start of school

today my school started;
it felt weird, been 8 years since the last time I was a new student, currently, I'm waiting for the studies to begin, can't wait to learn something new.
Sadly I heard from my tutor that sadly this program has a low amount of studies at the start. I'll have to enrol on some open-university courses to fill my schedule. Because for me the main way to keep motivation up, is a constant stream of knowledge.

According to a specped teacher I was talking to earlier; "I think your main problem will be to keep up your motivation for studies that go slow"

thoughts pre - school launch

I'm feeling a tad jittery at the moment since my school is starting in two weeks. This is the first time I'll attend school without being plagued by daily dissociations. So it will be interesting to see, how it is, to learn, without constantly forgetting what has happened during the day. Also because now I will start studying far more theoretical topics, instead of the easier things I've studied up to now.

Hopefully, I will learn some interesting things, have been mostly trying to learn physics this summer on my own so it will be a nice change to have someone teaching me instead, of me teaching myself.

During the interviews, one thing they kept asking time and time again was "Do you think you can handle the level at university even though you haven't been to gymnasiet.

I don't know, I will see, either way, it's not like we have to know things, before we've had a chance to learn it.

humans make no sense

It has happened a few times this summer; that I've found myself in arguments where I can't grasp how the other party thinks

And since these conversations have to do with peoples moral principles, the question also arises, do they have to make sense?
In short, I'd say, no. However, if one challenges someone else's personal views, then you also have to be able to present your own.

An easy example would be, how people react on someone being on the opposite side of them on political or religious views.

We have the right of having and expressing our personal opinions, however when it comes to let's say, religious,  racial, sexual identity, people become much harsher if the other person doesn't share their values.

Whilst, if it's between what ice cream is better, it's easier to remember that it's the opinion you don't agree with, not the person.

The easiest example would be people who say things like "If you're racist, it means you're an idiot, and shouldn't be allowed to voice your opinion"

Because by saying that, you show the same intolerance and prejudice as the person who's racist, yet in our society, it puts them on the moral high ground, because their opinion is the more popular.


And then the other part is this whole polarising of everything, it doesn't have to be binary, on other areas people are getting more into thinking about things in a spectrum, however when it comes to opposing views, it always tends to end up in a "we against them"

// rant over

I don't think I've ever met a person who shares my beliefs and values, and because of this, I've had to learn to accept other peoples opinions in a much wider range than many other's do.
Personally, I don't think religions are a good thing in this day and age, at least not in the way we force it upon children from an early age.
And whilst this is my view on it, it doesn't stop me from respecting a person whose religious, because for me it is completely fine, that they don't share my thoughts on everything.

observations

There's this one behavioral pattern in humans that have been bothering me for ages.

I call it "I ought to know this; otherwise I'm stupid"; train of thought.

If anyone else thinks or observes this in any other individual we deem it as lunacy. However, for most people when it happens themselves, they don't realize it happening.

Personally I'm a big fan of podcasts. They offer me the chance to be a fly on a wall, in a situation where two interesting people converse.

However often when I try to recommend good episodes to friends, acquaintances etc. I get the response that

"I feel stupid when I listen to podcasts if I don't understand everything".

This is a statement that stems directly out of their ego, why, how would they assume that they ought to know what the expert on the episode speaks of, they are often older, experts in their field of study.

And this somehow stops them from enjoying the episode. This, boggles my mind. We can enjoy music, without understanding the underlying theory of it, same with any other form of art. And in these cases it doesn't bother these people that they don't "understand everything."

When I try to dig deeper into their minds, to map the train of thoughts leading to the aversion, if, they agree to having their mind picked, it usually stems from shame.

Therefore we can conclude that, because the podcasts are intellectual, they feel inferior if they can't understand everything.



Anyhow, you get the gist.


And this same thing happens in classes in school, people are afraid to voice their opinions, they rather sit silently and nod their heads. In places for learning. What? why?

If they're not comfortable to expose their vulnerabilities in situations meant for education, where are they?

What am i?

I often catch myself observing myself in various situations, nowadays it's called being mindful.
However, when I grew up it was because of something called dissociation, depersonalization.

I developed it as a defence mechanism against rough, anxiety/panic-inducing situations, my therapists say it's because of bullying.
For me, it feels like it was a method to cope with the world itself, by observing myself from the sidelines I could look at myself as in a movie, a documentary. I often narrated whatever was happening around me, however, it also made me sad, so sad, because no matter what was happening around me, it felt like I wasn't part of it.

This picture by Shawn cross really illustrates the alienation, isolation I felt.

I was tested for autism and ADHD, I didn't, however, end up with a diagnosis, apparently, my intelligence and impulse levels are too high.

In the end, it doesn't matter. Because the point remains the same, this picture is the closest I've felt the sense of belonging.


Last winter these dissociations suddenly disappeared, instead, I started having panic attacks again which was lovely, because instead of disappearing from the world as before. I got to soak in the anxiety, which again made it feel like I was finally alive again.


Sure, it made me suddenly start crying around people in social settings, in class and so on. That didn't really bother me though since these were the same places where I before was observing myself as part of the group, yet apart.

So why would I care if they judged me, an adult man suddenly sobbing. In fact, it was freeing, it felt like I finally managed to stop caring how others perceive me.

About me

As a child, I enjoyed learning. For some reason, despite this fact, I didn’t do well in school. Some part of it may have to do with the weird class system my school used, another part with the bullying I had to endure. In high school, it got so bad that my class teacher and my student advisor both told me that I was “too stupid” for upper secondary school. They advised me to go to vocational school instead, so that’s what I did. It never felt really right. Because of what happened to me as a child and as a teenager, for a long time, I thought I was dumb. Recently I’ve started to notice that my view on myself might have been wrong. It’s a strange thing to suddenly notice that everybody isn’t smarter than me. The people I’ve considered inherently more clever, because of their different paths in life, aren’t in fact always above me. For years, whenever I encountered people who graduated upper secondary school, I overestimated their intelligence - and thus, I underestimated my own. This lead to me having really weird conversations with people because I assumed that if I knew something, they would too. They would not only know about it, they would also have a much higher level of understanding of it than I did. The majority of people also seem to be ashamed of admitting that they don’t know something because they pride themselves on their intelligence. Adding this to the situation, my conversations got even weirder. Anyhow. Around the time that I was about 23, I started to learn different subjects on my own. These were subjects where I felt I was lacking because I had been so weak in school. It wasn’t until a few months ago when my therapist asked me what my method of learning is, that I realised I had been doing something “wrong.” Wrong in this sense is related to the Finnish school system. Whenever I start to learn something new, I compare it in my mind to my old understanding of the topic and see if the previous problems are solved by adding the new knowledge. This has most likely been the problem, my therapist said. It blew my mind. To succeed in the school system, you shouldn’t try to understand, analyse and figure out ways to use new knowledge. Instead, you ought to be able to memorise and recall the information, often only for exams. After that, the knowledge is forgotten. [This, of course, is an exaggeration of how the system works, but sadly the main point remains true. Think about it. How often haven’t you studied like crazy for a test, done it, and been done with it? Not using the information, worst case, ever again? When I realised this, I got mad at myself for not understanding that this was how it had worked. I’ve always thought that I’m bad at mathematics because my high school math grades were poor. It isn’t until recently that’ I’ve been thinking of trying to learn it my way. Whilst searching for methods, I stumbled upon this talk by a woman named Barbara Oakley. That’s what inspired me to start reflecting on myself and on how I learn. For now, this weird text shall serve as my introduction to myself; and I'll leave you readers with this fascinating talk by Barbara Oakley.

What does the sheep say?

Intention.

I know I wrote about motivation earlier. The concept of how 'intention' works is similar to how motivation works, in my mind. Motivation is ’what’ makes us do things, whilst intention is 'why' we do things: the idea behind our actions.

I often think along the lines of acting and/or reacting. Are the things I do actions or reactions? How about other people? As I think of it, with an action, the intention is clear to us. A reaction, however, is when we act on other people’s intentions.

Let’s take for an example, you wake up in the morning, you may make your bed, but is it because, that’s what you grew up with?
Then it’s still most likely a reaction to your parent's wishes, whilst if you do it intentionally, it becomes an active thing.

I’m one of those lucky people who wakes up early naturally, so I don’t have to use an alarm clock, so for me the first intentional action I do, is getting up. For many, their waking up is a reaction to that terrible sound.

Don’t worry, if you’re one of the clock people, you can still change the direction of the day, by for example making the bed, as an active thing, for yourself. Or even better, make your bed, put on coffee and meditate whilst waiting for it.
Often people say that they feel like they have no control in their lives, just by small things like this, one can change the feeling, so instead of starting the day on the back foot, reacting to things whole day, try to be more aware of the things you do.



Now that we’re past the morning, let’s go into what’s been on my mind lately.

Over the years I've observed various friends struggle with addictions. Often they say "I will stop with this now", however, that rarely works out. I think that’s because the intention isn't there to really do it. Instead, it’s a reaction to the shame they’re feeling.

It's never easy. I myself was addicted to gaming for a long time. However, when I was ready to quit, I managed to do it. It was an active choice to do it, not a reaction to people around me.
That's why I think it takes a certain amount of self-reflection and understanding of oneself to be able to quit destructive behaviour. You have to understand why you do it: what's the intention behind the action? Why do you drink? Why do you do drugs? What’s the real reason behind it? For most, I'd say it's the escape. Being able to take a break.

[Sadly, a lot of us has been there. ] Observing a friend becoming worse and worse with their self-destructive behaviours, yet there's nothing we can do. All we’re left with is picking up the pieces when they hit rock bottom.

Everyone knows the thing with traffic lights. If one person crosses the road when it's red, many other will follow, without even thinking about it. The person who takes the first step makes an active choice to walk despite the light being red. The others just follow as a reaction. The lovely herd mentality of our breed of animals, hmm?

Next time you're in that situation, crossing the road even though the light is red because others are doing it, stop to think. Do you follow because you really can’t wait a few seconds more or do you follow because you’re just another sheep?