Sometimes its tough to be blunt, to shoot out the cold shit without excuses or hesitation. I like to focus on big questions on this blog. To reflect on myself, my own aspirations or shortcomings (personal or otherwise) seems rather banal. Still, since I have felt very unease about my comportment-my ability to socialize with peers platonically and romantically-and since this week coincides with Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Atonement), I feel obliged to just let my thoughts loose.
Young me
As a child, I was socialized to devour knowledge To compete in Geography Bees and ace tests in school. I was not a champion at either of these, but the experiences taught me to conceive of life as a struggle to be correct, to give the "right" answer or do the "right" thing. Accomplishment, viewed through this lens, is zero-sum (either "right" or "wrong") and involves a logical assessment of various facts and conditions on the ground. While this thought process works okay for scholarly learning
by questions, it proves less favorable for completing projects or accomplishing daily tasks.
This "rightism" (or desire to always get the right answers) reinforced my existing personality. I am slowly accepting the fact that I am somewhere on the Asperger's Spectrum. I have never been great at understanding body language or non-verbal cues and have always been highly sensitive to noise and stimuli. Both this personality trait and my perfective tendencies have made me mature into an anxious, over-stimulated character, who seeks to conform to/obey rules (formal or otherwise) at the expense of their self-expression and who executes tasks according to repetitive habit until a new reality dawns.
Altogether, my persona is a social elephant: boisterous at times, timid at others, and incredibly clumsy throughout. I'm slow at responding to the changing pace of conversation and often get obsessed over tiny mishaps-causing me to lose track of the topic at hand. I get bored easily, yearning for something better, yet obsessively stick to conversations in which I have lost interest for fear of offending someone.
I know that I cannot connect with or impress people without explaining (and expressing) my unique quirks. Yet some of those very quirks make me afraid to do so. Hence my conundrum: loneliness
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The Lonely City
Los Angeles has often been portrayed in literature as a suburban dystopia rife with alienation, isolation and brooding. While the mass-produced concrete suburbia, alternatively riffed on and praised by Didion and Bantham, may be a gross generalization, the social atomization is not. LA folk only appear at bars and coffee shops with their pair group partner, lingering for a brief hour before decamping to their personal vehicle (or Uber). Having to intrude on a friend group just to meet "new" people frustrates my quest for companionship, being as socially awkward I am.
In the last few years, a new wave of progressive activism has challenged longstanding norms on disability and difference across America. I consider this development a net positive, by and large. And yet with so much of the new activism relying on forms of social media that discriminate in favor of external beauty and charisma, its attempts to improve the lot of people who suffer handicaps in social situations will remain limited.
With this in mind, I intend to conclude my reflections with two calls to action for the year ahead. On a personal level, I hope to become both more comfortable with my quirks and more mindful of how I interact with other people. On a societal level, I hope that progressive advocacy in LA and across America can begin to recognize and accommodate persons with unique ways of interacting with the world: I don't know for sure how this will unfold, though the nascent "kindcore" trend on social media could be a place to start.
The future belongs to the bold- Shana Tova.
