Hypothesis #1 (A real blogpost about a hypothesis I have on neurodivergence)
In the book "Talking to Strangers", the author Malcom Gladwell writes about stories of how we cannot truly decipher people's intent, especially strangers.
When I read a book—and this goes for my whole life—I do not quite read it with the author's intent. Things often distract me, or the arguments in the book never actually stimulate my mind enough and I eventually attach myself to patterns. Patterns within the book, sure, but mostly the patterns in my life, through careful/acute observations and first hand experiences.
As I am getting older, and after many years being isolated and being very comfortable with myself (by myself) to practice deep self-reflection, I am starting to notice a particular pattern when reading this book. It is somewhat a scary pattern and I am not sure what to make of it. (Things often scare me when I am aware, but do not yet have an understanding)
In the book, there is a chapter called "The Friends Fallacy" (the word Friends is in italics as it refers to the very popular TV series), which started to form an idea that crept into my mind and probably in ways that the author did not intend.
The chapter illustrates how in a particular scene, which I do not care to describe, we, or a typical viewer, would be able to make out the events of this popular TV series, purely by the actors' facial expressions. The author notes that when muted, the scene is still portrayed as intended by ways in which the actors change their faces to the average North American audience. (imagine a happy person, now an angry person, what do their faces look like? That is what I am talking about)
The chapter continues and leans into this by pivoting to the study of facial expressions. The author points out two researchers, one an anthropologist and the other a psychologist, went to at least two remote areas of the world where indigenous people are still allowed to thrive. They were there to study how people recognize emotions or our intent with facial expressions. They found that the faces, like the ones in that Friends scene, were not recognizable to the indigenous. The author intended to use this as a way to illustrate how people in North America (potentially other wealthy English speaking counties) are the only ones who can easily decipher these faces. North Americans scored very well, above 90% accuracy versus less than 20% for the indigenous folk (which is way lower than random selection). Very interesting!
Here starts my hypothesis. [apologies ~ the long intro is because to me, it is integral to the overall story I am trying to illustrate]
Throughout my life as an undiagnosed neurodivergent child (only being half diagnosed in my mid 30s), I have always felt that the way I emote confused the adults (and other children) in my life. I was unpredictable and just simply did not understand everyday normalities, though I was very aware. I tried to learn it, to understand why I was always cast aside. Was it because I did not act the way people acted on TV? I thought we all knew it was acting and not real. I was, and sometime still am, a very confused child.
. . .
When I was studying Design, I remember that we had to write a lot of essays (more than actually designing). There was one particular semester where I was assigned nine essays (that is nine essays in four months) which I thought was too much. I was also working 32–26 hours a week during my studies. At one of my work shifts, I remember complaining about not having enough time to study for one of my exams. One of my co-workers, aware of my field of study, said, "So you need to be practicing how to draw?"
For the exam, we were given a topic to write about beforehand, and then during the exam we would have to argue a standpoint of that topic and were simply given several blank pages to do so. Aka writing an essay on the spot. The topic: How art imitates life and/or how life imitates art (and to use real life examples). I promise, all of this ties in together.
. . .
Back to my hypothesis: which is that, through art, such as the TV show Friends, we are shown normal ways to communicate and normal ways to behave.
To sit still and upright, make the right facial expressions, say the right thing at the right time was normal. I had a hard time as a young child doing these things. I even would buy girly magazines to bring home to study these ways of the normal people around me. All of these things though, did not feel right to me, so I came to the conclusion that something was wrong. I felt like I was being conditioned and that these institutions, such as North American grade school were training us to be the right/normal individuals in a right/normal society. Who set these things up is not what I want to talk about though (a tangent for another day).
I do not quite remember what I wrote for the exam I mentioned previously, but I do remember quite vividly a memory as a pre-highschooler of watching the iconic movie Mean Girls. From my recollection, it was a movie about a group of girls who were allegedly close friends, but secretly hated each other. They spent quite a lot of effort bringing each other down, while we rooted for the protagonist. The reason, I think, was to gain superiority (or maintain superiority) within the group in order to gain the attention of a potential mate, played by a man that seemed a tad too old for the role and did not have much to say in this movie.
This movie made quite an impression on me. I remember asking my uncle, an adult who watched the movie with my cousin (female and almost exactly one year younger than me) and myself, "Is this what highschool is all about?". To me, "this" in that question meant the betrayal one must perform to your own group to gain a mate. Potential mate > established friends. Perhaps instinctual to maintain the human population? I am not sure if my uncle got that, I know I didn't explain it either so it would not be his fault for not knowing what I truly meant. He responded to my questions with something along the lines of, "no its just a movie, it's not real". Slightly dismissive (with a hint of ridicule) and that was that, end of conversations.
Not many adults during my formative years talked to me as a person. I learnt to keep my ideas to myself, they seemed to sometimes really aggravate them to a such a degree of which I did not understand. Being persistent, asking "why", was something that received a lot of punishment. [insert childhood trauma with teachers] I was conditioned, at the time of watching that movie, to not press and to just simply accept what the adults were saying, or at least try my very hardest to pretend to.
Kids like me were othered and muted. What came out of our mouths, what faces we made, our inability to simply follow strict instructions without being allowed to ask "why" was made to be sacrilegious. We were seen as evil in the face of the righteousness of normality.
I still think about these memories, not as traumas, but as memories of which come great learnings when one is comfortable with themselves. My body and mind hold onto them, they are on repeat in my dreams, until I fully realize what they are meant for—to learn.
Thank you for reading! Love you.
In the book "Talking to Strangers", the author Malcom Gladwell writes about stories of how we cannot truly decipher people's intent, especially strangers.
When I read a book—and this goes for my whole life—I do not quite read it with the author's intent. Things often distract me, or the arguments in the book never actually stimulate my mind enough and I eventually attach myself to patterns. Patterns within the book, sure, but mostly the patterns in my life, through careful/acute observations and first hand experiences.
As I am getting older, and after many years being isolated and being very comfortable with myself (by myself) to practice deep self-reflection, I am starting to notice a particular pattern when reading this book. It is somewhat a scary pattern and I am not sure what to make of it. (Things often scare me when I am aware, but do not yet have an understanding)
In the book, there is a chapter called "The Friends Fallacy" (the word Friends is in italics as it refers to the very popular TV series), which started to form an idea that crept into my mind and probably in ways that the author did not intend.
The chapter illustrates how in a particular scene, which I do not care to describe, we, or a typical viewer, would be able to make out the events of this popular TV series, purely by the actors' facial expressions. The author notes that when muted, the scene is still portrayed as intended by ways in which the actors change their faces to the average North American audience. (imagine a happy person, now an angry person, what do their faces look like? That is what I am talking about)
The chapter continues and leans into this by pivoting to the study of facial expressions. The author points out two researchers, one an anthropologist and the other a psychologist, went to at least two remote areas of the world where indigenous people are still allowed to thrive. They were there to study how people recognize emotions or our intent with facial expressions. They found that the faces, like the ones in that Friends scene, were not recognizable to the indigenous. The author intended to use this as a way to illustrate how people in North America (potentially other wealthy English speaking counties) are the only ones who can easily decipher these faces. North Americans scored very well, above 90% accuracy versus less than 20% for the indigenous folk (which is way lower than random selection). Very interesting!
Here starts my hypothesis. [apologies ~ the long intro is because to me, it is integral to the overall story I am trying to illustrate]
Throughout my life as an undiagnosed neurodivergent child (only being half diagnosed in my mid 30s), I have always felt that the way I emote confused the adults (and other children) in my life. I was unpredictable and just simply did not understand everyday normalities, though I was very aware. I tried to learn it, to understand why I was always cast aside. Was it because I did not act the way people acted on TV? I thought we all knew it was acting and not real. I was, and sometime still am, a very confused child.
. . .
When I was studying Design, I remember that we had to write a lot of essays (more than actually designing). There was one particular semester where I was assigned nine essays (that is nine essays in four months) which I thought was too much. I was also working 32–26 hours a week during my studies. At one of my work shifts, I remember complaining about not having enough time to study for one of my exams. One of my co-workers, aware of my field of study, said, "So you need to be practicing how to draw?"
For the exam, we were given a topic to write about beforehand, and then during the exam we would have to argue a standpoint of that topic and were simply given several blank pages to do so. Aka writing an essay on the spot. The topic: How art imitates life and/or how life imitates art (and to use real life examples). I promise, all of this ties in together.
. . .
Back to my hypothesis: which is that, through art, such as the TV show Friends, we are shown normal ways to communicate and normal ways to behave.
To sit still and upright, make the right facial expressions, say the right thing at the right time was normal. I had a hard time as a young child doing these things. I even would buy girly magazines to bring home to study these ways of the normal people around me. All of these things though, did not feel right to me, so I came to the conclusion that something was wrong. I felt like I was being conditioned and that these institutions, such as North American grade school were training us to be the right/normal individuals in a right/normal society. Who set these things up is not what I want to talk about though (a tangent for another day).
I do not quite remember what I wrote for the exam I mentioned previously, but I do remember quite vividly a memory as a pre-highschooler of watching the iconic movie Mean Girls. From my recollection, it was a movie about a group of girls who were allegedly close friends, but secretly hated each other. They spent quite a lot of effort bringing each other down, while we rooted for the protagonist. The reason, I think, was to gain superiority (or maintain superiority) within the group in order to gain the attention of a potential mate, played by a man that seemed a tad too old for the role and did not have much to say in this movie.
This movie made quite an impression on me. I remember asking my uncle, an adult who watched the movie with my cousin (female and almost exactly one year younger than me) and myself, "Is this what highschool is all about?". To me, "this" in that question meant the betrayal one must perform to your own group to gain a mate. Potential mate > established friends. Perhaps instinctual to maintain the human population? I am not sure if my uncle got that, I know I didn't explain it either so it would not be his fault for not knowing what I truly meant. He responded to my questions with something along the lines of, "no its just a movie, it's not real". Slightly dismissive (with a hint of ridicule) and that was that, end of conversations.
Not many adults during my formative years talked to me as a person. I learnt to keep my ideas to myself, they seemed to sometimes really aggravate them to a such a degree of which I did not understand. Being persistent, asking "why", was something that received a lot of punishment. [insert childhood trauma with teachers] I was conditioned, at the time of watching that movie, to not press and to just simply accept what the adults were saying, or at least try my very hardest to pretend to.
Kids like me were othered and muted. What came out of our mouths, what faces we made, our inability to simply follow strict instructions without being allowed to ask "why" was made to be sacrilegious. We were seen as evil in the face of the righteousness of normality.
I still think about these memories, not as traumas, but as memories of which come great learnings when one is comfortable with themselves. My body and mind hold onto them, they are on repeat in my dreams, until I fully realize what they are meant for—to learn.
Thank you for reading! Love you.