shows when the piece falls apart at the end of Act 1, where I lose my patience. By then, I revert back to form: "Stick to the form, and you'll get through it. End your Act 1 at page 15, your midpoint at 60, and your end before 120. It does not matter what you lose in the process." Oftentimes, the idea may not have had an actual meaning behind it, but it seemed cool at the time and became a commitment, for which I held no love or interest, like my past attempts at dating. Without love, there was only commitment, and from that commitment came soulless things, things about which I still hang my head to this day, years after the fact. I commit because I crave success, but even more than I crave success, I crave approval.

The first chapter of the booklet addresses this directly. It asks the reader to compare the feeling of receiving praise with the feeling of taking in a gorgeous sunrise. One is fleeting and leaves a person wanting more, while another is simply satisfaction. Screenwriting, in which I have my degree, demands commitment for success in a business where soul is only as deep as a pocketbook. I have committed myself to writing because I gave up on veterinary medicine. I was afraid to have responsibility for an animal's life, and in the process of giving up that goal, I lost responsibility for my soul.

I entered writing as a relative newcomer. I did not have an all-consuming passion for movies and, honestly, I still don't. In fact, I don't have much passion for anything anymore. At age 23, having not yet produced something I am proud of or that has evoked any kind of meaningful response from anyone else, I have deemed myself a failure and resigned myself to the remainder of my life as a worker ant, occasionally churning out pages to satisfy the writer's group and hopefully one day get noticed and asked by rich men to write soullessly for money. I don't have my money or connections. I never made those real connections in college. I observed the other writers, either with jealousy or resentment, and never took the time to learn from them. Their perceived success on and off the page amounted to my failure, and that was it.

The fact of the matter is, the picture is enormous, and my eyes are glued to a scuff on the frame. It's like when I was in my single-digit years, rock climbing with my dad, and I suddenly let go of the rope and the rock to hang precariously by my dad's belay and examine a particularly fascinating species of lichen. I get called an asshole on occasion on the road for misjudgments of distance. My focus is on the minute. When I write a story, I will occasionally get stuck on a scientific question that will send me on a three-hour internet hunt, which, by the time I finish, I realize I didn't need to take anyway. I'm in a constant state of distraction from a goal I haven't even really made concrete yet.

In summation, my illusion is I need to have fulfilled two things already: to be a genius and to start a socially-condemned relationship and make it work 'til death do us part. It's quite simple, really. Just write something that's not only brilliant, but also that people will read/watch again and again and incorporate into their personal philosophies and cultures that have been shaped by countless other sources for thousands of years like J.K. Rowling. After all, according to Chris Ciccone, you only have to be a genius once. Next up, I have to find a man who genuinely loves and cherishes me tantamount to my own feelings and be at my beck and call yet understanding that I need lots of space. And it needs to happen three years ago!

After a while, you can only lie to yourself for so long. You can only crank out so many half-assed pages and force so many half-baked relationships before the pressure becomes absurd and the victim mentality takes hold. The recoil continues. The nightmares about insufficient sleep end with a clenched jaw, receding gums, and TMJ disorder, among others. And for what? Out of this whole flea-bitten circus, what good does it do anybody? I tell myself I have let go of fame-lust and love-lust, but it is always there, in waking and sleeping, always adding pressure, always reminding me that I'm not doing what I want to be doing, that I'm not where I should be. I should be successful, dammit! Why am I not?

My brother gave me this book for Christmas two years ago. I read it in two days, loved it, and then gradually perverted the message for the subsequent two years. I had to give up all hope of success, all hope of love, and turn instead to the invisible figure of God. After all, isn't that better than everything else? It was better to withdraw from people and shut myself up than to be a part of the clingy world. The thing was, the book never said anything like that. This first chapter, a heavy four pages long, points out that there are fleeting joys and substantial joys, but we are programmed to pursue the fleeting ones. I am at peace when I go for a drive and see the history of California. I tear my hair out writing pages that I don't even like, and I beat down on myself for not being good enough or accomplished enough to talk to someone I find attractive. There is this rancid bitterness that piles up from time to time, because, deep down, I know that what I am pursuing cannot, in and of itself, bring me contentment. I could write a renowned screenplay and then be pushed back into obscurity immediately after. I could start a great relationship and lose him to cancer shortly thereafter. The focus needs to be on something greater. If I'm going to write, it has to be for a reason other than fame. If I'm going to have a relationship, it has to be for something other than sex and sharing insecurities. There needs to be something bigger, and right now, I can't figure out what that bigger thing is. Maybe re-reading this book will help.

Driven Duck Says: Work, Work, Work

By crikey, it's been a while since I've put a post in here. Life updates: I'm finally settled into my new apartment, still vehemently single, and still working in LP. What do all of these have in common? More alone time! Whoo hoo!

To be quite honest, the first few weeks of coming home to a quiet, ratless apartment and making real meals in my own kitchen have been quite wonderful. It's only when I go elsewhere, such as work, where this seems pathetic. All the isolation I don't feel in my quiet apartment or on my adventures alone comes up in droves when I'm at work. For instance, last Friday, one of the HR staff came over to LP to deliver invitations to a baby shower for one of the other HR folks. She wanted to make sure "the whole team" was included. She didn't even address me (actually, she averted her eyes), even though I helped out in HR through the busy holidays. I understand that the role of a temp excludes one from certain perks of being at a company, but to be excluded from "the whole team" was a jab I wasn't expecting to receive.

Let's also take yesterday, for example. We had a volunteer fair at work. I shopped around to see if I could find something meaningful to take up my time. One of the groups was handing out kids' backpacks to be filled with school supplies and returned. I asked to participate (mind you, this is a charitable cause, not for self benefit), but my request was met with, "Sorry, we don't have enough supplies for temps." I mean, I get it, but after working there for nearly a year, it feels strange to have felt like part of something only to be reminded that I'm not.

Right now, what's keeping me on edge about this job isn't that it could end soon but that it could keep going. My boss is going on maternity leave in November, which means I may be recruited to cover into next year. That's easily another six months in a position where there is literally no room to transition to part of "the team." I have really mixed feelings about this. I do get a steady paycheck; I don't get benefits of any kind. I have started to grow accustomed to the area's amenities and the people, but is it all just a grand cage?

Also in question is my trip to El Camino, which I had considered taking after my assignment expired. I don't know when or if it will expire. Some might say "Take the journey; live your dream!" while others would caution "Build your nest egg; journey later." The rumor is that I can only be a temp there for a total of 18 months, but who knows what validity lies in rumors? Either way, the state of things is that I'm getting paid to help out a team to which I don't belong, which makes me feel much lonelier among people than I do when I actually am alone. There's also the alienating issue of my coworkers assuming I'm not only straight but also a womanizer, but that's the subject of a different post altogether. In the mean time, there have been no official talks of extending my position past July 29th, only more rumors. If I have no other offers by then, I will stay; if my time is up with nowhere pressing to go, I will write for a month and walk El Camino in September, Insh'allah.

Lovely Lady Liberty

I just finished uploading my photos from the long weekend in Sequoia National Park. Lots of people were excited to see them. Of course, a fraction of those "lots" actually knew I'd been to Sequoia.

In the weeks preparing for this trip, I'd gone through a lot of internal debating (big surprise there), mainly on the subject of whom I could invite to accompany me on this trip. It had to be someone available, someone with whom I could get along for three straight days, someone who could get along with me for three straight days, and someone with whom I could feel comfortable sharing a bed for two nights. The list narrowed and narrowed and narrowed until I was left with one person: myself.

Of course, this less than ideal decision presented a number of other concerns. What if I got stranded in the snow without cell phone reception? What if I went hiking in the foothills and either fell or encountered a cougar? The thought of being alone in the wilderness frightened me; I felt it was my destiny to die out there, but I was going to go anyway.

When I actually got there, the fear melted away. The place was so beautiful. If this were my time, I'd gladly take this as my place. Over the course of the next three days, I set my own schedule, ate where I wanted, took as long as I wanted for photography, and felt wholly free to interact with everyone I met along the way, mostly travelers from Europe. I was not alone; I was not lonely. Of all the feelings I felt most strongly, freedom was the chief.

I've spent much of my life and most of my school years holding back from doing things because I wanted someone to go with me. A combination of indecision on my part and indifference on the part of others kept me indoors, on the computer, away from real experience. I loved it and hated it. It was fuel cell for my fantasy but a prison for my reality. However, since graduation, since logging off of Facebook, since ending my utter reliance on other people to have fun, I'm doing more and I'm having more real experiences.

I realize that I am failing miserably at my New Year's Resolution to make 2011 the year of the relationship, that shying away from others is contrary to the mission of this blog (to overcome the isolating symptoms of Asperger's), but to be honest, the feeling of freedom standing in the snow, surrounded by a cathedral of red trees and nothing else but the sound of silence, was supreme. I felt happy. I felt whole. I did not have to give account to anybody.

Of course, this leaves me with one final dilemma: Where is that line between freedom and loneliness? Would I have benefitted more from bringing someone along, or was this the right choice? I suppose the only way I can know is by going on more adventures, seeing who's interested in joining me, and putting forth the effort to meet new people who might be more interested. Fortunately, I still have the freedom to make those decisions.