Tag Archives: Aspie

Revise, and Re-install, Unconscious Mental Subroutine

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tess chiral 2012

Sleep eventually takes your awareness from you, and, at the end, you don’t even resist.

Asleep now. Initialization of nREM startup program in progress.

Stop. Evaluate time elapsed since last sleep-reprogramming. Identify areas of concern.

Rank items of concern in priority order,

Schedule upcoming REM cycle to allow the “playing out” out of necessary “real-word” drama to address the top priority concern. Maintain focus on that concern until it is replaced by another one, new, and of more importance. Keep an eye on all areas of past conflict, while watching for new ones, hoping for early detection.

If unavoidable, implement “the best you can fake it” multitasking coping-mode.

Realize that memory of this sleeping activity will be fragmentary at best.

Know also, nonetheless, that you are the one one writing the program, at both ends of the consciousness-spectrum, the autism spectrum, and any other spectra I find myself standing on.

To answer the obvious question: yes, this blog-post is deliberately being written in the grey zone between sleep and wakefulness. If parts of it make no sense, that’s the reason.

~~~

Note upon waking: I found this, written but not published, on my computer, when my alarm clock went off. I guess I’ll post it now!

My Early Play with Informal Numbers, Such as Umpteen: A Look at Early Development of a Special Interest in a Young Person with Asperger’s

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umpteen

As a young child (before I started school), my strong interest in mathematics was always there. No one knew I had Asperger’s at that time, but it is clear to me now, in retrospect, that I was a young “Aspie,” in the early stages of the development of a special interest.

I cannot remember a time without my math-fascination, to the point where I speculate that I was motivated to learn to talk, read, and write English simply to bring more of the mathematics in my head into forms which I could express, and also to gain the ability to research forms of mathematics, by reading about them, which were new to me: negative numbers, fractions, names for extremely large numbers, and so on. I would devour one concept, internalize it, so it could not be forgotten, and quickly move on to my next mathematical “snack.” The shift to geometry-specialization took many years longer; at first, my special interest was simply mathematics in general, to the extent that I could understand it.

I was too young, then, to even understand the difference between actual numbers, and informal numbers I heard others use in conversation, such as zillion, jillion, and especially umpteen, and, armed with this lack of understanding, I endeavored to figure out the properties of these informal numbers. Zillion and jillion were uncountably large: that much seemed clear, although I could never figure out which one was larger. Umpteen, however, seemed more accessible, due to the “-teen” prefix. It seemed perfectly reasonable to me to simplify umpteen to a more fundamental informal number, “ump,” simply by subtracting ten from umpteen, following the pattern I had noticed which connects thirteen to three, seventeen to seven, and so on. This led to the following:

1ϒ – 10 = ϒ (umpteen minus ten equals ump)

I wasn’t using upsilon as a symbol for the informal number “ump” at that age. Rather, I simply needed a symbol, today, to write this blog-post, so I chose one. The capital Greek letter upsilon seems like a good pick. I’m using it more like a digit, here, rather than a variable — although, when I first reasoned this out, over forty years ago, I had not yet learned to distinguish between digits, variables, and numbers, at least not using other peoples’ terms.

Occasionally, I would hear people use ump-based informal numbers (I grew up in Arkansas, you see) which clearly seemed larger than umpteen. One such “number” I heard was, of all things, “umpty-ump.” Well, just how large is umpty-ump? I reasoned that it had to be umpteen minus ten, with this difference then multiplied by eleven.

1ϒ – 10 = ϒ (umpteen minus ten equals ump)

10(ϒ) = ϒ0 (ten times ump equals umpty)

ϒ0 + ϒ = ϒϒ (umpty plus ump equals umpty-ump)

Factoring ump out of the third equation above yields the following:

ϒ(10 + 1) = ϒ(11)

Next, ump cancels on both sides, leaving the following, which is known to be true without the involvement of informal numbers:

10 + 1 = 11

Having figured this out, I would then explain it, at great length, to anyone who didn’t make their escape quickly enough. It never occurred to me, at that age, that there actually are people who do not share my intense interest in mathematics. (Confession: I still do not understand the reason for the shockingly small amount of interest, in mathematics, found in the minds of most people. Why doesn’t everyone find math fascinating, since, well, it is fascinating?)

What I didn’t yet realize is that I was actually figuring out important concepts, with this self-motivated mathematical play: place value in base-ten, doing calculations in my head, some basic algebra, and, of course, the fact that playing with numbers is ridiculously fun. (That last one is a fact, by the way — just in case there is any doubt.)

I did not distinguish play from work at that age, and considered any interruption absolutely unacceptable. This is what I would typically say, if anyone, including my parents, disturbed me while I was working these things out, but was not yet ready to discuss them: “I’m BUSY!”

Everyone who knew me then, I am guessing, remembers me shouting this, as often as I found it necessary.

A Recurring Asperger’s-Related Conversation

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This conversation has happened more than once, since I discovered I am an “Aspie,” as many of those with Asperger’s call ourselves, and then received all the confirmation I needed from doctor of mine, without paying for expensive testing, and an official diagnosis. I did not seek testing and diagnosis because no treatement exists for Asperger’s — and I would not want one, if it existed, anyway. The conversation below is paraphrased, for the ideas involved matter far more than the exact words which were used — and, also, slightly different words were used each time this conversation happened.

Me:  “I’d like to share something with you. I’ve discovered one of the reasons I’m so different from other people — I believe I have Asperger’s Syndrome.”

Friends/Colleagues:   “Oh, we figured that out months ago! We were just afraid to tell you because we thought you’d be offended, and get angry at us, if we mentioned it.”

Me (laughing):  “Don’t worry about it at all! I’m not the slightest bit offended, nor angry. You see, I like being the way I am!”

Several of my friends figured this out before I did, it seems, but we all know about it now — and I prefer it that way. There is no shame in being open about being an Aspie — it is part of who I am. I would not want to be without Asperger’s, in fact, for a great many reasons. Other posts on this blog, in the “Asperger’s” category, explain some of these reasons, and I invite anyone who is curious to read any, or all, of them.

On Mental Health: My Reasons for Letting the Sunshine In

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There are quite a few posts on this blog on the subject of mental health, and they can be easily found by simply looking at that category, in the pull-down menu on the right side of your screen. In these posts, I have been quite candid about such things as my own panic disorder, PTSD, and Asperger’s Syndrome.

What I have not done, until now, is explain my reasons for my openness on this subject.

First and foremost, I am trying to do what I can to remove the stigma which surrounds the entire subject of mental illness. This stigma is harmful, for it keeps millions of people who need help from mental health professionals from seeking it, out of fear of being labeled and/or ostracized — or worse. I learned this the hard way:  by experiencing it. I had my first panic attack at age 16. Like most panic attacks, this one lasted perhaps twenty minutes, or less. Few people have panic attacks that last longer than that — unless they fail to seek treatment, and the panic attacks continue to happen, which is what happened to me.

Over time, panic disorder tends to become worse, if not treated. The fear of the panic attacks themselves becomes an issue, for those who have them frequently, and such fear can lead to people avoiding situations where they fear a panic attack would be particularly embarrassing, and/or debilitating — somewhere like, for example, the middle of a Walmart, or their church, or their workplace. In some cases, untreated panic disorder leads to full-blown agoraphobia, with some people actually reaching the point where they simply do not leave their homes at all — until they die.

In my case, I avoided treatment for my own panic disorder (or any other mental health problem) for about a decade, specifically because of my fear of the stigma of mental illness. I tried to keep my panic attacks a secret, but, of course, that did not stop them. They grew in intensity, and the duration of the attacks increased as well. A ten-hour panic attack — something which is incredibly rare — is what finally drove me to get over my fear of this stigma, and make an appointment with the man who is still my psychiatrist.

In the years that followed, I grew more and more disturbed by the existence of this stigma, and finally made a decision:  I would do whatever I could to neutralize it, for the benefit of others. I do not wish anyone to suffer the effects of deliberately delaying needed medical treatment. After much thinking, I eventually figured out one thing I can do, toward this end: be open about such matters, simply to help others know that mental illness can, with appropriate help, become transformed into mental health. In other words, as with many other illnesses, those with mental health problems can, and do, get better. This is why I have chosen the category-name “mental health” for these posts, rather than “mental illness.”

Of the particular struggles I have which involve issues of mental health, PTSD is the most difficult to treat . . . but I work hard, with the help of my doctor, to get better. What’s more, it is working, although I cannot claim this work is complete. I want everyone to know that getting better is a goal which is both realistic, and achievable.

With Asperger’s, my motivation for openness is somewhat different, for this condition is not actually a mental illness at all, as evidenced by the fact that it was recently “de-listed” from the latest version of the DSM (Diagnotic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Asperger’s Syndrome is simply a difference in the way some people think, as opposed to an actual disease. Some “Aspies” (our culture’s own nickname for ourselves), however, do suffer greatly, because of the difficulties involved in interacting socially with others, especially non-Aspies. I share what I have figured out, on this subject, with two goals in mind: (1) helping my fellow Aspies who struggle, and sometimes suffer, because of these differences, in any way I can, and (2) helping non-Aspies understand us better, so that these difficulties in interaction between Aspies and non-Aspies can become less of a problem — for everyone.

Finally, it simply feels good to no longer be trapped, in a metaphorical closet, regarding these things which are, after all, part of my life. As the saying goes, borrowed from the gay rights activists who invented it, “closets are for clothes, not for people.”

I much prefer letting the sunshine in.

The Five Fictional Characters Who Have Most Strongly Influenced My Life

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These five fictional characters have strongly influenced me, and I will always be grateful to the brilliant people who created them. I am presenting them in chronological order — using the time when this influence started, rather than their date of creation.

#1: Snoopy

Snoopy2

When I was very young — before my memory-record begins, actually — I was given Peanuts books. They were simply left in my possession, as far as I know; no explanation was necessary. The antics of Snoopy, in particular, were extremely entertaining to the little-kid version of me. Since I could see Snoopy dancing around, playing baseball, typing, irritating Lucy, etc., I wanted to understand what was actually going on with all this activity — and this provided the necessary motivation for me to teach myself how to read. There wasn’t any other way for me to tell what was going on in these comic strips!

The fact that I learned to read in this manner led to some very funny moments, due to the fact that the number of words whose meaning I understood, generally from context, exceeded the number of words I knew how to pronounce — and, no doubt, still does. Once, in elementary school, I was laughed at by an entire class, after saying something about the “Eeffel Tower” (yes, that’s how I pronounced it). I also remember pronouncing the “b” in “doubt,” much to the amusement of my parents. Even in graduate school, I made a history professor groan in agony when I made a reference to the Weimar Republic — and pronounced the “W” as it is pronounced in English, rather than German.

#2: Mr. Spock

Spock

A scientist aboard a starship, exploring the galaxy, who uses logic to try to understand two things:  the nature of the universe (much of which he understood), and the behavior of illogical humans (something which confuses me to this day, just as it often confounded him). The first person I remember seeing on television had pointed ears, and there were several of them in that episode, “Amok Time.” In other episodes, of course, few Vulcans other than Mr. Spock appeared, and I always found him, to use one of his favorite words, “fascinating.” He influenced me in several ways, and still does, to this day. I am grateful to the creators of this character for inspiring my passion for science, ability to use logic, appreciation of diversity, and strong desire to maintain control of my emotions.

#3: Matt Murdock / Daredevil

daredevil

I may not have red hair, but I share many other characteristics with Daredevil — and I mean the character from comic books, not that disappointing B-movie (which deserves no further mention). Other than amplified senses — which I experience (unpleasantly) when I get migraines — Daredevil has no superpowers, yet he faces, and does battle with, super-powered villains, and usually wins. He is also a study in contradictions: a lapsed Catholic, who spends a lot of time dressed in a devil costume; a lawyer, with a second “career” as a costumed vigilante; and a blind man, who nonetheless perceives the world around him more clearly than anyone else. Matt Murdock has inspired me to respect the concept of justice, has influenced me to study what laws I need to understand, and, most importantly, has shown me, by example, how to face down those who would do harm to those I care about — and do it, as Daredevil does, without fear. I have also developed my “never give up” attitude, toward my adversaries (bullies, mostly), with inspiration from this character.

Matt Murdock and I have also had very rocky histories when it comes to romantic relationships. I have (finally) found happiness in this aspect of life, and am writing this next to my beloved, sleeping wife. Unfortunately, the writers of Daredevil, while they will let Matt Murdock enjoy temporary happiness in relationships with women, will never allow him to keep it.

#4: Data

Data2366

Data is amazing to me:  a sentient android, and an artificial person. He actually had to go on trial to assert his rights to personhood, and, with the aid of Captain Picard, won the case. He has a lightning-speed calculator, built right in to his positronic brain, which far exceeds the abilities of my own, not-too-shabby mental calculator. I have long had the ambition to gain the ability to reprogram my own brain’s “software,” and have written, on this blog, about how I finally gained that ability, after working on developing it for roughly thirty years. Data, of course, had this ability from the moment he was activated, but, unlike me, he does not have to sleep for it to work.

Despite his claim to experience no emotions, Data often expressed a feeling of being perpetually alone, for there was no one else like him anywhere — until he met his brother, another android, who turned out to be malicious. That feeling of being unlike everyone else is quite familiar to me.

Both Data, and Mr. Spock, display many characteristics of Asperger’s Syndrome, and my study of these two characters helped me figure out that I am, myself, an “Aspie” — our nickname for ourselves.

#5: Calvin

Calvin_by_Watterson

When I am playing (and, yes, I play a lot, especially with mathematics), and someone asks me why I, an adult, am playing, I have a standard reply: “Because I’m six.” This is a reference to Calvin, who was six years old during the entire ten-year run of Calvin and Hobbes, the best comic strip ever created. I read it from the first day it appeared in newspapers, and have the boxed set of the complete collection of these comic strips only a meter away, as I write this. Calvin is a six-year old prodigy, as one can tell from his expansive vocabulary, but is prone to making social errors, due to a lack of understanding of social conventions — and both of these things mirror my own life. (I grew up, literally, in science laboratories, unsupervised for hours at a time, designing and conducting my own experiments, and that sort of thing simply doesn’t happen without having profound effects on a child’s development — but, then again, why would I want to be normal?) Calvin, like myself, found elementary school boring in the extreme, and so he slipped, frequently, into his own inner life of fantasy. The fact that, being socially isolated (no siblings, and no friends, other than his stuffed tiger), he is usually alone, never stopped Calvin from having fun. Just like Calvin, I can have unlimited fun, in solitude — because I choose to be this way. Some adults lose the child within them, but, thanks to Calvin’s inspiration, that will never happen to me. I’m actually 46 years old now — so I’m pretty sure that, if I was ever going to lose the ability to have fun, it would have happened already.

To those brilliant people who invented these five characters: thank you.

A True Story of a Young Aspie Getting in Trouble with “Show and Tell”

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In elementary school, in the 5th grade, I managed to get in trouble for a “show and tell” project. As usual, getting in trouble was not my objective, but it happened anyway. This was decades before I learned I have Asperger’s, but, looking back, none of this would have happened were I not an “Aspie,” as we call ourselves.

This image, which I found here, is very much like the poster I made, by hand, and used for this project:

nuclear chain reaction

That was the “show” part of this “show and tell” project. For the “tell” part, I explained how nuclear chain reactions work, and then explained how nuclear bombs are made. It’s very simple:  you have two slightly sub-critical masses of uranium-235 or plutonium-239, and physically bring them together, so that the total mass exceeds the critical mass. At that point: boom.

The hard part, of course, is actually obtaining the U-235 or Pu-239, for those aren’t things you can simply buy at the local hardware store. Ironically, I did know where to find both uranium and plutonium — at the very same university, about an hour away, where I’d spent far too much time conducting mostly-unsupervised experiments with both elements, along with lots of liquid mercury, before my tenth birthday. (I still suspect that all that radiation may have turned me into a mutant.) However, I also knew that the uranium and plutonium there would not have nearly enough of the correct isotope of either element, making this information irrelevant to my “show and tell” report, and so, for this reason, I did not tell them where to find the uranium and plutonium I had previously used for experiments.

I didn’t figure this out in class that day, since I’m not particularly good at “reading” emotions, facial expressions, and body language, but, apparently, I really upset, and scared, my teacher. This became apparent when she called my mother, and, later, my mother asked me to tell her what I’d done in school that day. Being excited about the “show and tell” presentation I’d given that day, I immediately told my mother all about it. When she told me the teacher had called her, concerned about me explaining to my class how to build atomic bombs, I was confused, since I didn’t understand, at all, why what I had actually said posed any problem. To explain this to my mother, I simply said, “But, Mom, I didn’t tell the class where to actually get the uranium-235 or plutonium-239! I don’t know where to find those isotopes!”

This was enough to convince my mother that I had not, in fact, done anything wrong. She called the teacher back, and simply asked if I had, or had not, included that critical bit of information: where to find the actual fissionable material needed for a nuclear bomb to work. When the teacher replied that I had not done that, my mother’s response was both sensible, and logical:  “Well, then, what’s the problem?”

—–

Postscript, for those who might be worried about the childhood experiments I mentioned above: at around age 40, I asked a physician about my worries regarding early exposure to mercury vapor and radiation. He told me that any problems I might have, as a result of such experiments, would have already showed up by then, and that I could, therefore, stop worrying about this. Thus reassured, I did exactly that.

These phrases, and questions, are likely to confuse people with Asperger’s. Unless confusing us is your goal (and why would you want to do that?), please consider alternate wordings.

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confusion

Throughout this post, I will refer to people with Asperger’s as “Aspies.” This is not considered a derogatory term; it’s simply how we refer to ourselves.

First, we are not stupid. We also are not trying to be difficult when we say we don’t understand you. We don’t have a disease, and the vast majority of us would refuse a “cure,” if one were discovered, for such a development would be seen by many of us, myself included, as an attempt to commit genocide. Like other groups of people, we want to stay alive, as individuals, and as a culture.

We are, however, different from most people. Our brains are hard-wired in ways that are not typical, with the result that we do not think in the same manner as others. These differences give us certain advantages which we value, but the trade-off comes in the form of problems involving communication with non-Aspies. You can see this in fiction, to get used to the way we think, simply by watching (or reading) Star Trek stories which feature Vulcans, or the android named Data. The difficulties those characters have, when trying to communicate with the humans they encounter, are very much like what happens when Aspies and non-Aspies attempt communication. Why is this the case? The answer is simple:  Star Trek was written that way.

Here are some specific questions, and phrases, which many Aspies find particularly baffling. In each case, I will attempt to explain why this is so.

“Who do you think you are?” — Ask an Aspie this question, and you’re likely to simply be given his or her name, in response. Apparently, this offends some people, but please don’t ask me why, for I don’t understand it myself. If a person were to ask me this question, my first guess would be that the questioner simply forgot my name, and needs a reminder. The meaning of volume, voice tone, and body language are mysteries to us. Sometimes we can figure out these mysteries, but it doesn’t happen automatically — we have to reason our way through it, and that takes time, especially for nuances of communication which are based on emotions.

“What do you think you’re doing?” — My likely response to this question would be an honest one:  “I’m trying to understand what you’re saying, but it doesn’t seem to be working very well.” However, that’s an answer from an Aspie in his fifth decade of trying to understand other people, so I’ve had a lot of practice. An Aspie teenager, in school, might simply say, “I’m walking to class,” “I’m taking notes,” or something like that, and then get in trouble for “backtalk,” as it is called — when the student was simply answering the question, without intending any disrespect whatsoever. Whatever answer this confusing question gets, from one of us, that answer will be both literal, and honest. It is not in our nature to lie, but it is definitely in our nature to think, listen, speak, read, and write literally, and logically.

“Do that again!” / “Say that again!” — If we have done or said something which you don’t like, and you actually don’t want to witness a rerun, why would you demand one? We think, speak, and interpret what we hear in terms of the actual words which are spoken. There’s nothing wrong with thinking literally, and, frankly, it puzzles us why so many of you think in other ways, so much of the time. If you ask for, or demand, a repeat performance of something you didn’t like, from one of us, you’re quite likely to get one — and then you’ll get angrier, we’ll get even more confused, and absolutely nothing of value will have been accomplished. If, on the other hand, you refrain from using “x” to mean “not x” (since it doesn’t), and simply tell us exactly what you mean, communication will become much easier, for all concerned.

“Don’t get technical with me!” — As far as I can tell, this means that the speaker wants us to refrain from choosing our words with precision, but I could be wrong, for this is the most baffling item on this list, so far. Clarity of language is desirable, for it facilitates communication, and sometimes, technical terms are needed for this purpose. I don’t know what to suggest as a substitute for this phrase, since I don’t understand it, but I can assure you that using it, with an Aspie, is a complete waste of your time.

“What’s wrong with you?” — This is another baffling question. If asked very loudly, the most likely answers Aspies will give are “I have a headache,” or perhaps “Sudden-onset tinnitus,” with the cause, in each case, being simple: from our point of view, the questioner is trying to deafen us, by yelling things which make no sense (at any volume). Do you like being shouted at, from close range? No? Well then, this is one way that we aren’t so different from non-Aspies, for we don’t like it either. Also:  it’s quite likely that we don’t see anything wrong with us at all, for, in this situation, we are not the ones shouting nonsense-questions, so you might even get this response:  “Nothing. What’s wrong with you?” In such a situation, that isn’t backtalk — it’s a perfectly legitimate question, and we are not responsible for any emotion-laden, irrational response the non-Aspie questioner might display.

“I need this done yesterday!” — Many of us can explain, in detail, why time travel into the past is not permitted by the laws of physics, as they are currently understood. Those who request, or demand, reverse-time-travel, from an Aspie, should not be surprised to hear such an explanation. Ask us to flap our arms and fly, and the response will likely be similar.

I could give more examples, but I think the point has been made. We aren’t all alike, so the examples of hypothetical responses I gave, above, will vary from one Aspie to another. What isn’t likely to vary, though, is the confusion each of us experiences when things are said to us which make no sense, if interpreted literally. That’s the key to communicating with us:  when we hear something, we automatically use logic, and rational thought, to attempt to understand the literal meaning of what has been said to us. For many of us, that is the only meaning we can understand.

In my case (and probably in the cases of at least some other Aspies), this goes a little further: rational, literal, and logical interpretations of language are the only ones I want to understand. This is a self-protection mechanism, for the idea of losing even part of my ability to think clearly, and rationally, is extremely frightening to me. To pour a lot of effort into trying to think in non-Aspie ways, I fear, could damage my mind — if, that is, I was successful in the attempt. I don’t want to risk turning into a person who considers “x” and “not x” to be interchangeable, for one doesn’t equal negative one. To change, in this way, would effectively kill the person I am. It wouldn’t stop my heart from beating, of course, but some things are even worse than physical death. If such a change ever happened, I would look the same, and would have the same legal name, but I would no longer be RobertLovesPi. It makes perfect sense for me to be absolutely unwilling to risk something so dangerous.

In addition to the central importance of the fact that we think in literal terms, while others often don’t, Aspies have some other difficulties (or the rest of the world does, depending on your point of view). I attempted to describe these difficulties, which involve coping with the emotionalism and irrationality of numerous other people, in the examples of confusing phrases and questions given above. Emotionalism and irrationality are, to us, severe impediments to understanding anything, and we live our lives in a state of near-constant bombardment from both, since Aspies are outnumbered by non-Aspies by a huge margin. On this planet, to borrow a book title from Robert Heinlein, I live my life as a “stranger in a strange land.” I know that many other Aspies see life in a similar way, for that idea is embedded in the name of the largest online community created by and for Aspies, as well as others on the autism spectrum: www.wrongplanet.net. If you are curious about how other Aspies view the things I have described above, or if you are, yourself, an Aspie in need of an temporary escape from social interaction with non-Aspies, you can find a great many of us at that website. (Also, if you want to find me there, just search for me, using the name of this blog — my not-at-all-secret identity, all over the Internet.)

Attention, Tumblr: Learn the Meaning of the Word “Literally”

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I just got an e-mail, from Tumblr (I used to blog a lot there, before coming here to WordPress). The e-mail has the title, “Your Dashboard is literally on fire.” I’m now afraid to go look at my car, OR log on to my old Tumblr account. I dislike being burned.

On Sportsball, As Viewed By One Aspie

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On the Varieties of Sportsball

Since I live in the American South, I hear a lot of talk about about sportsball. I have a hard time, though, telling exactly which variety of sportsball is being discussed. I don’t find sportsball interesting, and so I’m not fluent in any variant of sportsball jargon. For that reason, it can be difficult for me to tell which sportsballspeak-dialect is being used.

So, sometimes, just to try to make friendly conversation (while still being myself), I ask sportsball-fans questions, in order to find out which version they’re so intently discussing. (Figuring out why people obsessively talk about sportsball so much, I think, is a mystery I’ll never solve. Understanding the strange behavior of non-Aspies is much more difficult than the types of problems I enjoy trying to solve. As Albert Einstein said, when declining the presidency of Israel, “I have no head for human problems.”)

Here’s an example of one such question: “Are you talking about the type of sportsball often played inside, with a bunch of people chasing an orange sphere around on a wooden rectangle, and trying to get the sphere to pass through a metallic, elevated circle of slightly larger diameter than the sphere itself?”

Now, if someone mentions the sportsball game most people call “football,” there’s an obvious follow-up question that needs to be asked . . . so, of course, I ask it:  “Which one?”

Replies to that question usually go something like this: “Whaddya mean, which one? Football! We’re talking about football, ya nerd!”

“But there are at least two games called by that name, which confuses me. Do you mean the sportsball-version where the players chase a prolate spheroid, or a rounded version of a truncated icosahedron?”

If they don’t understand that question, I attempt clarification: “You know, both those versions of sportsball are played on rectangles covered with grass . . . but the one with the prolate spheroid has two giant tuning forks at opposite sides end of the grassy rectangle, is usually played in the USA, and has a far higher rate of injuries, even fatal ones. The one that uses a truncated icosahedron doesn’t have tuning forks, is called ‘football’ by far more people than that American game, and isn’t nearly as dangerous. I think it’s at least a little more interesting than that other game people call ‘football,’ because of the Archimedean solid they chase around, since I like polyhedra. Which one are you discussing?”

If they tell me they’re talking about American football, I usually follow-up with a brief rant, for that sportsball-variant’s name confuses me. “Why do people call it that, anyway? I’ve seen it being play a few times — not for a full game, of course, but I can stand to watch it for a few minutes. That’s long enough to tell that the players only rarely use their feet to kick the prolate spheroid, and usually carry or throw it instead, using, of course, their hands. They usually use their feet just to run around chasing each other. Calling that version of sportsball by the term ‘football’ doesn’t make sense at all. In the game the rest of the world calls ‘football,’ the players kick the ball all the time, so I can understand why it has that name, but that prolate-spheroid version really should be called something else! Also, why are the games sometimes called ‘bowl games?’ They still play on a rectangle, and chase a prolate spheroid — there’s no actual bowl involved, is there?”

On occasion, they aren’t talking about any of these three varieties, though, but yet another form of sportsball. (Why are there so many?)

baseball

“Oh! You must mean the one played on a ninety-degree sector of a circle, with a square (confusingly called a ‘diamond,’ for some reason) in its interior, positioned such that one of its vertices is at the circle’s center. At that vertex, there’s a convex-but-still-irregular pentagon on the ground, while the other three vertices of the large, grass-covered square have much smaller squares on the ground, instead of a pentagon. The guy standing at the pentagon is always trying to hit a red-and-white sphere with a wooden or aluminum stick, but he usually misses. The guy who throws the sphere toward the region above that pentagon usually scratches himself, and spits — a lot. He must be important in some way, for he’s provided with a small hill to stand on, literally placing him above the rest of the players. Have I got it now?”

Sometimes, people try to get me to stop calling these strange activities “sportsball,” by bringing up hockey as an objection. “You can’t call all sports ‘sportsball!’ What about hockey? It doesn’t even have ball! It’s got a puck!”

I’m always ready for this objection, though. “You mean the one with the short black cylinder that slides across ice? That’s a sport? I thought it was just an excuse to have fights!”

“Strong Grape Juice”

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My earliest memory of a church service involves a trip to visit relatives, and I started discovering how different from others I was at a very young age. This is one of the episodes which played a major role in that discovery.

I was only four of five years old, and had already developed an intense hatred of being bored. Ignoring the sermon seemed like an even more boring prospect that actually paying attention to it, so I consciously chose the latter, which I’ve observed is often not the choice young children make.

This church’s denomination is one of those that teaches that drinking alcohol is sinful. They are also Biblical literalists. This, of course, poses a problem, for there is a lot of drinking of wine to be found in the Bible. This preacher didn’t avoid the contradiction, though. His task, that Sunday morning, was to deal with it head-on, and he did so with the following claim: when Jesus, his disciples, and numerous other people from the Bible are described as drinking wine, that wine actually contained no alcohol. It was not wine as we know it today. It was, rather, merely “strong grape juice.” Those were his exact words.

Even at that young age, I had already started working on building, in my own mind, the best crap detector I could possibly create. (Improving it is still something I work on today.) I didn’t yet realize that real wine would be far safer, before refrigeration existed, than grape juice, simply because alcohol, at the concentrations found in wine, kills lots of disease-causing bacteria. However, that morning, I had learned enough to instantly recognize this “strong grape juice” claim as absolute crap.

Dismissing the preacher as not worthy of further attention, I stood up in our pew, and turned around to face the back of the church. We were sitting near the front, so this let me see most of the congregation. I didn’t need to speak to them — I just wanted to look at them. I remember being stunned by what I saw. Nearly everyone appeared quite attentive to the sermon. Some mouths were half-open, and numerous heads were nodding in agreement with the preacher’s droning nonsense. I figured it out: they were actually accepting what this man was saying as the truth, and were doing so without question! They believed him! At first, I felt dizzy, and then, later, I felt sick. The more I thought about the experience, the worse I felt, and I could think about nothing else for a long time after that church service finally ended.

I’d been exposed to religion many times before, but it always seemed to me that adults didn’t really believe what they were saying, any more than when they told children my age about the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. At that moment, though, I realized I had been mistaken. This was no act. These people, in that church that day, actually believed what they were told. Why? I didn’t know. I still don’t. If that man told them that two plus two equals six, would they believe that? I suspected they would.

I was surrounded by a herd of sheep. That moment of clarity, when I realized this fact, scared me. It made me wonder, and not for the last nor first time, if I had been secretly planted on earth by aliens, as a baby, and without a guidebook.

This is only one of many experiences that convinced me of the importance of skepticism. The fact that it is so clear, in my memory, leads me to think it was one of the more important of those experiences. It cemented, in my mind, a scary truth: the world is infested with large numbers of incredibly gullible, deluded people. They weren’t like me. I didn’t understand them. They were everywhere. I wasn’t anything like them, and didn’t want to be, either. I was, however, stuck here with them.

I was stranded on the wrong planet, with no prospect for escape, any time soon. That was over forty years ago, and I’m still here.