Transformation
I’ve been doing a lot of it lately. If I were to illustrate just how much I’ve changed since I hit puberty, I would need about six months of research and deliberation to express it all. I suppose the best way to say it would be…
I used to be an unintelligible, assuming/unassuming, belligerent, hateful, escapist, bitter, meek, gender-confused, existentialist (as much as a kid could get), and greedy little brat. Gradually, I’ve been replacing that with a relevant, open-minded, critical, caring, quick-witted, isolated, philosophy-passionate, eager, sassy, and somewhat inscrutable…hipster?
I’ve been called that lately, and I don’t know how I feel about it. Hipsters also confuse me, but maybe that’ll change. Maybe the change will be accepting the confusion itself; that’s a hipster sort of thing to do. Right?
I’m never sure exactly what to change about myself until I change it. When I see a big negative about myself, I target it and act as therapist until I see things differently. But then there’s the tricky ones: sarcasm, ‘saying it like it is’, apologizing profusely, turning the other cheek, reacting subtlely or exaggeratedly to whatever, and so on. I fine-tune these qualities to the point that I don’t even understand them anymore. The same goes for concepts. I use the idea of mental sets to break out of them and change…but if you asked me to define it, I would just stare at you. It’s not that I don’t know what it is; it’s that I don’t think about it in words because that makes it too rigid for me. Does wording concepts make them rigid for other people? Or does it just make them manageable?
Transformation also necessitates that I be intensely self-aware, which is no problem for me. But it makes me wonder if that’s what makes it difficult for others to change. I change when I see the problem in either all or most angles (how Westerners see it, how women see it, how other people with AS might see it, etc…), make my determination for what it is, summon the courage to act, find an opportunity to act, get out there, and commit to the new decree I’ve made for myself. Maybe other people can’t do that for some reason. It seems it would be a different reason for each person…but more than that, it seems the capacity for these would vary.
I think it will become clearer to me as I work on becoming less of a shut-in. I want to seek out others more, to stop relying on my own inner ramblings to calm me down. Most of my life has been like that, so it’s weird to actually start going against it and to want to go against it. But I crave the validation of others. I’ve shut myself off for so long and so thoroughly that I think I need to actually make myself vulnerable. I even told a friend of mine this when he was down: “When you stop trusting yourself, listen to your friends.” Maybe I can get a boyfriend that way, who knows?
Transformation confuses me…but I guess it would.
Extra: I have a follower now…it feels weird, but you’re welcome to be confused with/at me, buddy. Your blog is refreshing :)
