philosophy

485: Back Awake

| Aspergers Girls

“I feel the safest when I am in the lap of vulnerability, tenderly tucked in the hands of truth. Here I am my self. Here I am true. However once released, a radical dichotomy manifests. For though I am safest whilst vulnerable, the aftermath of such actions brings imminent danger. Oftentimes after being exposed in the open, the lap of safety evaporates, and I am left swimming in a mist: the fog of regret, refusal, denial, and question. Having voluntarily been stripped and gutted, torn down and replaced, and surrendered in refuge to my own self, I become infant escaped into a new blinding darkness. Here I face a rushing fear of my own making. Another layer upon layer of self-doubt breeched and set painfully still within. Until I rebalance and reassemble and understand that in the risk I am reborn again.” ~ Samantha Craft, Everyday Aspergers

I am afraid. Each and every time I share with you I am frightened. This won’t ever pass. It is essentially who I am. A vulnerable wounded warrior. I accept this. I allow this. I find strength in this. Each day, like you, I reface the demons and hauntings. Each day, like you, I don’t give up. Each day one more shadow of untruth is conquered. I recognize that I face only that which is a mere shadow of doubt and fear. There is nothing out there in the forest black that threatens me. And still I tremble, some child lost in the universe of self, desperately reaching out for companions in the company of ghosts.

I am understanding today that this is okay. That I am entirely okay to be frightened. Of course, I am frightened, I feel the weight of the world. I feel inside of you. I feel inside of pain. I feel the all of all. And it is overwhelming. Until now I was fighting some invisible battle, the fight between strength and weakness. I was teaching myself subconsciously the ways of the world, some offset rules of behavior and insidious goals that equate strength to the absence of fear. I am beginning to see myself in a new light. Something that resembles the final breaking of the iceberg. In that I am set out, divided in myself and left to melt into the waters of union.

I am sensing that this interior battle is coming to an end. Or at least one end.

I am the meek one. I am the weak one. This isn’t going to change. But in this is my strength. In my inability to don the robe of pride. In my inability to be filled with praise and take refuge in compliments, this is my gift. Until now I felt numb and lost, in a perpetual state of always approaching. Now I feel centered and rebalanced, allowed to sit where I am and take note.

I am not that which is becoming anything. I am that. I am all. And in this knowing I am understanding multiple aspects of myself. There is no struggle, and yet I continue to struggle. There is not truth, and yet I continue to seek.

There is just being.

There is just being in this state of grace whatever it brings. The heartache, the question, the agonizing emptiness, the void that longs to be filled, it is all the same game, the same dance, and the partner is fear. And still I wait, thinking that if I move swifter than the rest of me I shall outrun the mystery. This isn’t true. Nothing is ahead of me, as nothing is behind. I am not being chased nor am I am the chaser. And thusly, I am in a place of waiting, waiting until the runner in me subsides, exhausted and forlorn, and returns to the only choice: that of basking in the light of truth.

I am what I am, and nothing I do or find or invent will change this. I am honorable, good, and opaque. I am that sunrise and sunset. I am that wave and that droplet. I am that which is everything. And like the tree, I need not surrender to the storms, I need just be: strong in the steadfast of my existence. I need not take up armor or weapon of mass destruction. There is nothing to excavate, demolish, or retrieve. I am already.

And here I am today, wondering why this took so long, remembering from before this exact place I stood, and watching all the scenarios of me pass by—the costumes, the robes, the dank-dazzling masks. Had I not been here all along, this child of the universe, entirely bathed and set out in truth?

I am tired of fighting this invisible ghost of me. Very weary. I surrender her to you. In all her ways. Her supercilious-self and forthright searching. I am as beacon and you are my light. You are shining within me and I within you. I am done looking. For today, I am done.

And when I arise to yet another version of self, I will remind her too, to rest, to be, to stop, to just wait. And in the waiting I shall let the movement and rush of the world subside, pass by as nothing but whispers of wind, touching down and embracing that which is us. Touching down and hushing us back awake.

meeee

483: The Void

| Aspergers Girls

Somewhere out there you are lonely. I see you. I feel you.
You have this compassionate void within, a great abyss, massive in girth and depth.
There is no end to it: your beacon home.
You grasp at straws, at significant concrete ideas, thoughts, and concepts, even people, in an attempt to understand this absence, this missing, this grand emptiness.
So grand is your space of void that you long to fill it with whatever comes.
Sometimes the comings are tragic, sometimes wild, sometimes fulfilling, sometimes long-lasting, but they always dissipate.
You are left with memories slathered in pain, no matter the causation. You are left abandoned to yourself and your doings, in a state of query and mishap, shaken and made awake. Further awake.
This happens again and again, this searching out with your great capacity, an opening of self to what is there.
You take into you this, this substance, whatever the measure.
And you embrace it there, in your deepest self, twisting and turning the angles, figuring out in your limitation what could be, and forgetting what is.
There is a dichotomy inside of you, in which you love yourself, the innate you, yet also punish yourself for false failings.
You long to be someone else, as you embrace who you are.
Deep within you honor and respect your light, your goodness.
But beyond that you become confused in this world, isolated, alone, burdened.
This is your journey, and my journey, lost in a way, and found just the same.
There exists an ache so substantial that you live to alleviate the agony.
Day in and day out such intense longing.
We mistake this longing for love, for future hope, for him or her, for this or that.
The craving is the loving search for source, for truth, for light.
And in here we bathe.
Reach not for what is there, but for what is within, and your answers remain, as always, readily attainable.
Turn not to another, for the other is not the way.
You are this ‘way’ in your effervescent glow.
I cannot remove such suffering, even as I try ten-fold to release myself.
The suffering stays, and only grows greater.
What I can do is speak my voice, my truth, and seek harbor in the safety of awakened awareness.
I can go to the core of self and bring up what is there beyond the mask.
This is your calling, too. This is the void.
To embrace yourself fully in all your perceived failings. To love yourself in completion, and in turn give to the world what you have found within your being.
Purge, die, renew your essence, and give back your true light.
I wait for you on the other side, my burden heavy, my heart pierced, my enemy awake.
I wait and wait and wait, until a thousand deaths fall upon me.
And then I shall rise, with us in the horizon, with us in the rising sun.
You are my answer and I am yours.
We must awaken to the dream that is us, and begin to live the dream that is now.

482: The Greatest Casualty

| Aspergers Girls

sam

I woke up with three pages of information involving archetypes and symbolic representation, and the challenges I face of being keenly aware to the illusion of life; in so much that I am aware of the way I must choose icons in order to live and communicate in this dimension. This followed by the off balance of duality at my core level, if it be off, in that I am primarily feminine energy. Then I was conceptualizing the time space continuum, in regards to how I can’t think in simple format but instead in what is a visual expansive viewing in which, in a short amount of time, it seems I am viewing a series of variant options and pathways to conclusion.

It is impossible for me to think in a linear fashion.

I think in where some are persecuted and ostracized for perceived secrecy and aloofness the opposite occurs with me. As I am interpreted as smothering, over-sharing and clingy. But in truth I am at the same point as the latter, in so much that I am overwhelmed with thoughts and information, and my coping mechanism manifests itself as verbally processing likely to off set the feasibleness of insanity. Couple my intensity of thoughts and emotions with my capacity to remote view others emotional, say spiritual state, from a distance, and I become bombarded with such vast amounts of data I overload.

I struggle with being seen beneath what appears to be a constant shifting of perception and representation of what I am. I become that which I am observed by, and, in essence, I am reflected to that person through his limited capacity to view what is before him. In this sense, I remain entirely isolated and invisible, much lost to my own self with intense longing to be seen. Ironically unable to see myself as nothing more than fluidity.

The greatest casualty for me, in great contrast to some, is my advanced empathy and ability to tap into another’s emotional field, as this capability serves to intensify my awareness of suffering, isolation, and the tendency for most of the world to be asleep, if not lost somewhere trapped within what they perceive and what is. My greatest discomfort comes in craving to be seen as a true representation of love and compassion, vibrating at a frequency that is both beneficial and of comfort, but feeling the discrepancy between who I am and what the other is interpreting.

I am that I am, yet others in their closed ways turn me into their wishful dream. I long to break out of the isolation and this brings the fever to my writing. However, the more I try the more blinded I become to the rest of this existence; in essence, sinking into this self I neither know nor understand.

I cannot see faces in real life. I have no idea what I look like. Each moment I shift as do others. This makes the world very uncomfortable for me. Perhaps it is the eyes that are the only thing that remain constant. ~ Sam

471: A Beautiful Morning with a Beautiful Mind

| Aspergers Girls

It was a beautiful morning.

My Aspie son and I have such deep and complex conversations; I swear he must be at least a thousand years old. He speaks philosophically, in a manner of viewing life that I have only discovered in the ancient wisdom of great scholars across the globe.

This morning we spoke about truth, and the idea that when one threatens another’s truth by confrontation through disagreement or differing opinion, how the other naturally, quite instinctually, responds with a fight-or-flight nature. We opted for the agreement that this human response is based on human nature, on the idea of wanting to protect singular intelligence and mentality. I scaffolded upon the initial points, mentioning the concepts of limited and isolated perception based on the singular collection of reality from a limited scope of an individualized sensory input. He understood entirely.

I elaborated that I don’t hold a singular truth, as my truths vary vastly compared to how I interpreted my world five years prior, and that I am continually changing. He concurred and expressed that I had made sense.

Of course, most of this discussion was a dissertation on my son’s part. His theories of human communication and outcomes are right up there with the geniuses of our time. It amazes me that he is Aspie, and yet years ahead of his peers in understanding the complexities of human nature and societal responses to multiple environmental stimuli.

I suppose I have taught him some by example, and he has sought out his own form of awareness and truth through observation of others and the intake of literature and films; however, the intricate ways in which he pieces the found knowledge into linear and detailed outcomes and conclusions is awe-inspiring. If ever an old soul exists, I see this as my son.

When I offer a gentle reminder to him, at anytime and in any genre of conversation, to keep in mind that he views the world a bit differently than others, and that him and I have complex ways of interpreting events, he is ever so humble, consistently reminded me that he does not enjoy the comfort of setting himself above or beyond anyone else, and that all can see and comprehend as he does, but that perhaps they do not understand what they are doing or in some way do not observe the connections.

He is insistent that his way is no better and that he is not superior by any means; to sit with the idea of being special is a great discomfort to him. And though my son may appear aloof, argumentative, and at the edge of his seat ready to engage in debate, he is at the heart of him a wise sage, insistent upon remaining humble. A concept I did not set out to instruct him upon, but one he shares with me.

I am continually fascinated by his mind. He grows in spurts that are ‘unnaturally’ fast; comprehending and taking in and retaining more than any student I have ever witnessed. And he reworks ideas in his mind to match his view of reality, a view that is extremely open-minded, whilst being seemingly narrow-minded. I mean to say that he comes across, to the typical observer, as strongly opinionated and limited in his viewpoints, but with careful analysis and granted the patience to listen, he is actually extremely open to reasonable and logical ideas that don’t initially resonate as truth with him. And, in fact, he will easily dislodge a chosen truth for a new truth, after taking in what another has shared. The barrier that exists between him and his peers (and some adults) appears to be that exact fight-or-flight mentality my son was theorizing upon. He speaks and if another interprets him as threatening to any degree then the other shuts my son down or out; no longer hearing what he is stating and instead closing off to possible connection.

We were weaving out of conversation this morning, and I found myself going down an interesting course. I had started a sentence several times, never truly completing the string of words, as my son was interjecting (albeit while apologizing for doing so) with his rapid-firing thoughts and connections. I enjoy the way he is ignited with ideas, and take no offense to his interruptions. I see myself a lot in him, and him in me.

I was trying to explain something to my son. At first I thought I was clear on my idea, but something inside of me self-corrected, in the middle of my thought process. I was speaking aloud. I had thought of the isolating factor of Aspergers. How we are so often misunderstood and ostracized. And on hearing my son talk so freely and blatantly, I imagined how this exact discourse might bring him further out of his collective circle of peers. (He attends a part-time academic school for children that are homeschooled). I began to speak from fear, but didn’t recognize what I was doing, until most of the words were out of my mouth.

“As you get older, son, I think it would be beneficial if you monitored some of what…”

The words came through at last, as one cohesive thread, and with that outpour I had time to recollect what I had shared. I immediately backtracked.

“You know what, I have changed my mind,” I shared. “I was originally thinking these past few minutes that you should be more careful around people who don’t love you unconditionally, so that you don’t live an isolated life. But I disagree with this. I think you should be exactly you, and that people will love you for you.”

We sidetracked for a bit to explore the concept of unconditional love. He didn’t understand the idea of choosing not to have someone in your life but choosing to still love them unconditionally: to hold them in love and light, to pray or keep them in thought, to hold no ill-will or resentment towards the individual and wish the person the very best.

He seemed to be taking in a lot more than I was saying.

My son looked at me, and gave me a sheepishly-wise grin. I knew that he knew. And we continued onward, back to the previous conversation, again.

I stated: “I mean, I tried the other way for years. To pretend and hold back myself and I was miserable. Why would I want that for you? I just want you to be free to be you, and others to appreciate you for who you are.”

He listened and answered. “I know. I thought you might change your mind once you said it. You realized you were contradicting yourself before you were finished. That is clear. I understand.”

I smiled. Still in disbelief at the level of this young man’s ability to comprehend others’ thought processes. I added, “I guess I just wish as you grow older that you can focus on being less injurious, if that makes sense. What I mean is there is a difference between choosing to say something that you are highly certain will hurt someone’s feelings and saying something and unintentionally hurting someone. If you are injurious, it will be harder to maintain friends. Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” he said. “And I already do that Mom. Don’t worry. I understand.”

We talked further about the complexities of human communication and the limitations based on others’ interpretations and emotional responses.

As we approached the school, he looked at me and responded more, “Thank you for such intriguing conversation.” He nodded, sounding much like the little professor I have grown to adore in astonishing amounts. “It was quite a good conversation.”

I half expected him to add ‘indeed’ to the end of his last statement.

His voice was monotone, without hints of rejoice; he made no eye contact, and he mostly huffed away as I said, “Enjoy your day, Baby.” But I knew how he felt. We’d connected at an intellectual level without judgment, without expectation, and with equally open minds and acceptance. It was another freeing moment, the way in which the two of us communicate; this unabashed arena in which anything said is okay and doesn’t affect the other’s equilibrium or sense of self or worth.

It was a beautiful morning, indeed.

469: A Circumstantial State

| Aspergers Girls

I sometimes have a strong creative urge that I try to suppress, an urge brought on by an out-and-out pure response to chaotic, gone-haywire emotions of devastation, inadequacy, and not-enough. I become this questioner of questions, a process that is, I find, both cumbersome and too deliriously complex to explain and/or express. Yet, I try, as I do now, for that knocking upon knocking of my withered soul continues.

The truth is, by tomorrow, or the next day, I will be back to equilibrium, my hormones returned to some state of balance, my outlook, previously dimmed, much lightened, and my heart’s endeavors reacquainted with the concepts of hope and inspiration. But, for today, at this moment of juncture, life hurts. And that’s the way it is, all in all, a painful circumstantial state.

I am my worst critic. I am a deviously keen observer of self. Devious in the sense, based on my mind’s delight and current disposition, I can project pretty much any circumstance onto myself. I can create me into anything, and quite convince myself of the truth.

I am a fabulous debater. So fabulous indeed that I can argue both sides of any argument presented, detaching all emotions and outcomes from my viewpoint. I can just see into infinity at times: this spiraling of truth upon truth, knowledge upon knowledge, shared and passed on wisdom and leakage from the collective unconscious. Anyone can. That is, anyone can see what I see, if he or she chooses. Thing is, I don’t choose. At least I don’t think I do. It just is. I was kind of born that way, I conjecture. As it seems my brain has always seen in a limitless fashion, where inherently the truths of truths stem out of some pool of knowledge deep down within the center of some agreed upon collective idea of real. It’s a crazy way to live, literally, to see the disentanglement of complexities simplified into a raw element of nothingness. It’s bound to leave me feeling buoyantly afloat in a world filled with deep heaviness.

I am adrift more often than not, inside some self-manifested escapism. When I am not escaping into the concept of trying not to escape, when I am not purposely trying to escape the effort of mindfulness and being present in a world that screams for me to run, then I am trying to understand what relief and alleviation arises in my conquest of leaving reality. If it weren’t for my mind’s ability to take me adrift, afar off from this land of man, then inevitably I’d be lost onto myself again and again in a torrential, destructive doomsday way—broken, penetrated, skinned, and left to die. Escapism is my safety net from the world of worlds, this place created by man as reality, when nothing exists outside the reasonings of the philosopher’s ways. Escapism is in actuality the very lifeboat that removes me from the sinking ship of knowing and seeing far too much, and returns me to the shores of tranquility. For how can a one, that I seemingly be, exist in a place so full of torturous ways, and yet smile at the image in the mirror she neither understands nor recognizes?

I am rebirthed moment upon moment, acutely aware of my inadequacies in awareness, and completely mesmerized by the makings of this being that I am. Indirectly I give and take upon myself, filling my being with reassurance and then taking down the walls of pride or exterior notions of excelling or succeeding. I am trapped in a way, inside two extremes of being. The one that is to the left which is bleak and dark and reminding me of the world I wish to not be a part of: the illusions, the lies, the schemes, the projections; and the one to the far right of nowhere that is bright, but too bright, a burning scorching idealism that leaves the adventurer worn out by her own doings. I fall back and forth between the lines, finding balance briefly in the state of not being, only to be returned to the merry-go-round of limiting attachment. Wherein I want to belong, to be a part, to be entirely present, the greater part wants to dive away from the teetering of this life, and be not part of something thats very essence is ego-bound and self-limiting.

I crave to belong, yet, I long for the reprieve of isolation. With my own-ness, this state of being individualized and in hiding, I am less likely to be circumvented and exposed to the dispositions of others—to their thoughts, their opinions, their energies. I am less likely to be evaluated and reevaluated by an outside self that predetermines who I am before I am even made fully aware of reality myself. I am less likely to be molded into this prefabrication of idea of who I should be based on some prefabricated gatherings of hankerings and inklings created by absolute strangers (to themselves). I am, in my awareness of others, made into this idea of what is and what to be, or better yet, how to be. In being outside of the state of isolation, I am knowingly put into a stream of realities that don’t fit, don’t feel good, and actually hurt. Here I am made to practice again and again the process of letting go, the interjection of forgiveness and understanding, the recourse of relying on a source beyond me for the release of the echoes of hatred, demise, and retribution. Here, in this spinning nonsense of man, I am made to practice again and again to be someone I see not, to be that which is above the circumstances of sorrow and suffering. And here I am exhausted in my efforts to be all that I can be, beyond these conceived ideas of what is.

What I am becomes lost to me. I cannot grasp reality. I have sunk myself into the vastness of nonexistence. And I become lost in the labyrinth of endless possibilities. I seem to seep out of this life into the places of other lives. To see the extremeness of being in the unlimited possibilities. How each choice affects outcome. How each decision determines the blueprint of further coursings. How every ripple leads to movement upon movement. My mind is a centipede of motion, leg upon leg churning the outcome. I cling to nothing and loop again down the rabbit hole of trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.

In the making of one word, I see a thousand opportunities. Life is set out for some in such simplicities. The delights of the palate. The makings of grand friendships. The works of fine art. The creation of something magnificent. From where I stand, I become twisted in the details, the analysis, the facts beneath facts. The origin of the word, and the founder of the origin. What is it that is simple? What is the definition of delight? How is grandness defined? What makes something fine? What makes something ‘works’? How is magnificence created?

What is truth, if every word is a window to a thousand more doors? What is communication, if what I am is defined by that which I am not? If every word is chained to a reaction based on a previous reaction by a unique individualized perception based on a collaboration of previous collections, then where is the connection? Where is the place where I reach out and blend with another? Is it not in constant isolation we exist, continually trying to break through the barrier of I to blanket over the concept of we? To cover us as two conjoined and to remain outside the shell of isolation, whilst all the world is a slumber?