So I ordered another book by John Elder Robison (which I've been pronouncing like Robinson, without the "n", but it's actually ROW-bison), called "Be Different", and it took like a week to get here, but I finally got a chance to read it. Now, I was expecting it to be more "huge eye openers" like I got reading Look Me In the Eye, and from the autism website I was looking into earlier, but I guess you can only get life changing information for specific intervals. Anyway, it was a good read, but it wasn't anything new, because I'd already read Look Me In the Eye, and I've been spending a lot of time on the WrongPlanet and AspieCentral, so I've been getting more used to the idea, and more familiar with the whole issue. So, it wasn't the best thing I've ever, ever read. But it was a good book. If you haven't read LMItE, then I think it would a very beneficial book. Especially the end, where he talks about how you should play to your strengths. In other words, spend more time improving what you're good at, and spend less time trying to fix what you're bad at. Now, I don't think he means you should entirely ignore your weaknesses. We have them for a reason. It's important to improve yourself everywhere you can, and if you can turn your weaknesses into strengths, then you can turn your strengths into superpowers. In my opinion.
But the things he did with his strengths? Incredible. Talents aren't magical gifts you are born with. They are hard work, hours and days and months and years, slaving away, practicing and studying. It's painful sometimes, when something doesn't work out, when you come across a problem that doesn't seem to have a solution. When people criticize your work, but they can't even tell you what's wrong with it. When even you lose faith in yourself. But having a talent or a skill means that even through all of that, you stuck with it. You focused, you worked, because you loved doing it, and that's the key. That's how you get good at something. It's not just loving something, it's not just hard work and study. It's both.
I'm sorry to admit that I have not spent enough work on my special interests to call them particularly well-developed talents. I listen to doubt and fear way too much. But I hope that can improve on that now. Knowing that I'm not the only person on the planet of my species has really done something for my self esteem, lemme tell you.
But anyway, I wanted to continue on some thoughts that I had while reading the book. It's a tangent, really, because Robison mentioned a huge revelation he had when he was about ten years old, that reminded me of one I had, not once, but twice.
You see, when I was around ten or eleven, I was sitting there, thinking, and I realized that all the people around me were people. That each and every one of them had thoughts and feelings, just like me, that they were each the center of their own universe, and I was just a small, flat piece of it, in their minds. I don't know exactly what I thought of other people before then. I don't think that I believed that they were all a figment of my imagination, or robots or anything. But it simply hadn't ever occurred to me that they could be as complex and vast as I was. That a random person I passed on the street, who I had never seen, and would never see again, had a whole world between their ears that I knew nothing about. It was mind-boggling.
I don't know if anyone else has had this experience. Maybe other people grow up knowing this (if you read Be Different, Robison talks about that missed connection between people, that may explain why I was so late in discovering this), but I have often determined that there are a vast number of people who have not had this revelation, which is why so many people are mean and selfish. I mean, if no one but you has thoughts and feelings, then why should you waste your time being nice to people, or helping other people?
Now, you may be wondering why I said that I had this revelation twice. It's because I did. There are some things that are just so big, that I can't hold them in my head for a long time. Like infinity. I remember my parents explaining to me that God has no beginning or end, that He is infinite. Well, that's all well and good, if you don't actually think about it. But when I was seven, I did, and it still irks me. That means that He never started. I can kind of be okay with never ending, but never starting? He wasn't born, he just always was. Everything comes from something. Everything has a starting point somewhere. But He just was, forever and ever, and I tried holding that concept in my head, the idea of infinity and I actually got nauseated. It hurt my head, literally. (Fun fact, though. When I mentioned this to someone else, about how trying to understand infinity made me feel ill, I just got weird looks. Apparently this is unique to me. Thankfully, because of college and calculus, I'm a little more comfortable with the concept. As long as I don't think about it too hard.)
So, walking around, imagining the billions of invisible universes around me, was not something a ten year old could handle. It was simply too big. It just faded out of my mind over time. But I remember the second time it hit me, and it stuck. It was a few years later. I was probably about fourteen or fifteen, and one of my brother's friends just loved to pick on me. I didn't understand why. This was the guy who told me I needed a tan. Three times. In hindsight, the fact that he picked on me so much may have indicated a crush on me, but I was blind to that kind of thing, and there was no follow-up, so he could have just been mean-spirited. Anyway, the more he picked on me, the angrier I got, which was strange because before then, I was not an angry person. Then, I got an idea. I'd watched tons of movies, which involved hand-to-hand combat. I didn't take any karate lessons, but I got the gist of it. He was a head or two taller than me at the time, so I knew I wouldn't win in a fight. But I was Penny, sweet, quiet, little Penny. Everybody knew I couldn't hurt a fly. And that would be my advantage. I plotted out the best way to attack. It had to be fast, completely out of the blue, if I was to have any chance. A proper blow to the head could knock him out cold, and render him completely incapable of hurting me. After that, he'd know better than to tease me.
I'm not gonna lie. In the days and weeks leading up to my impending attack, I continually played the Darth Vader theme song from Star Wars in my head. I was far more powerful than any of them could imagine. And I would make him pay. I pictured it, over and over again, fine-tuning until I knew exactly what I should do. It was during one of these practice runs that the Revelation Take 2 occurred.
Now, if you're religious, perhaps you would understand me when I said that this was the Spirit talking that day. If you want to claim it was just my brain, that's up to you, but I've always believed it was an official Chastisement from God. See, what I got was:
"Shame on you, Penny. You know better."
I remembered, out of the blue, the fact that I was not actually the only person with thoughts and feelings on this planet. That this boy, whether or not he was ignorant of the suffering he caused me, did not deserve to get his head smashed against the wall. I was pretty ashamed for my behavior, and since then, I've been able to remember that the world does not revolve around Penny. I know, it's the only point of view I have, like the people of ancient days who thought the galaxy revolved around the Earth. But to every other person, what they saw was a whole universe revolving around them, where I was just a speck. Other people don't mean to hurt me. They barely even notice me. And to hurt them would be of just as much monument as if I hurt myself. And so, I didn't.
Since then, my worst fear has been hurting other people. I can tell you guys that, because you don't know who I am, and you can't come shove it in my face, like some people would. But there it is. I can't stand the idea of anyone getting hurt, through my action or inaction. It's my biggest rule of all: never, ever, ever, hurt someone.
Certain people say I'm too nice. That I should "stick up for myself," that I should be "more assertive." They don't realize, they don't see what I see. That hurting someone else, butting in, getting mad, taking something from them... I know what it feels like, to be insulted, interrupted, shut down. I know what it's like when somebody "assertively" yells at me until I cry. I can imagine (though I've never experienced it) how horrible it is to be betrayed, to have your heart broken. So I would never, could never, do that to someone else.
In most accounts, this is my best quality. As people get to know me, even though I never actually say it, they realize that I genuinely care about them. That I would never intentionally do anything to hurt them, and if I hurt them unintentionally, that I would do whatever I could to make it better. It is who I am. But there is one place that this characteristic is actually problematic, and I'll admit that, here, where it's in "secret". In one area, it actually holds me back.
It's that I know that people hurt a little when they see someone do something better than them. I mean, sure, we all like to watch that guy juggling chainsaws at the circus, but there's always that little part of your brain that goes "I don't have that." Whenever I tell people that I have more than one "special skill," part of me thinks they don't believe me. That I'm just bragging for attention. Everyone hates a bragger. The other part of me thinks that they do believe me, which means they'll hate me even more.
I remember, when I was really little, watching or reading something about a genius. There was this kid who went to college when he was really young. My guess is he was somewhere between ten and fourteen, but that's not the point. They talked about how bright he was, and how promising his future was, and I thought "that would be so cool! I want to do that!" And then they talked about his "fans". People would send him hate mail. Somebody threw a brick through his window. They called him a freak, said he shouldn't be there. They hated him. I didn't understand why, just that they did. And I realized, then and there, that people hate it when other people do better than them.
And I remembered it. I remember just about everything. Growing up, I was careful not to show my gifts, because I was afraid of getting hurt. But as I got older, I still couldn't show it, because I was afraid of hurting other people. The ones who don't throw rocks and send hate mail, those are the ones nice enough to just sit there and feel bad about not being better than they are. And I hated that. I hated that doing something that made me feel good, would make other people feel bad. It just wasn't fair! I didn't want to hurt the people I loved, just to make myself feel good.
So, I dragged my feet. Hid my "light under a bushel." When I went to college at 16, I backpedaled enough to still be in my freshman year when 18 rolled around. And I made sure not to tell anyone how old I was, not unless they asked me directly. I wouldn't ask for piano lessons, even though I was teaching myself. I wouldn't show people my drawings, even though I was getting kind of good. I wouldn't tell my friends I was tutoring math to people twice my age in school. If I had to show myself excelling at one thing, then I sure as heck wouldn't tell them about the others. It wouldn't be fair.
Do you see how foolish I am? People that love me may be jealous, but if they understood the hard work I put into my talents, they wouldn't resent me for the result. And people that choose to ignore it, and simply say I was "lucky", clearly don't care about me, so I shouldn't have to worry about their feelings (even though I obviously do). And beyond that, just because I wasn't "allowed" to tell people about the things that I loved, didn't mean I shouldn't improve them on my own! I could be a closet Mozart or DaVinci if I wanted. So why didn't I? I don't know. At this point, I'm a slightly better than mediocre musician/artist/writer/performer/math tutor/hair stylist, because I let fear and doubt and worrying about other peoples' feelings hold me back. Was I wrong? Yeah, I guess so. But is it really wrong to care about the people around you? To make sacrifices for their well being? No! Of course not! But was it really better for them to see me fail? Even now, when people say "oh, you did so good at that! I couldn't do that!" I squirm. I start coming up with ways to make them feel better. I tell them where I messed up, or how long it took me to get that far. Or, I point out what they're good at that I'm not, but that sounds too much like a misdirection to be beneficial.
Why does it have to be that way? Why can't people just say "good job!" and mean it? I know some actually do, but I guess I'm not good enough at reading people to tell them from the jealous liars. I shouldn't care. I should just "live my life" and enjoy myself, but I can't. I can't un-know something, and I know that people are sensitive. I can't pretend that it doesn't effect me to see other people get hurt. I want so badly to share my success and excitement with other people, but many of those closest to me are too bitter to accept that it's okay if I have something and they don't. So I can't. I have to just bite my tongue, and listen to other people celebrate or complain. I have to sit on my hands and drag my feet, waiting, hoping, that other people will catch up.
My posts keep turning really negative lately, and I don't know why. Maybe when I analyze myself too much, I get depressed. I'm not really that pessimistic. Most people that know me describe me as a little ray of sunshine, always looking on the bright side of things. Maybe that's just because I can't stand to see them sad. But maybe if I stopped writing this for myself, and wrote it, instead, for all of you, then things will start looking up.
Because when I pretend to be happy, I actually become it.
Penny
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