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do you like to learn?

ChrisC1983

Well-Known Member
ok, on face it's a stupid question.. atleast in my eyes. but what i mean is.. well, literally but it doesn't matter if you only enjoy learning more about whatever interests you, or if you just enjoy learning in general... any form of constant need for improvement.
i don't intend it as anything bad.. i enjoy learning about everything so long as i don't know that information already. so even if you're an expert toy marble collector and you know everything about them since china was making porcelain ones (i know way too much stuff lol) ... i know you will know something that i do not. but even knowing that, i will still become so bored after you said ("repeated") about 3 things i already knew that i will never want to see you again because i know i've become "the kid i can talk to about marbles" so there's an immense pressure just thinking you may run into me somewhere. did i mention i also took an interest in psychology at a very early age? so at this point i'm probably on par with some actual psychologists or atleast students doing quite well in their senior year of college. and yes, although my over inflated ego will pop in from time to time i'm still a surprisingly depressed person so i internalize far too much and far too quickly
 
Yes, I enjoy learning. I find some things, such as certain TV series or certain entertainment rather pointless and boring because you don't learn anything... at least, nothing that I find particularly interesting or useful.
 
thats generally what i thought. it's not to say people without ASD do not enjoy learning. but more commonly learning anything is just boring and life if more of a trial and error system than a research and apply system. there's still boring crap obviously. but the way to go about finding new information i'm noticing is different between the two groups (again, as a majority rule, not 100%). there's more of a "just do it and if you screw it up, do it differently next time" but due to the social problems it seems ASD is more of a "let me learn how to do it, then i'll do it properly" to help the anxiety. both choices can have the same outcome, but the methods are very different which creates their own variables.
 
Yes, I love to learn but only one thing at a time. It's all my brain can handle. Usually I like to learn about the things I am obsessive about like the bible and politics. I also like to learn how things work like machines and vehicles.

I think my ability to learn has gotten better as I have gotten older. My brain seems to have better ability to focus on things at age 46 than when I was younger.
 
it seems ASD is more of a "let me learn how to do it, then i'll do it properly" to help the anxiety.

That describes my learning style exactly. My mom has said that over the years, she has come to realize that I must do things in my own way & time in order to understand it. She even recalls that, as a child, I would often outright tell people, "Don't show me! Let me do it by myself!"

I cannot be told what to think or how to do things in regards to learning a new skill or problem-solving. That is most likely why Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been largely ineffective for me. I can't simply be told a solution and then immediately apply it. This is not because I am being difficult; this is just because of the way my mind processes things.

My mind is like a crock pot - you can put the ingredients inside, but they need to "stew" for a very long time before they are ready. (Hopefully my analogy made sense...)
 
I can't simply be told a solution and then immediately apply it.

for me, and possibly you too.. there's small exceptions to that idea. for example, if you're cleaning a mirror and somebody says "wipe up and down, not round and round".. fine, no big deal. but if its something like "move all the furniture off the rug before vacuuming" my mind instantly says "why? can't i just do half, then move everything to the clean half, do the dirty half and move everything back with a clean rug and me not needing to flip a couch on it's side and wedge it in the hallway just to clean the rug?" (my father has a lot of ocd lol)
 
Learning stuff through returning to education at 30+ helped me a lot because it gave me an absorption, it put structure into my life, it made me go to night classes & mix with people & when I eventually relocated urban-to-rural to undertake a BA Hons course, it was the Uni which identified & diagnosed my ASD & associated numbers dyslexia. That was after I won one of the four scholarship prizes on entry though :) I learn stuff slowly through repetition, it takes me a long time to digest information but on the plus side, once I have that data lodged, it's pretty stuck in my brain & easy to recollect. I research & read about most things which take my interest, especially when there is a practical irl application. :)
 
I love it. This is probably the #1 personality difference between me and boyfriend, that I am always reading and learning the past story behind current events, and interested in new topics and deeper conversations. Whereas he was unaware there was a war going on in Syria until I mentioned it a couple weeks ago...
 
urban-to-rural
omg i would love that.. we used to go to NH to this little cottage next to a lake, and i loved it. it was so mentally relaxing for me. but i grew up and still live right near Boston which is just ungodly horrible. the city i grew up in is the 15th most densely populated in the country and 1st in the state.. Boston itself is around number 50
 
omg i would love that.. we used to go to NH to this little cottage next to a lake, and i loved it. it was so mentally relaxing for me. but i grew up and still live right near Boston which is just ungodly horrible. the city i grew up in is the 15th most densely populated in the country and 1st in the state.. Boston itself is around number 50

I really hope you get to make the same transition as me some day, if that is where your heart leads you. I moved from my hometown of 200,000+ to a market town of 2000. I was chasing my education but saving my life too really. Rural living has its own challenges especially if like me you don't drive but the trade off in terms of a slower, quieter, more manageable existence was worth it.
 
...but due to the social problems it seems ASD is more of a "let me learn how to do it, then i'll do it properly"...

This pretty much sums it up for me. I'm definitely curious and always eager to learn (to a fault, I guess), but trying to absorb information in a matter everyone else expects me to only leads to endless frustration. At one point in my youth I managed to grasp a handful of programming languages and drew somewhat decent art amongst many "talents" - not that I was extremely skilled or savant level of any sort, it's just that I picked up far more on my own than in any classroom setting.
 
Majority things I like to learn is watching documentaries or other video content. I think over 10 years I watched 1500 different documentaries. Documentaries that interest me is nature, history and science.
 
I love it. This is probably the #1 personality difference between me and boyfriend, that I am always reading and learning the past story behind current events, and interested in new topics and deeper conversations. Whereas he was unaware there was a war going on in Syria until I mentioned it a couple weeks ago...
I'm very guilty not following world events. I heard people talked about stuff going on in Syria but ignored it. I never paid attention until i was watching documentary on it. Even when Steve Jobs died, I don't found out until many weeks or months later. Partly I don't have interest in Apple. Once again, I found out from a documentary. I was wondering why on a download site I use, all these documentaries on Steve Jobs was appearing and after watching it, it made sense. So in summary, I get news very late by watching documentaries.
 
Sure, I like to learn....mostly about topics that have to do with my interests, such as literature, writing, fiction, art, animation, neurodiversity...topics like that. I find it rather hard to learn about topics that are not within my parameters of interest and that I feel are "beyond my reach," such as mathematics and the sciences.
 
I like learning but I have to be in the right mood for it otherwise I won't appreciate it nor will I absorb it. I think I'm a visual thinker so learning by video is probably the best method for me.
 
I like learning, depending on the topic. I love history and could (and have) studied it for hours. But math? I'm in danger of falling asleep.
 

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