If you don’t know this about me yet, I AM AUTISTIC.

I worked at masking this and trying to pass as “normal” my entire life.

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis — FINALE (I) — 1908

So.

I have been active on Reddit this year. No offense to you my loyal readers, but on Reddit some of my posts have gotten over 100,000 views. I REACH a much bigger audience there. If you want to follow me on Reddit, I am u/TuneGlum7903.

One of the things that gets mentioned EVERY FUCKING time I post to Reddit is how I “format” my papers. Typical of this criticism are comments like this.

I can't follow what you are saying, I don't know what is a quote and what is your writing. I don't know why some things are bold and some italics. Unintelligible.

Yeah, those font shifts are distracting at best. Start about halfway through, and it becomes clearer what his actual points are. One problem with this kind of self publishing is you don't have an editor to tell you when you are being unclear or, as you put it, unintelligible.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one who found that to be incomprehensible read.

Okay sure but jesus christ can the author maybe use eight more fonts of differing sizes with different embellishments and randomly placed page breaks? This looks more like a ransom note than an attempt at self published journalism.

You should work on formatting and narrative structure.

I have ASSUMED that if you are following me here and/or on Medium. That you know I am autistic and choose to write with my own personal style. I make no apologies for that and, at this point in my life I am going to be STUBBORN about it.

I am what I am. Either what I have to say is interesting and important enough to you to ignore my formatting idiosyncrasies' or you will MOVE ON.

However, I haven't discussed this much here on SubStack. So, here you go.

I don’t talk about my personal life very much. If you want to understand why, here’s what I’ve written.

My Autistic Life — 01 : It’s about family, memories, and the stories we tell.

My Autistic Life — 02 : It’s a meditation on READING. Reading may be “fundamental” but it’s NOT natural.

My Autistic Life — 03 : A history of Eugenic Practices in America.

I don’t particularly like to talk about myself. I find it difficult and always emotionally tiring.

My neurochemistry is kind of whack right now. There’s a lot of hard things going on in my life right now, and that affects it in a lot of ways. Right now, I’m in a depressive state.

Depression is as bad as they say it is. If you have never had a significant depressive episode in your life, count your blessings. It can be crippling and the effectiveness of treatments is appalling low.

If you can even get treatment at all. The mental healthcare system in the US was a shambled mess before Pandemic. It hasn’t gotten better.

However, this depression and my “brain hack” management of it using nootropics, have definitely altered my brain chemistry.

I haven’t experienced this much synesthesia since I was a child.

Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. — Wikipedia

I am experiencing Kinesthetic synesthesia right now but it only feels intense because it’s something I haven’t experienced this strongly in a long time. When I was a child my experience of it was far more vivid and overwhelming. This is a faint echo of how the world assaulted my senses then.

My synesthesia centers around TeXt. My perception of tExt is vaaaaaaastly different than yours.

"Kinesthetic synesthesia is one of the rarest documented forms of synesthesia in the world.

This form of synesthesia is a combination of various different types of synesthesia. Features appear similar to auditory–tactile synesthesia but sensations are not isolated to individual numbers or letters but complex systems of relationships.

The result is the ability to memorize and model complex relationships between numerous variables by feeling physical sensations around the kinesthetic movement of related variables.

Reports include feeling sensations in the hands or feet. Which are coupled with visualizations of shapes or objects when analyzing mathematical equations, physical systems, or music. In one case, a person described seeing interactions between physical shapes causing sensations in the feet when solving a math problem.

Generally, those with this type of synesthesia can memorize and visualize complicated systems, and with a high degree of accuracy, predict the results of changes to the system. Examples include predicting the results of computer simulations in subjects such as quantum mechanics or fluid dynamics when results are not naturally intuitive." -wikipedia

I did do a “introduction” piece a couple of years ago.

012 – Things are coming to a head. A snapshot of the Climate Crisis and introducing myself.

If it's important to you that I have academic “credentials”.

I doubled majored at UC Berkeley in the 70’s and have degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. I was an EOD specialist in the Navy. I have a Masters in History and a PhD in Anthropology.

If you just want to understand my synesthesia better, there's this piece.

Personal Notes — 08

I’m having a lot of Synesthesia the last few months.

I apologize that these are all on Medium, my idea was to have “personal” writing there and climate writing here. However, it's clear to me now that a lot of people don’t separate the message from the messenger. If they don’t like WHO is providing them with new information, they don't listen.

So, here's your chance to “get to know me”.

If you are a subscriber is there anything you want to ask that would help you HEAR what I'm saying?

-rc

09/17/24