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.