I have a problem with being asked to participate in anticipating future things. I will explain later how this kicks in when they chirpily ask "Are you excited for the movie?" (rather than "excited about the movie?") and I can't really explain that I don't get excited about things until they are actually happening, or more often, until afterward. I sometimes get very intent upon obtaining things alright, but I don't do that thing, the thing where you pretend in your head that you're already in possession of the experience, and you go right ahead and enjoy the shit out of it.
A very nerdy and mundane everyday example: right now, on Facebook, they're asking me to "like" the Doctor Who group if I'm, right now, really looking forward to them, next week, reminiscing over that time a few years back when the Matt Smith Doctor took over the lead role from David Tennant.
Enjoying planned reminiscing in advance of doing it? I just can't look forward to that joyful looking back. Not really. Every time someone asks "Are you looking forward to Christmas/Summer/second semester/Hockey season?" I have this annoyed, picked-on feeling like someone had asked an autistic person if they were looking forward to making heaps of meaningful human connections that day. Because I don't. I do not look forward to things and get worked up fantasizing about them. I can't. I am burdened by the knowledge that anything imagined really, really won't turn out very much like the way it is in one's head, if it happens at all. I know that just imagining something and planning for it is FAR from guarantee it will ever come to pass. But also, I just can't enjoy things that haven't happened (yet). I wait.
When I clean my apartment? I can't do that under the fuel of imagining how nice and clean it is going to look. I can't imagine it being even a bit cleaner. I just have to get a head of steam, get down to it and notice if/when any improvement starts to happen.
So am I looking forward to them reminiscing over the Matt Smith Doctor Who? Am I imagining those cheery, informative posts and enjoying them, right now, when they haven't happened and are not at this point real in any way? No. I can imagine all sorts of other things, though. I can imagine Matt Smith getting put in jail for something horrible like killing three old ladies while driving under the influence of crack, or pedophilia or something, and them not wanting to reminisce over him. I can imagine me dying suddenly in any one of a thousand ways and not ever seeing the Facebook stuff. I can imagine Facebook re-configuring and crashing and the whole Doctor Who group getting wiped. I can imagine the guy who updates the group being rushed to hospital and the group updates not happening. I can imagine that there are an infinite number more ways than I can imagine that my enjoying of this happy little Facebook group might never come to pass. So I wait. I don't take out enjoyment loans on stuff that hasn't happened yet.
Of course, I could look into my past and note that I was seldom promised nice things as a child, and that when I was, quite often they'd not materialize or actually be taken away, and if I was upset I'd be told to smarten up and realize that life was like that. Life wasn't a bowl of cherries, I was frequently reminded. It was not to be enjoyed. That's why it was like it was. The implication was that life was a bucket of shit.
And things went away, right when you were into them. Things like Christmas could be taken away. People could give Christmas gifts to us, for little me to imagine opening, and my father could return the Christmas gifts to them unopened after the colourfully-wrapped boxes sitting in our house for two weeks, due to family squabbles/church politics. To this day I STILL have no idea what the anticipated gifts were, the two gift givers being long since dead. In my home, TV (with Bugs Bunny, Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Dressup, Tony Orlando and Dawn, Sonny and Cher, The Harlem Globetrotters, The Irish Rovers, Frosty the Snowman, It's Christmas Charlie Brown, Scooby Doo, Speed Buggy, Shazam!, Tarzan and M*A*S*H*) just, quite literally went away without warning one day. Halloween went away in similar fashion, as did Easter. Attending or having birthday parties outside of immediate family went away too. There may have been reports of these things happening somewhere else to other kids, but for us, they just got erased from existence, once we'd decided we REALLY liked them. For some kids that I knew growing up, even school (with other kids, anyway) could go away, if the parents were shocked enough by what went on there (i.e. typical Western living. The equivalents of Harry Potter being allowed to sit in the school library back then, or whatever). And not matter what kids may say, doing homework with mom for ten years is not more fun than going to school.
But really, anticipating stuff is something that nobody I'm related to (besides my sister) seems to be able to do at all. We can reminisce alright. We can wax sentimental. We can hoard stuff that made us happy, but we really can't anticipate specific good things happening in the future, and go ahead and enjoy them in advance. We don't like to throw away anything old or worn out, until we've got a new one, and not even then is it easy. (Parts, you know. Some imagined monetary or sentimental value retained.) On a good day, a feeble general expectation that things will work out alright, or that there will be social or fun things to do, probably, is the best we can muster. Not only is there wiring missing that allows for enjoying specific things that have not happened and may never happen, there is a very strong, superstitious fear that were we able to do this, it would certainly jinx the whole thing. Looking around at others, this looks like a very plausible superstition to keep.
I move forward with a timid, blind belief that moving forward is a good thing and it may well work out OK. I move forward to see how far I get. Maybe I will get far. Maybe it will work out really well. That happens sometimes and it would be great. It's worth whistling in the dark. I'm not going to count on it, though. Because you can't. I have an inability to imagine how nice I think all that will be, and then "enjoy on credit" and invest this positive feeling in motivating myself to move toward it. I can't use my imagination and make up somewhere I want to be, and then simply try to go there.
I am endlessly motivated to work toward trying to stop bad things from recurring, of course. I think "I'd better do something, or I'll be dealing with this more and more, again and again!" but I never think "It sure will be nice to live in a world in which I have vanquished this problem, oh, I can just picture it. With new resolve, this spurs me onward with quickening gait!" That is SO foreign to me.
I always had a strong aversion to pep rallies in high school. We were supposed to get excited over a football game (they'd lost me right there). But the big problem was that we were also supposed to be shouting and screaming with anticipation over being part of something I did not feel part of, caring about something I did not care about, and imagining how great it would be when we inevitably won the game, even though I knew right well that "we" really never won football games. Can denial be taught in large groups? Do we believe in the power of wishing? Do we believe that simply imagining things changes the universe?
So I do not enjoy things in advance because I can't. It's not part of how I'm wired. I suspect there are more people like this out there than anyone imagines. And they just keep telling us to be more positive, to visualize our future success. "Imagine how much better you'll look if you jog for four months" (I'm not going to still be jogging after one month, let alone four), "Picture yourself in an expansive home, with a large circle of friends, a boat and international fame" (why?)
"Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies" I am tempted to respond.
But every time someone says "Are you looking forward to...?" (or, increasingly "Are you excited for...?") they're making small talk. And I don't know if anyone has ever noticed, but I don't really make much small talk. I don't get it. (I do "How was your vacation?" "Good" and that's about it. I resent every moment past one sentence spent discussing the possible future weather)
Maybe from now on I will just say "I don't look forward to things." Because I don't. Because I can't. Not specific things one has to imagine details for, because of their unreality. And aren't Christians supposed to? Or is that something we're NOT supposed to do?
A very nerdy and mundane everyday example: right now, on Facebook, they're asking me to "like" the Doctor Who group if I'm, right now, really looking forward to them, next week, reminiscing over that time a few years back when the Matt Smith Doctor took over the lead role from David Tennant.
Enjoying planned reminiscing in advance of doing it? I just can't look forward to that joyful looking back. Not really. Every time someone asks "Are you looking forward to Christmas/Summer/second semester/Hockey season?" I have this annoyed, picked-on feeling like someone had asked an autistic person if they were looking forward to making heaps of meaningful human connections that day. Because I don't. I do not look forward to things and get worked up fantasizing about them. I can't. I am burdened by the knowledge that anything imagined really, really won't turn out very much like the way it is in one's head, if it happens at all. I know that just imagining something and planning for it is FAR from guarantee it will ever come to pass. But also, I just can't enjoy things that haven't happened (yet). I wait.
When I clean my apartment? I can't do that under the fuel of imagining how nice and clean it is going to look. I can't imagine it being even a bit cleaner. I just have to get a head of steam, get down to it and notice if/when any improvement starts to happen.
So am I looking forward to them reminiscing over the Matt Smith Doctor Who? Am I imagining those cheery, informative posts and enjoying them, right now, when they haven't happened and are not at this point real in any way? No. I can imagine all sorts of other things, though. I can imagine Matt Smith getting put in jail for something horrible like killing three old ladies while driving under the influence of crack, or pedophilia or something, and them not wanting to reminisce over him. I can imagine me dying suddenly in any one of a thousand ways and not ever seeing the Facebook stuff. I can imagine Facebook re-configuring and crashing and the whole Doctor Who group getting wiped. I can imagine the guy who updates the group being rushed to hospital and the group updates not happening. I can imagine that there are an infinite number more ways than I can imagine that my enjoying of this happy little Facebook group might never come to pass. So I wait. I don't take out enjoyment loans on stuff that hasn't happened yet.
Of course, I could look into my past and note that I was seldom promised nice things as a child, and that when I was, quite often they'd not materialize or actually be taken away, and if I was upset I'd be told to smarten up and realize that life was like that. Life wasn't a bowl of cherries, I was frequently reminded. It was not to be enjoyed. That's why it was like it was. The implication was that life was a bucket of shit.
And things went away, right when you were into them. Things like Christmas could be taken away. People could give Christmas gifts to us, for little me to imagine opening, and my father could return the Christmas gifts to them unopened after the colourfully-wrapped boxes sitting in our house for two weeks, due to family squabbles/church politics. To this day I STILL have no idea what the anticipated gifts were, the two gift givers being long since dead. In my home, TV (with Bugs Bunny, Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Dressup, Tony Orlando and Dawn, Sonny and Cher, The Harlem Globetrotters, The Irish Rovers, Frosty the Snowman, It's Christmas Charlie Brown, Scooby Doo, Speed Buggy, Shazam!, Tarzan and M*A*S*H*) just, quite literally went away without warning one day. Halloween went away in similar fashion, as did Easter. Attending or having birthday parties outside of immediate family went away too. There may have been reports of these things happening somewhere else to other kids, but for us, they just got erased from existence, once we'd decided we REALLY liked them. For some kids that I knew growing up, even school (with other kids, anyway) could go away, if the parents were shocked enough by what went on there (i.e. typical Western living. The equivalents of Harry Potter being allowed to sit in the school library back then, or whatever). And not matter what kids may say, doing homework with mom for ten years is not more fun than going to school.
But really, anticipating stuff is something that nobody I'm related to (besides my sister) seems to be able to do at all. We can reminisce alright. We can wax sentimental. We can hoard stuff that made us happy, but we really can't anticipate specific good things happening in the future, and go ahead and enjoy them in advance. We don't like to throw away anything old or worn out, until we've got a new one, and not even then is it easy. (Parts, you know. Some imagined monetary or sentimental value retained.) On a good day, a feeble general expectation that things will work out alright, or that there will be social or fun things to do, probably, is the best we can muster. Not only is there wiring missing that allows for enjoying specific things that have not happened and may never happen, there is a very strong, superstitious fear that were we able to do this, it would certainly jinx the whole thing. Looking around at others, this looks like a very plausible superstition to keep.
I move forward with a timid, blind belief that moving forward is a good thing and it may well work out OK. I move forward to see how far I get. Maybe I will get far. Maybe it will work out really well. That happens sometimes and it would be great. It's worth whistling in the dark. I'm not going to count on it, though. Because you can't. I have an inability to imagine how nice I think all that will be, and then "enjoy on credit" and invest this positive feeling in motivating myself to move toward it. I can't use my imagination and make up somewhere I want to be, and then simply try to go there.
I am endlessly motivated to work toward trying to stop bad things from recurring, of course. I think "I'd better do something, or I'll be dealing with this more and more, again and again!" but I never think "It sure will be nice to live in a world in which I have vanquished this problem, oh, I can just picture it. With new resolve, this spurs me onward with quickening gait!" That is SO foreign to me.
I always had a strong aversion to pep rallies in high school. We were supposed to get excited over a football game (they'd lost me right there). But the big problem was that we were also supposed to be shouting and screaming with anticipation over being part of something I did not feel part of, caring about something I did not care about, and imagining how great it would be when we inevitably won the game, even though I knew right well that "we" really never won football games. Can denial be taught in large groups? Do we believe in the power of wishing? Do we believe that simply imagining things changes the universe?
So I do not enjoy things in advance because I can't. It's not part of how I'm wired. I suspect there are more people like this out there than anyone imagines. And they just keep telling us to be more positive, to visualize our future success. "Imagine how much better you'll look if you jog for four months" (I'm not going to still be jogging after one month, let alone four), "Picture yourself in an expansive home, with a large circle of friends, a boat and international fame" (why?)
"Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies" I am tempted to respond.
But every time someone says "Are you looking forward to...?" (or, increasingly "Are you excited for...?") they're making small talk. And I don't know if anyone has ever noticed, but I don't really make much small talk. I don't get it. (I do "How was your vacation?" "Good" and that's about it. I resent every moment past one sentence spent discussing the possible future weather)
Maybe from now on I will just say "I don't look forward to things." Because I don't. Because I can't. Not specific things one has to imagine details for, because of their unreality. And aren't Christians supposed to? Or is that something we're NOT supposed to do?
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