This decade was a waste

[oregano]

"Ain't it cool?"

-John Travolta, "Broken Arrow".

Age can indeed be liberating at times. But it usually comes with a boatload of perspective to draw upon.

Hey, I remember that line. I think the full exchange was something like:

Character (whose name I can't recall): You're insane!
Travolta's character: Yeah! Ain't it COOL?

I always thought that was a cool (heh) line.

 

[Judge]

Hey, I remember that line. I think the full exchange was something like:

Character (whose name I can't recall): You're insane!
Travolta's character: Yeah! Ain't it COOL?

I always thought that was a cool (heh) line.

LOL. Get old enough and you're allowed to be insane as well.

Truth is, I remember that line of dialog mostly because it seemed out of character. Given the complexity of a pilot's scam involving nuclear weapons, it just seemed a tacky thing to say. You'd think any caper involving such high stakes would warrant something more elegant to say. Go figure.

 

[oregano]

OP's problem may be that he is judging himself by NT standards, which reminds me of Einstein's famous quote, "If you judge a fish by its ability to ride a bicycle, the fish will spend its whole life thinking it is stupid."

Also, that quote by "Hippo" reminds me of somebody I met on another forum who in HS thought her life was boring and how she wished something awesome would happen to her. Then a fellow student with a gun burst into her class one day and killed a bunch of people right next to her. When I ran across her she was suffering from extreme PTSD, afraid to leave her room, and lived her entire life poop-posting to internet forums and playing video games.

@stewdog80, yeah the world is going to suck even worse in 10 or 20 years, so you don't want to be the guy who is dying of cancer caused by global warming, or drowning in a AGW-caused flood, or baking in a heat wave without AC since the power grid has collapsed, and saying to yourself "gee, I wish I appreciated what I had when I had it back then".

 

[BehindtheScenes]

I find myself on the opposite end. ****** teens and 90% of my 20s being ******- particularly financial and social wise. I've long given up on the social aspect crap. But, I hope for significant financial change throughout my late 20s and 30s (turning 27 this month).

 

[DuckRabbit]

OP's problem may be that he is judging himself by NT standards, which reminds me of Einstein's famous quote, "If you judge a fish by its ability to ride a bicycle, the fish will spend its whole life thinking it is stupid."

Also, that quote by "Hippo" reminds me of somebody I met on another forum who in HS thought her life was boring and how she wished something awesome would happen to her. Then a fellow student with a gun burst into her class one day and killed a bunch of people right next to her. When I ran across her she was suffering from extreme PTSD, afraid to leave her room, and lived her entire life poop-posting to internet forums and playing video games.

@stewdog80, yeah the world is going to suck even worse in 10 or 20 years, so you don't want to be the guy who is dying of cancer caused by global warming, or drowning in a AGW-caused flood, or baking in a heat wave without AC since the power grid has collapsed, and saying to yourself "gee, I wish I appreciated what I had when I had it back then".

Agree with this and @GadAbout above. I wondered whether the OP is American (I see the OP in fact confirms this), and whether it's harder to be on the spectrum in some cultures/ countries than in others (just as it may be harder to be homosexual in a fundamentalist religion). It is possible the US has a greater ethic or conformity and puts greater emphasis on outward material success and milestone conformity (signalling normality aka social acceptability). In contrast, the UK, Europe and some other places may be more accepting of differentness, eccentricity and solitary individuals (introversion). Perhaps that is why the OP cannot contemplate other perspectives and developing 'down' instead of 'up' (down = a deeper understanding of life; up = outward material success that fits the existing social order), but remains fixated on 'fixing things', 'escaping his/her plight'.

A possible coping strategy might be to actually move to a culture that's more accepting of spectrum traits as differentness rather than as psychopathology. I know some ASC individuals seek out other outsiders within their own culture where their own differentness is tolerated more and is not so glaring e.g., ethnic minorities, lower or higher SES (socio-economic status), disabled, gender atypical, speak a different language, much older or much younger etc. However, all cultures arguably have gradations of social acceptability vs anomaly - belonging and non-belonging seem to be universal qualities of the human psyche (archetypes) that are recognised everywhere and are experiences we 'have to' go through in different quantities and at different times.

If we're in the 'belonging' camp we may need to incorporate more 'non-belonging' (individualism) in our psychic economy to be more balanced, and vice versa if we're in the 'non-belonging camp': we may need to put in effort to conform more. Totally dismissing one or the other is an extreme approach that life may discourage through giving you a rough ride unless you're prepared to incorporate more nuance in to your thinking about yourself and about life. Either you embrace the rocky road willingly yourself or life will put you on it anyway; there does not seem to be any sort of short cut to 'coming to terms with one's differentness'. With any luck, it can open one up with profound compassion to differentness in others.

Btw does anyone know of any threads where 'it's easier to be ASC in some cultures than in others' is discussed? I'm sure this has come up before.