The random distribution of atoms spread through the universe was greater on some locations than others. The denser formations attracted more matter and the these regions became denser and hotter. As the gravity increased the center of the mass drew the matter form outside in. As the matter fell into the center mass the entire mass began to spin, this is because the motion of the particles has to go somewhere and it goes into creating spin, try it on a swivel chair or doing a pirouette as a figure skater, arms out slow turning arms in fast turning.
A quickly rotating ball of gas goes from being a globe to a disk with a hub in the center. This is critical for planet formation. As the disk forms the entire structure is hot and as the hub condenses that area heats up more. Soon the mass of hydrogen at the center gets so pressurized fro all the mass that has accumulated that the atoms are fused together at the center. This fusion is called a Triple Alpha reaction.
The Triple Alpha reaction is where four Hydrogen atoms, one proton and on electron, are converted into one Helium atom, two protons, two neutrons and two electrons, the excess electrons and the excess charges from the protons plus the energy expended by the process are released as energy, light photons. I was told that the photon created from the reaction at the center of a star can take up to a million years the get to the surface of the star and the reaction forces the sun to stop collapsing. The length of time that the star will continue this reaction is dependent on the size of the star, larger stars have more hydrogen fuel, but burn through it much faster than smaller stars. Our sun has an estimated lifetime of fifteen billion years and the biggest stars will only last a few million years, the smaller stars will last the longest, trillions of years.
When the nuclear reaction starts up in the star, all the material beings to get pushed away from the star by the constant stream of light coming Oort it, called e solar wind. Light elements like hydrogen get pushed right out of the solar system unless something grabs hold of them, other stars or planets. Planet formation is probably another talk.
The first stars were probably massive, mush bigger than our own. The universe was smaller and the materials were closer, the stars that started in the dense regions of space could draw more of the hydrogen to them and the bigger star probably devoured the smaller stars and got bigger.
As the stars fused their supply of hydrogen into helium the concentrations of these gasses changed and soon there would have been more helium than hydrogen. When this happened the hydrogen started to fuse to the helium and changing them to other elements. To create the conditions need to to fuel more reactions more mass was needed to fuse the materials together. For example it is known that our sun will stop fusing elements when carbon is reached, because our sun does not have much mass, but other stars will make other elements. The biggest stars make iron before the fusion process stops.
The first stars being larger, lasted only a few million years, fused hydrogen to make helium and fused hydrogen to the rest until iron was the main constituate of the core of the stars. Then the fussion in the star stopped, and the pressure outwards doused by that fusion stopped and the stars collapsed. Depending on the size of the star the core collapsed down to a white dwarf star for small stars like our own or neutron stars for larger stars, but for the largest stars the core becomes a black hole, which is neither black nor a hole. When a small star ends its life the white dwarf cannot gravitationally hold the elements in its mantle and corona, so these float away to form nebulas, for neutron stars and black holes, the end is more violent. The matter is collapses into the core and explodes outwards in an explosion that quite literally would wipe the atmosphere of every planet within one hundred light years. Good news however, the explosion creates all of the elements greater complexity than iron and spreads them out into the universe. All the elements like gold, silver, platinum, copper, lead, uranium and others are created in these explosions.
The shockwaves did other things. It moved hydrogen clouds into other hydrogen clouds causing more star formation and the black holes created by these stars probably formed the center of all the galaxies around. The new stars began like the first stars and they pulled matter into their cores and made more complex element and they did this for about ten billion years before our star was created. Our star is a fifth or sixth generation star, meaning that it has the remains of many supernova.
Next planet creation.
Thursday, 28 July 2011
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Adendum: Empathy and the Hulk
AS people can not read people very well; we can't read body language we can't express through body language very well. But we do feel things and when people feel things we try to understand what people are feeling, we empathize with them. In other words if you are sad, we feel your pain literally. I have a friend who internalizes every death and treats it like it happened to him. Imagine going through life with a close family member dying every few months, that is what it is like for him. I try to snap him out of it and try to give him some perspective but the truth of the matter is, I do it too.
For me it is injustice. I internalizes the grievances of others and I get angry. Angry and AS is a really bad combination, for me there is no pressure release and I can be angry and others may not realize it, because I do not seem angry. I am seething. I am the pressure cooker just before the pot explodes, Vesuvius before it destroyed Pompeii. And then I lose control. And then I get fired. I really can't control my anger when it is upon me. That is not true, I have never hurt anyone when I get angry, but I have come very close. When I get angry I get stronger. I am a big person and I can lift my own weight, when I get angry, however, I can trow my own weight.
I said that injustice gets me angry. I internalize it and I start to bubble. I need to be in a situation where I can solve the problem I need to be able to control the situation and end the injustice. My current situation I have very little say and my friends is getting tag teamed right now by people who were not even there and it is making me angry. You don't want to make me angry!
For me it is injustice. I internalizes the grievances of others and I get angry. Angry and AS is a really bad combination, for me there is no pressure release and I can be angry and others may not realize it, because I do not seem angry. I am seething. I am the pressure cooker just before the pot explodes, Vesuvius before it destroyed Pompeii. And then I lose control. And then I get fired. I really can't control my anger when it is upon me. That is not true, I have never hurt anyone when I get angry, but I have come very close. When I get angry I get stronger. I am a big person and I can lift my own weight, when I get angry, however, I can trow my own weight.
I said that injustice gets me angry. I internalize it and I start to bubble. I need to be in a situation where I can solve the problem I need to be able to control the situation and end the injustice. My current situation I have very little say and my friends is getting tag teamed right now by people who were not even there and it is making me angry. You don't want to make me angry!
In The Beginning . . .
All was nothing and God said let there be light . . .. Okay I am kidding, but seriously the idea that light was the first thing is not far off. Light is like intelligence, light allows us to see and to see means that we wake up and start a new. The idea that the first thing was light is like saying that before there was light there was nothing, no consciousness. Reminds me of Terry Prattchet's book, "The Dark-Side of the Sun".
In the beginning. What was there before was something or nothing. There are some theories that speculate that the universe exists on giant plates that exist side by side and that one hit another one and the energy of the impact created the universe where we exist to me this is all silly because it is something that we can not prove and can never prove, as the laws of the universe and the laws out side the universe are not compatible. To me to suggest one idea over the other would be equal to believing in gods.
Let there be light and there was light. Actually it is highly doubtful there was light at all. More specifically scientists are sure there was no light for a good length of time, at least several milliseconds, probably a lot longer. What is theorized is that the entirety of the universe existed in a single point, and this single point was the big bang. Which is wrong. It was small at first and there was no sound. It is better to call it the beginning.
It happened and everything was energy and it spread out. The mechanism of spreading is called Dark Energy. It is called dark, not because it has no light but because it is unknown. There is that analogy again, light is knowledge dark is not. Picture one of those little sponges that you get as a toy. You put them in water and they expand but as they expand you find that the inside is made of more of those sponges and they start expanding. Inside this large sponge the entirety is made of more sponges and so on forever the first one grew quickly and as the other little sponges expanded the big sponge grew faster and faster and accelerating continuously and constantly. It has not slowed down yet.
According to my very limited grasp of string theory the very condensed universe contained only strings and as the universe expanded the universe cooled and the density of the particles decreased. As it cooled the strings came together and formed the proto-matter of the universe. The strings became gluons and the gluons became quarks and eventually the quarks became atoms. The first atoms were likely all Hydrogen atoms, the most stable and simple atoms with one proton and one electron. It is possible more complex atoms were in existence, but this seems unlikely. Helium is the next most likely and it has two protons a neutron and two electron and that is significantly more complex than hydrogen.
So there was all this hydrogen out there and it was randomly distributed in the universe. Not evenly distributed, randomly distributed. The distinction is important. If something is evenly distributed everything is equal distances away from each other and the pull of gravity from one particle to another would be equal and nothing would ever be pulled out of this alignment. With random dispersal there would be random clumpings of particles, there would be random holes with very little matter in them. Compute models back this up. They placed the a random field of points and let the gravity of the clumps pull the others how they may and accelerated the process. The results were a structure similar to the observable universe.
The tough part is that the universe was still expanding at this time and the space between particles was getting larger. Gravity counteracted the dark energy and kept many of the particles together the matter came together to form structures, big structures. Protostars and protogalaxies made of these protostars.
For some reason I feel tired and I will continue this later with star formation.
In the beginning. What was there before was something or nothing. There are some theories that speculate that the universe exists on giant plates that exist side by side and that one hit another one and the energy of the impact created the universe where we exist to me this is all silly because it is something that we can not prove and can never prove, as the laws of the universe and the laws out side the universe are not compatible. To me to suggest one idea over the other would be equal to believing in gods.
Let there be light and there was light. Actually it is highly doubtful there was light at all. More specifically scientists are sure there was no light for a good length of time, at least several milliseconds, probably a lot longer. What is theorized is that the entirety of the universe existed in a single point, and this single point was the big bang. Which is wrong. It was small at first and there was no sound. It is better to call it the beginning.
It happened and everything was energy and it spread out. The mechanism of spreading is called Dark Energy. It is called dark, not because it has no light but because it is unknown. There is that analogy again, light is knowledge dark is not. Picture one of those little sponges that you get as a toy. You put them in water and they expand but as they expand you find that the inside is made of more of those sponges and they start expanding. Inside this large sponge the entirety is made of more sponges and so on forever the first one grew quickly and as the other little sponges expanded the big sponge grew faster and faster and accelerating continuously and constantly. It has not slowed down yet.
According to my very limited grasp of string theory the very condensed universe contained only strings and as the universe expanded the universe cooled and the density of the particles decreased. As it cooled the strings came together and formed the proto-matter of the universe. The strings became gluons and the gluons became quarks and eventually the quarks became atoms. The first atoms were likely all Hydrogen atoms, the most stable and simple atoms with one proton and one electron. It is possible more complex atoms were in existence, but this seems unlikely. Helium is the next most likely and it has two protons a neutron and two electron and that is significantly more complex than hydrogen.
So there was all this hydrogen out there and it was randomly distributed in the universe. Not evenly distributed, randomly distributed. The distinction is important. If something is evenly distributed everything is equal distances away from each other and the pull of gravity from one particle to another would be equal and nothing would ever be pulled out of this alignment. With random dispersal there would be random clumpings of particles, there would be random holes with very little matter in them. Compute models back this up. They placed the a random field of points and let the gravity of the clumps pull the others how they may and accelerated the process. The results were a structure similar to the observable universe.
The tough part is that the universe was still expanding at this time and the space between particles was getting larger. Gravity counteracted the dark energy and kept many of the particles together the matter came together to form structures, big structures. Protostars and protogalaxies made of these protostars.
For some reason I feel tired and I will continue this later with star formation.
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
The Wonders of the Universe
My university degree is in Geography-Biology. That is a single major, not a double and not a major and a minor. It was offered at York University for a few years before they dropped it, and later, I assume, changed it to Environment Science, but I do not think they are the same thing.
My major started as Geography, but I did not do well in it, so I switched to History. History I liked, but there was a lot of writing involved and truthfully, as an undiagnosed AS person, I started running into a lot of difficulties and I was starting to fail. I wrote an exam and got 70% on it, the part that I finished which was 70% of the exam. I was writing as fast as I could write. 70% of 70% is 49%. I needed 50% more time to complete my written exams because I have dysgraphia.
Dysgraphia is like dyslexia, except instead of affecting reading it affects writing. My thoughts are racing along faster than I can get them down. I have to concentrate on letter formation otherwise the letters and the words are illegible. Even when I do that, my scrawl is difficult to read. I had 50% more time in high school to write my exams and the other kids knew it. One more thing that separated me from everyone else, so in university I was going to do it without the extra help. Obviously that was a mistake. First year though was easy, most of the students were playing catch up with me and the tests did not expect much of first year students, so I finished most exams. Not now.
So I took the extra help. Exams were he'll I can tell you. My last exam period was the worst. Three exams on one day, two hours each one, 50% more time meant 9 hours of exams with no breaks.
So after the dismal exam in history, I started asking if this was the right place to be, if this was the right major for me. I still loved Geography, but I had difficulties with the first course I took, I took another course with my history courses and I did fantastic, but again the work was mostly review for me. My high school was top ranked at the time, I took OACs and I have an iron trap memory were learning is concerned. I also realized that if I concentrated on one and only one subject, I was going to get bored and fail, so I routed around in the geography course options for specialization and found Geography-Biology. Two subjects that I took through OAC and enjoyed. So my third year I started that major. It was perfect for me and it was quirky; York had about 50,000 undergrads then, and I was in a course that had only 5 people taking it.
Geography-Biology is the study if the earth from the top of the clouds to the top of the mantle, but mostly the interaction of the air,water and soil with the living things. I took geomorphology, soil science, hydrology, arctic environments, hydrometerology, plant populations and I took animal physiology, plants, ecology, plant evolution, herpetology (the study of herpes), genetics, mycology and more. I took these courses and I came to realize that they were all connected and the geography people were teaching similar stuff as the biology people but I was the only person who realized it, because of the insular nature of departmental politics. If I could have done university again I would have done my own course selection and combined geography, biology and history in to one study. It is not that far fetched; it has been done before. A professor told me about a thesis that a collogue had done, the black death plague historical geographical and biological in nature. One thing that I realized is that everything in the world is connected and university professors separate them to study them in the field they are masters in, but by doing so they lose perspective; education needs to be holistic to succeed.
If I were going to teach one course of my choice I would teach the History of the Earth. It is my passion and my passions. I would start at the beginning, 14.7x10 to the 9 power and I would end with the distraction of humanity in the year 2100 there a bouts. That would cover many of my passions including Astronomy, Geomorphology, Evolution, Ecology, History and many others. Oh and I meant it about the end of humanity, I am just not sure about the year, but it is a forgone conclusion unless people get some perspective on their place in the universe. I will begin soon. Stay tuned.
My major started as Geography, but I did not do well in it, so I switched to History. History I liked, but there was a lot of writing involved and truthfully, as an undiagnosed AS person, I started running into a lot of difficulties and I was starting to fail. I wrote an exam and got 70% on it, the part that I finished which was 70% of the exam. I was writing as fast as I could write. 70% of 70% is 49%. I needed 50% more time to complete my written exams because I have dysgraphia.
Dysgraphia is like dyslexia, except instead of affecting reading it affects writing. My thoughts are racing along faster than I can get them down. I have to concentrate on letter formation otherwise the letters and the words are illegible. Even when I do that, my scrawl is difficult to read. I had 50% more time in high school to write my exams and the other kids knew it. One more thing that separated me from everyone else, so in university I was going to do it without the extra help. Obviously that was a mistake. First year though was easy, most of the students were playing catch up with me and the tests did not expect much of first year students, so I finished most exams. Not now.
So I took the extra help. Exams were he'll I can tell you. My last exam period was the worst. Three exams on one day, two hours each one, 50% more time meant 9 hours of exams with no breaks.
So after the dismal exam in history, I started asking if this was the right place to be, if this was the right major for me. I still loved Geography, but I had difficulties with the first course I took, I took another course with my history courses and I did fantastic, but again the work was mostly review for me. My high school was top ranked at the time, I took OACs and I have an iron trap memory were learning is concerned. I also realized that if I concentrated on one and only one subject, I was going to get bored and fail, so I routed around in the geography course options for specialization and found Geography-Biology. Two subjects that I took through OAC and enjoyed. So my third year I started that major. It was perfect for me and it was quirky; York had about 50,000 undergrads then, and I was in a course that had only 5 people taking it.
Geography-Biology is the study if the earth from the top of the clouds to the top of the mantle, but mostly the interaction of the air,water and soil with the living things. I took geomorphology, soil science, hydrology, arctic environments, hydrometerology, plant populations and I took animal physiology, plants, ecology, plant evolution, herpetology (the study of herpes), genetics, mycology and more. I took these courses and I came to realize that they were all connected and the geography people were teaching similar stuff as the biology people but I was the only person who realized it, because of the insular nature of departmental politics. If I could have done university again I would have done my own course selection and combined geography, biology and history in to one study. It is not that far fetched; it has been done before. A professor told me about a thesis that a collogue had done, the black death plague historical geographical and biological in nature. One thing that I realized is that everything in the world is connected and university professors separate them to study them in the field they are masters in, but by doing so they lose perspective; education needs to be holistic to succeed.
If I were going to teach one course of my choice I would teach the History of the Earth. It is my passion and my passions. I would start at the beginning, 14.7x10 to the 9 power and I would end with the distraction of humanity in the year 2100 there a bouts. That would cover many of my passions including Astronomy, Geomorphology, Evolution, Ecology, History and many others. Oh and I meant it about the end of humanity, I am just not sure about the year, but it is a forgone conclusion unless people get some perspective on their place in the universe. I will begin soon. Stay tuned.
Behavioral Modification Training
Can you alter your behavior? When you do something annoying can you change it? For me it is very difficult. Things that I do become ingrained and I find it difficult to make changes. Other AS people who are not as self aware as I am, cannot make any changes, because they are not aware that they are doing anything wrong.
In High School, I was attracted to one particular girl. I would pray that she would be on my bus everyday and at night. I could therefore never miss school and always had to catch the bus home. I lived in a rural area and used a yellow school bus every day to get to school, for those of you that never had this option. I missed about four and a half years of High School opportunities because of this girl. Stalker. I was not a stalker. I was just inept at social things and could never figure out how to do something like ask her out. I figured out how but that is another story.
I was and still am an avid cyclist. I would cycle to school and cycle home when I could, about ten kilometers per direction and my goal was to get fast enough to beat the bus home. After school in the spring and autumn I would often go for another ride it varied in length but it almost always went by her house. Which was not too far outside of my reach. But I would go other places too. I would drive all the streets to the end in my rural neighbourhood, which was not too extensive as it turned out. It was on this long route that I started trying to do different things, like riding no hands, up hills and down hills. It got that I could ride for kilometers without my hands touching the handlebars except to make sharp corners and to stop.
Fast forward to the high school drunken party for the graduates I was taking a younger friend of the girl in question home as she was wasted and she started to tell me that she and everyone new that I liked the girl. And that they were talking about my bicycle rides through her neighbourhood. I was a stalker, essentially. I was mortified. I began to invent anti- stalking behavioral modification protocols. When ever I was doing something I would question why and if there was some girl involved; I became paranoid about my own motives. So that no-one could ever call me a stalker again.
The problem with the modifications was that they did not stop with people I liked, it gradually applied to everyone I knew through little tweaks from little mistakes I made to the point that I feel great discomfort entering former workplaces, former schools, workplaces of people I know and even seeing people who I know outside, especially women. More so if I don't know that they will be there.
I did not know how bad it was until I walked into a former colleague's new workplace and felt the panic that I was stalking them.
In High School, I was attracted to one particular girl. I would pray that she would be on my bus everyday and at night. I could therefore never miss school and always had to catch the bus home. I lived in a rural area and used a yellow school bus every day to get to school, for those of you that never had this option. I missed about four and a half years of High School opportunities because of this girl. Stalker. I was not a stalker. I was just inept at social things and could never figure out how to do something like ask her out. I figured out how but that is another story.
I was and still am an avid cyclist. I would cycle to school and cycle home when I could, about ten kilometers per direction and my goal was to get fast enough to beat the bus home. After school in the spring and autumn I would often go for another ride it varied in length but it almost always went by her house. Which was not too far outside of my reach. But I would go other places too. I would drive all the streets to the end in my rural neighbourhood, which was not too extensive as it turned out. It was on this long route that I started trying to do different things, like riding no hands, up hills and down hills. It got that I could ride for kilometers without my hands touching the handlebars except to make sharp corners and to stop.
Fast forward to the high school drunken party for the graduates I was taking a younger friend of the girl in question home as she was wasted and she started to tell me that she and everyone new that I liked the girl. And that they were talking about my bicycle rides through her neighbourhood. I was a stalker, essentially. I was mortified. I began to invent anti- stalking behavioral modification protocols. When ever I was doing something I would question why and if there was some girl involved; I became paranoid about my own motives. So that no-one could ever call me a stalker again.
The problem with the modifications was that they did not stop with people I liked, it gradually applied to everyone I knew through little tweaks from little mistakes I made to the point that I feel great discomfort entering former workplaces, former schools, workplaces of people I know and even seeing people who I know outside, especially women. More so if I don't know that they will be there.
I did not know how bad it was until I walked into a former colleague's new workplace and felt the panic that I was stalking them.
Monday, 25 July 2011
Parties
So a friend asked me to a party for yesterday. This is what goes on in my head:
I said asked her why her sister was not going or her best friend and find out that they all have plans. So I say yes and then ask what I should wear. Clothing is very important. I used to not understand this and would turn up to social events in inappropriate clothing. I just did not understand. I had rationalized it out at the clothes did not make the man and i was more than just what my clothes said about me, and I was, but no one really cares about a person dressed like a bum and no one will try to understand them. So I said yes and found out that it was semi formal and shorts were acceptable, so I wore nicish pants and an okay dress down dress shirt, because it is better to be over dressed than under dressed.
The week before I was trying to figure out if my friend was trying to put the moves on me, so I was reviewing everything mentioned in the past two weeks or so, to see if there was something there. You just don't know how much people flirt with their friends and mean nothing by it. I spent some time trying to deduce it from body language. AS people have a difficult time reading people because body language is not natural to them, so they can't read it, nor can they broadcast it easily. So there are a lot of crossed signals for everyone concerned. I came up with a pretty solid case that she likes me a lot before tossing the conclusion aside because she dislikes men and she said I look like her brothers and that creeps her out. I could go into detail why I think she liked me, but that is beyond this story, we are friends.
I am an introvert. Very introverted. Extremely. I did the Myers-Briggs personality test and I got a score that said that I was more than two standard deviations into introversion. I am a good candidate for reclusion. All my friends know that I am introverted, but they don't really understand how much. So I went to this party with my friend as a friend in her car. When we got there she said she only wanted to stay for an hour because she does not like parties much either. I told her that I had planned out my escape route and could abandon her at any second. But I did not.
I do not like to trespass any where. I feel uneasy approaching a friend's door to knock on it unless I feel really comfortable. So walking on this property to the party in broad daylight was stressful. And there were people there. People I did not know. People I did not know who knew people I did know. In a small town. There is a difference between small towns and cities. Cities you can act like an ass and no one will remember you and they won't care and they don't care because they have better things to do than to care. In small towns people take notes and they compare their notes with other people on what every other person did, or did not do. So I was in good behavior mode, extreme good behavior mode.
In the city at the train station there is an urge in everyone to jump before the train and kill yourself. Most people stand near the wall and live in fear, some people stand at the edge and realize that it is a dumb urge and resist others lean out to see how close they can get without getting hurt, some people die. For other people the train no longer has any pull and they do not react or care. When I am stressed out the train sings to me and taunts me to jump in front of it. I know that I would die and it would be bad so I restrain myself, hold my hand back behind my back hard, grip my wrist with an iron grip, make a tense fist, flex my hand stretched as far as it can go, to show myself that I am in control and not the whisper. The whisper is natural, it is the little demon sitting on your back telling you to do the wrong thing most people can ignore it and I assume like the train example, some do not even know that it is there. When I am stressed, the whisper sings to me.
People who always listen to the whisper are in jail or are insane; they are the people that do the really nasty things in the world seemingly on a whim. Everyone has the whisper telling them take the money, no body is watching and you need the money more than them. When ever people listen to the whisper they get into trouble or they have a lot of fun, depending on what the whisper tells them to do. I was tense at the party, I was in control, complete control, I did not eat or drink a thing I talked when people talked to me, I did not know hardly anyone. The mayor was there, my landlady was there, people who knew my parents were there, people who knew my friends were there. Lots of people I did not know, but knew me because I helped them at my workplace were there. That means, I could afford no slip ups at all. And I had none, but I was as tense as a spring under pressure.
My friend commented that she had no idea that i was so uncomfortable in public or she would never have asked me. She said I looked so awkward and tense. She had no idea.
The next day I let her into my head a little. I told her that the entire time I was controlling myself keeping myself in control, I reminded her how important in a small town it is to put on a good face in public and that I could not ruin it by letting my thoughts reign my actions. The more stressed out I get the darker the whispers get. So she said it is not like your thoughts were of raping and killing the people around me!
I said nothing.
I said asked her why her sister was not going or her best friend and find out that they all have plans. So I say yes and then ask what I should wear. Clothing is very important. I used to not understand this and would turn up to social events in inappropriate clothing. I just did not understand. I had rationalized it out at the clothes did not make the man and i was more than just what my clothes said about me, and I was, but no one really cares about a person dressed like a bum and no one will try to understand them. So I said yes and found out that it was semi formal and shorts were acceptable, so I wore nicish pants and an okay dress down dress shirt, because it is better to be over dressed than under dressed.
The week before I was trying to figure out if my friend was trying to put the moves on me, so I was reviewing everything mentioned in the past two weeks or so, to see if there was something there. You just don't know how much people flirt with their friends and mean nothing by it. I spent some time trying to deduce it from body language. AS people have a difficult time reading people because body language is not natural to them, so they can't read it, nor can they broadcast it easily. So there are a lot of crossed signals for everyone concerned. I came up with a pretty solid case that she likes me a lot before tossing the conclusion aside because she dislikes men and she said I look like her brothers and that creeps her out. I could go into detail why I think she liked me, but that is beyond this story, we are friends.
I am an introvert. Very introverted. Extremely. I did the Myers-Briggs personality test and I got a score that said that I was more than two standard deviations into introversion. I am a good candidate for reclusion. All my friends know that I am introverted, but they don't really understand how much. So I went to this party with my friend as a friend in her car. When we got there she said she only wanted to stay for an hour because she does not like parties much either. I told her that I had planned out my escape route and could abandon her at any second. But I did not.
I do not like to trespass any where. I feel uneasy approaching a friend's door to knock on it unless I feel really comfortable. So walking on this property to the party in broad daylight was stressful. And there were people there. People I did not know. People I did not know who knew people I did know. In a small town. There is a difference between small towns and cities. Cities you can act like an ass and no one will remember you and they won't care and they don't care because they have better things to do than to care. In small towns people take notes and they compare their notes with other people on what every other person did, or did not do. So I was in good behavior mode, extreme good behavior mode.
In the city at the train station there is an urge in everyone to jump before the train and kill yourself. Most people stand near the wall and live in fear, some people stand at the edge and realize that it is a dumb urge and resist others lean out to see how close they can get without getting hurt, some people die. For other people the train no longer has any pull and they do not react or care. When I am stressed out the train sings to me and taunts me to jump in front of it. I know that I would die and it would be bad so I restrain myself, hold my hand back behind my back hard, grip my wrist with an iron grip, make a tense fist, flex my hand stretched as far as it can go, to show myself that I am in control and not the whisper. The whisper is natural, it is the little demon sitting on your back telling you to do the wrong thing most people can ignore it and I assume like the train example, some do not even know that it is there. When I am stressed, the whisper sings to me.
People who always listen to the whisper are in jail or are insane; they are the people that do the really nasty things in the world seemingly on a whim. Everyone has the whisper telling them take the money, no body is watching and you need the money more than them. When ever people listen to the whisper they get into trouble or they have a lot of fun, depending on what the whisper tells them to do. I was tense at the party, I was in control, complete control, I did not eat or drink a thing I talked when people talked to me, I did not know hardly anyone. The mayor was there, my landlady was there, people who knew my parents were there, people who knew my friends were there. Lots of people I did not know, but knew me because I helped them at my workplace were there. That means, I could afford no slip ups at all. And I had none, but I was as tense as a spring under pressure.
My friend commented that she had no idea that i was so uncomfortable in public or she would never have asked me. She said I looked so awkward and tense. She had no idea.
The next day I let her into my head a little. I told her that the entire time I was controlling myself keeping myself in control, I reminded her how important in a small town it is to put on a good face in public and that I could not ruin it by letting my thoughts reign my actions. The more stressed out I get the darker the whispers get. So she said it is not like your thoughts were of raping and killing the people around me!
I said nothing.
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Depression
A lot of people get depressed. Depression is the mental illness of the nineties; everyone had it. For someone with AS, it is endemic. For me, and I can only speak for myself, my moods had their ups and downs like everyone else peaks where I was happy and valleys where I was depressed; that is normal for everyone. Half way between the peak and the deepest part of the dip draw a line. I like to call that line sea level as I am a geography nerd. I am willing to bet that most people this holds true. Some people have a higher sea level and others have a lower sea level and some people the peaks are gentle and not very high and the deeps are shallow and wide. I am not sure if I have gentle slopes or steep sided mountains, but I a can tell you that I have very high sea level so that only the tops of the hills are above water and the islands are far apart. I do have suicidal periods and I also have hysterical periods too, but I also have had very long times where I came to terms with that my normal was depressed. I was mostly depressed from grade two, age seven until age age thirty-two. For all of my school period I did not even know that I was depressed because I had nothing to compare it too. I remember that I was happy once for a couple of days when I was twenty-four and the contrast allowed me to realize exactly how bad my depression really was. As the poem goes, "a fish cannot know water until it discovers air.".
What am I depressed. Basically the literature says it best, the AS person looks around and understands at a deep level that he or she is different from everyone else in a very important way and there is nothing that they can do about it and they do not know why. Specifically, in High School and Middle School, children start interacting and getting ready to date. AS people want to do that too, but find it more difficult or impossible. It actually starts sooner. When I was in University I had myLearning Disability analyzed and they determined that it began in grade two for me; early diagnosis of AS is around grade two. The professionals described it as a brick in the foundation of a house that is missing and each brick laid upon it is off center until the house is finished and every brick above the first, are all off. For me my social development started to go off course around this time, well truthfully it might have been awry before then, but it became noticeable then. Let me tell you young kids realize this early and they are well practiced in removing kids that are different from the rest. It is a subtle ostracization, and honestly it comes from both sides.
I am tired. I will try to pick this up again. Needlessly, it can be said depression is a huge theme in my life.
What am I depressed. Basically the literature says it best, the AS person looks around and understands at a deep level that he or she is different from everyone else in a very important way and there is nothing that they can do about it and they do not know why. Specifically, in High School and Middle School, children start interacting and getting ready to date. AS people want to do that too, but find it more difficult or impossible. It actually starts sooner. When I was in University I had myLearning Disability analyzed and they determined that it began in grade two for me; early diagnosis of AS is around grade two. The professionals described it as a brick in the foundation of a house that is missing and each brick laid upon it is off center until the house is finished and every brick above the first, are all off. For me my social development started to go off course around this time, well truthfully it might have been awry before then, but it became noticeable then. Let me tell you young kids realize this early and they are well practiced in removing kids that are different from the rest. It is a subtle ostracization, and honestly it comes from both sides.
I am tired. I will try to pick this up again. Needlessly, it can be said depression is a huge theme in my life.
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Dating as AS
I am stuck for now in boonieland, dating has always been difficult. A complete listing of all my relationships would be very short list, three in fact. Of the three one was a passing acquaintance who should have remained a friend, the first, I meet online before it was fashionable and the last was a good friend who needed my support. Is there a pattern? Yes there is. Even the girl I met online I knew for months before we hooked up. I date people I know very well. The least successful of the three, I know where the mistake occurred; I rushed into it too soon. I make mistakes about love as frequently as everyone else, the opportunities, however, are years apart and the length that they last is so short.
I am in boonieland because I commit fully to people that I love, there is no middle ground. Sometimes I think on what people in my past have told me, that commitment is important and not to be shy on that account. I am influenced by one friend, who had over twenty relationships in ten years, but would have stopped at the first one that showed any true commitment to her. I would have committed myself to her if she had wanted it, but AS has an insidious reach, or perhaps I am just not relationship material: intent is not enough. I hope my friend who I was just about to name has found what she has always been looking for, but last I heard, she has not. Most people I have found do not know what they are really looking for or do but are looking for fun too and miss out. Clarity of AS let's me know what I want, but AS hinders me from acquiring it. I know what people think of me, but I do not know how to change it.
People who first meet me think I am creepy. People who get to know me slightly better, are wary still but know that there are qualities that I have that make me useful, they know that I morally won't do the things they think I want to do that make me creepy. Once we are friends however, they learn that I will do anything for them and I will try my best for them, but they know that they will never be interested in me and ironically that is when I can fall in love with them.
A few times I have made it clear how I feel, and a few times I have been told to go away. Sometimes it is because I don't know how to tell someone that I am interested and I do it wrong. Women are such skittish creatures. Sometimes they laugh and tell me that we are in a better place than a relationship could ever be; we are friends. The truth is that most women know if they are attracted to someone in the first second, at least this is what I think, then there is a chance. I could talk about the people in my life that I missed being in a relationship with because I was oblivious. But that might be a separate post. Remind me.
Dating in Boonieland. I need to know the person, so I need to be set up with them or I need to be friends with them. I know a secret, one can be attracted to someone right away and get involved and then become friends and later love each other or one can get to know the person over time and find parts about them that you enjoy and fall in love with them. When you know someone and fall in love with them over time they become attractive to you. Laeticia Casta (sp) is a beautiful woman who I would like to have sex with, but I know that I would not be in love with her and parts of her would begin to annoy me and it would be over. But if I got to know someone who I am not interested in, physically, over time I would become attracted physically to them.
Dating on the Internet. You post your picture and fill out your stats and then you join the masses all looking for love. Guys used to number ten times more than the women online, and that has not really changed much. Women have their pick of all the losers in their area, and the is quite a few of those with a few winners stuck in there. So how do they pick a guy? I do not know, but I have theories, prove me wrong. They look at the pic, do they find them hot? Next they look at how much they make $$$, if the site lists that or what they do as a job, I bet some look at how old they are. People have rules that they use to run their life, "I cannot be a day older than my man," is one that I encountered. "My man can not be 'X' years older than me," is common and understandable. But all these rules mean that a few criteria are what most women use to judge whether on person is pick over another. And that means that I will rarely be picked, I am not what most people consider 'hot' and I do not have a large padded bank account and my career choice will never make it that way. Luckily I live in boonieland and the available choices are not infinite out there as they seem to be in the city.
Bad news, I have never been attracted to they type of woman who lives in boonieland. And I have exotic tastes in women that I find difficult to shake, thank you AS. I need to be set up. The last girlfriend I had I was set up with. My friend told me that there was a single woman who she thought I would make a good match with, so I was stating to think about this woman before I met her. She was on my mind. I met her and there were aspects of her character that my friend was right about and there was electricity, but she was not 'my type' but because I was prepared, I was open to something. We became friends, with an edge, and because we worked together I was able to get to know here fairly quickly. When we actually hooked up it was magic. Why it fell apart is complicated, but I feel it was because I do not have money.
Why don't I have money? That is another post. Remind me.
I am in boonieland because I commit fully to people that I love, there is no middle ground. Sometimes I think on what people in my past have told me, that commitment is important and not to be shy on that account. I am influenced by one friend, who had over twenty relationships in ten years, but would have stopped at the first one that showed any true commitment to her. I would have committed myself to her if she had wanted it, but AS has an insidious reach, or perhaps I am just not relationship material: intent is not enough. I hope my friend who I was just about to name has found what she has always been looking for, but last I heard, she has not. Most people I have found do not know what they are really looking for or do but are looking for fun too and miss out. Clarity of AS let's me know what I want, but AS hinders me from acquiring it. I know what people think of me, but I do not know how to change it.
People who first meet me think I am creepy. People who get to know me slightly better, are wary still but know that there are qualities that I have that make me useful, they know that I morally won't do the things they think I want to do that make me creepy. Once we are friends however, they learn that I will do anything for them and I will try my best for them, but they know that they will never be interested in me and ironically that is when I can fall in love with them.
A few times I have made it clear how I feel, and a few times I have been told to go away. Sometimes it is because I don't know how to tell someone that I am interested and I do it wrong. Women are such skittish creatures. Sometimes they laugh and tell me that we are in a better place than a relationship could ever be; we are friends. The truth is that most women know if they are attracted to someone in the first second, at least this is what I think, then there is a chance. I could talk about the people in my life that I missed being in a relationship with because I was oblivious. But that might be a separate post. Remind me.
Dating in Boonieland. I need to know the person, so I need to be set up with them or I need to be friends with them. I know a secret, one can be attracted to someone right away and get involved and then become friends and later love each other or one can get to know the person over time and find parts about them that you enjoy and fall in love with them. When you know someone and fall in love with them over time they become attractive to you. Laeticia Casta (sp) is a beautiful woman who I would like to have sex with, but I know that I would not be in love with her and parts of her would begin to annoy me and it would be over. But if I got to know someone who I am not interested in, physically, over time I would become attracted physically to them.
Dating on the Internet. You post your picture and fill out your stats and then you join the masses all looking for love. Guys used to number ten times more than the women online, and that has not really changed much. Women have their pick of all the losers in their area, and the is quite a few of those with a few winners stuck in there. So how do they pick a guy? I do not know, but I have theories, prove me wrong. They look at the pic, do they find them hot? Next they look at how much they make $$$, if the site lists that or what they do as a job, I bet some look at how old they are. People have rules that they use to run their life, "I cannot be a day older than my man," is one that I encountered. "My man can not be 'X' years older than me," is common and understandable. But all these rules mean that a few criteria are what most women use to judge whether on person is pick over another. And that means that I will rarely be picked, I am not what most people consider 'hot' and I do not have a large padded bank account and my career choice will never make it that way. Luckily I live in boonieland and the available choices are not infinite out there as they seem to be in the city.
Bad news, I have never been attracted to they type of woman who lives in boonieland. And I have exotic tastes in women that I find difficult to shake, thank you AS. I need to be set up. The last girlfriend I had I was set up with. My friend told me that there was a single woman who she thought I would make a good match with, so I was stating to think about this woman before I met her. She was on my mind. I met her and there were aspects of her character that my friend was right about and there was electricity, but she was not 'my type' but because I was prepared, I was open to something. We became friends, with an edge, and because we worked together I was able to get to know here fairly quickly. When we actually hooked up it was magic. Why it fell apart is complicated, but I feel it was because I do not have money.
Why don't I have money? That is another post. Remind me.
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