Physical and Mental Tools
Earlier this month, after exchanging a few messages with someone and then going to take a shower, I ended up posting a small stream of shower thoughts on Facebook. The idea was just to post this quickly somewhere, while I could still remember how to put at least the general idea into words, and then perhaps expand upon it in a blog post during the next week or so. However, that obviously didn’t happen and I don’t want to allow this to be doomed to oblivion as it scrolls down and out of reach, so I’ll just quickly also post it here now, with only minor edits.
You know, I’ve always found it odd…
If a person doesn’t have, or can’t use, say, their arms, people don’t usually expect them to play tennis for example. And when some rare individuals manage it, it is an extraordinary achievement and seen as such, nobody expecting or pressuring them into doing it as “normal” otherwise. And, to move to more mundane matters, the aforementioned people also won’t be expected to, for example, bathe themselves either, and while managing that won’t be praised as such an achievement publicly because the matter itself isn’t public, it will usually be seen as such by those who are close to them, who also won’t demand that they manage it as “normal” and usually be understanding and accommodating if they can’t, or if they can no longer do it after somehow managing to at some point.
Yet at the same time, if a person doesn’t have the proper mental tools to do some things or cope with some situations seen by most as “normal”, the matter is entirely different. What you get then is insane pressure from all sides to manage to behave as if you had said tools and proper use of them and usually no understanding except from those who’re in a similar situation. And if you somehow, through who knows what effort and at who knows what cost to yourself, do manage to do those things or cope with those situations you’re not actually equipped for, the reaction is usually something along the lines of: “See? That wasn’t so bad, right? Told you you could do it.” And, of course, if you don’t keep doing it from that point on, you’re just slacking off.
And then Gods, or whatever else, if anything, may be out there, forbid somebody with such a, shall we say, atypically tooled mind is actually fine with it as it is and would just rather focus on what they can do well the way they are rather than constantly fighting themselves and likely ruining themselves in other ways just to struggle to make up for what they’re not. They’re really going to get it for that sort of nerve, right?
And then some still wonder why some people snap. So they get even warier of those who may not adhere to the, shall we say, norms of “normal”, either watch them even more carefully or distance themselves from them even more, increase the pressure or the isolation or both, make it even harder to find understanding, companionship, belonging, safety, a soothing word or touch… And then wonder again why even more people snap because of it.
As I said, this needs to be expanded on, requires explanations, definitions, exceptions… But I’m sure you can find all, or at least most, of that in what others have said and written about it, some doing so much better than I ever could. At the same time, many have done it much worse, even dangerously so, while for most the matter is swept under the rug, actively hidden and ignored. And if the best time to change this situation was decades ago, when the human mind started being understood to some extent, the second best time is now, and the third best in the nearest possible future.
