I Don't Belong In This World

I don’t belong in this world.

By this, I don’t mean that I hate the world, or anyone in it. I love or have loved many people, some still alive, some not. And while sometimes I’ve shunned the world and held myself aloof from it for my own self-protection, yet at other times I’ve felt huge pity or compassion, even aching sorrow, for the world’s inhabitants and whatever pain they’re suffering, and I still do.

I also love the world’s physical beauties, its forests and sunsets, beaches and waterfalls, sweeping mountains and ever-changing seas. I even love many of its manmade splendours – feasts of colour and light, music that transports me, or the many architectural wonders of the world, especially old buildings, archways, hanging stones and other ancient sites.

But I’ve never felt like I belong here.

This not belonging has many layers or facets to it. There are spiritual facets – I know this isn’t everyone’s thing, but it is mine. It has nothing to do with what anyone else believes or doesn’t believe, but rather with a series of personal understandings I’ve gained over the years. Many years ago, for instance, I was in the women’s spirituality movement, but left because of its focus on Mother Earth and our female bodies – something I just do not feel that connected to. And for much of my younger years, I experienced something I could only describe as a ‘butterfly in a jar’ feeling. Then one day I realised it was my spirit yearning to be free. My true home, I know now, is with the Divine. One day, when I’ve done all I’m meant to do in this life, I’ll get to go there.

But it goes beyond the spiritual. I find myself repelled by many of the values that rule the world. Over and over again, I see honesty, integrity, decency, basic civility and even common sense being sacrificed on the altars of Ego, Greed and Political Expediency. Whether it’s in the political arena or the personal, I see so many appalling behaviours, and constant attempts to justify them by blaming the victims or some conveniently horrible ‘enemy’.

This is a world where there’s supposedly ‘not enough money’ to ensure decent incomes, housing, education or medical care for all, yet somehow there’s always enough money to go to war. A world where if you’re black, you can be arrested for sitting in a coffee shop waiting for a friend, or shot at for asking directions, but if you’re white and rich you can literally get away with rape.

And then there are wars, and pollution, and a greedy ripping out of the world’s resources without thought for the future, the capitalist hegemony that knows the price of everything, but the true value of nothing. And yes, I know there are those who fight against these warped values, but on the whole, the good people are not the ones in power, and even where they are, they’re sailing against the wind. I despair for the world, I truly do.

There’s also the effects of my physical disability – an acquired thing, yes, but it’s meant that for most of my adult life paid employment has been minimal to non-existent, and I’m now pretty much unemployable. Ditto for education, and any kind of community involvement. People rush off daily to wherever, while I stand apart, and isolated. (And poor, of course, something else that separates me from most others.)

Being a writer also means standing apart from society to some extent anyway, being an observer rather than a participant. Not to mention, when I have had jobs, I always felt like I was ‘wasting time’, and not doing what I felt I was ‘meant’ to be doing, ie writing.

But if I was simply any of the above, I would still be able to find a sector of society I’d fit into and be regarded by all as just another part of humanity, even if some disagreed with my political or spiritual opinions, or disliked what I wrote, and so on. But I’m also autistic. And as an autistic, I feel at odds with the entire world on a daily basis, its precepts and practises that just make no sense, and the constant slamming up against unspoken rules and social expectations. Even after decades of learning social skills, this is still a regular occurrence for me, and, I suspect, for most autistics. It’s the ‘square peg in a round-holed world’ feeling.

And while we autistics now have our own community, it’s one that most of the world seems to think shouldn’t exist. We’re seen as less-than-human, or even ‘monsters’ or a ‘disease’, and anything people do to us is considered fair game by most. The usual rules of decency do not apply to us.

So I’m alienated most of all, perhaps, by how we get treated, a mistreatment which ranges from simple ridicule through forced normalisation to outright murder. Not to mention the do-gooders who think they’re being ‘nice’ to us but who reek of fake-cheeriness or pitying inspiration-porn, the parents who never listen to us, the professionals who pathologise us, the teachers who don’t grasp just how different we really are, the media who demonise us… The world makes it plain that it only grudgingly tolerates us, at best, and at worst actively seeks to eliminate us. 

So no, I don’t feel welcome on this planet, or that I belong here. And given all the above, I think this is understandable.

I Want To Go Back

I want to go back.

I want to go back and find the little girl I once was, the one who would spend long hours on the swing, going higher and higher, then leaning back to watch the sky, because it felt like she was flying, like she was free. The little girl who loved to roll down the hill, dizzy with sensation, or whirl around and around till she fell over laughing. Who could be transported by the scent of that same grass freshly-cut, and the smell of bacon on Sunday mornings, and the smell of hot tar on a summer’s day when it had just been raining. The little girl who loved ballet, and who would put on a record and throw herself around the room, leaping and pirouetting, even though she wasn’t very good at it. The little girl who devoured adult encyclopaedias, because the kid ones were just too limited, and who first learnt to draw from copying the illustration on a book cover. The little girl who would stand in the wind and feel cold go over her skinny little body, and shiver with a kind of thrilling aliveness, so that she wanted to laugh and laugh, and just move in her body like it belonged to her.

I want to go back and find the teenager who would draw endlessly, read endlessly, but somehow never get around to doing her homework. Who would lie in bed at night and look out the window at the stars, and think about God and life and love and The Universe, and wonder who or what was Out There, and what it might be like to go up in a spaceship, and a thousand and one other things. Who would stim, sometimes, though she had no idea, yet, what she was doing, or even, yet, fully grasp that others didn’t pace or rock or jiggle their bodies like this. Who could make silly jokes and laugh till she just about cried, giving herself over to the laugh completely. And who still sometimes danced, when she could, if no-one looked, if no-one laughed. But mostly, she just dreamed, and drew, and wrote the occasional poem, and felt at odds with the world, without really knowing why. Who didn’t know herself yet, but managed to be that self anyway.

I want to go back.

I want to go back and find the young woman, who, when her child was in school, would wander the streets of Auckland, solitary and content, following an internal flow no-one else could understand. Who would drink in bright colours like they were her lifeblood and feel a thrill throughout her whole body when she found some old, neglected, quaint corner of city architecture. Who would climb Mount Eden and find a quiet spot away from all the tourists, lie down in the grass and watch the clouds go by. Who wrote a lot of fervid poems, because she was trying to grasp something, trying to understand the crazy world she found herself in. Who immersed herself in studying all manner of things, in pursuit of this same objective, following one special interest or another, for as long as it fascinated her. The young woman who would sometimes put on music and draw the curtains so no-one could see, then dance and dance, just because she felt like it, just because it made her feel free.

I want to go back and find the older woman, who, in recovery from an emotionally abusive relationship, immured herself in the countryside and wrote and painted and hardly spoke to anyone for days at a time. Who didn’t even have a TV, let alone a computer or the Internet. I want to feel how she felt, the rhythm of her days, the naturalness of how she moved from one thing to another, learning again how to hear the song within. Because she was freeing herself of a dark shadow that had blighted her life, and re-discovering her true feelings, her true needs, once again. And who still sometimes danced, late at night with the music up loud and the curtains closed, even though she had known for a long time that she was a lousy dancer. 

I want more, even. I want to let her speak out, as she hardly ever allowed herself to, to reject those who would use and abuse her, to not get sucked in by other people’s games or agendas, to not give the manipulators and the time-wasters and the emotional leeches one minute of her time, or one ounce of her essence. I want to let her do and say all the things she once thought of doing and saying, but was too scared to, or didn’t think she had a right to, or was told she mustn’t, or got yelled at for saying or doing, so she stopped. I want her to walk away from anything and anyone that doesn’t nourish her, as she should have done all along, to have the courage to go her own way and choose her own path.

Because in spite of all the angst, anger, confusion, terror, anxiety, and raw aching sadness she felt, and a self-loathing deep as the ocean, in spite of all that she went through, she harboured within her a pearl beyond price.

So I want to go back.

But I don’t need to. Because she’s already here, inside me. 

And I just have to let her dance.

Notes Towards an Aspie Spiritual Code

Some time ago, I came to realise that much of the spiritual writings I read are actually not that useful to me. They are, I realised, geared to the needs of NTs, not aspies. Well, no surprise there really. But what, I wondered, would an aspie-centered spiritual code look like?

This is my attempt at it, based on my own experience, and those of a few other spiritually-minded aspies I've talked to or seen the writings of online. Note that I'm not trying to start any arguments here, rather I'm thinking of those autistics who are already spiritually-minded, but aren't sure how to approach their spirituality from an autistic standpoint.

The Divine Power is logical. The Divine Power is many things - Cosmic Intelligence, the silently beating Heart of the Universe, the Force that created, shapes and connects all of the Universe and is immanent in it, the Ultimate Enigma, and much more. What it isn't, is some irritable old man (or old woman) sitting on a throne on a cloud, throwing thunderbolts at anyone who transgresses moral codes a saint couldn't keep to. That defies logic and common sense. We need a logical God.

The true nature of the Divine Power is Love, a love so powerful it is beyond comprehension, totally unconditional, and way, way beyond all the restrictive petty things that often masquerade under the name of "love". We don't have to 'earn' that love, and we won't lose it if we're 'bad' in the eyes of the rest of the world. Of course it's better to behave in certain ways, for our own sake as well as others, but, like a Perfect Parent, the Divine continues to love us no matter what. Even if no-one else does, you are loved by Spirit.

All are Children of the Divine. We are all sons and daughters of the Life-Force. Many aspies have little difficulty with regarding all as inherently equal, due to our lack of ability to see the social distinctions that others insist on. My feeling is we need to build on that, make it a central focus of our spirituality, allowing no prejudice against any other, no matter who or what they are, to enter our hearts and minds.

The Divine doesn't play favourites. It has no bias on the basis of gender, race, sexuality, nationality, religion, sect, etc, etc; and therefore, it follows on, It has no bias on the basis of neurology or able-bodiedness either. The Divine didn't create us as we are, only to judge us and reject us for being exactly that. That also defies logic.

All of us can experience the Divine. No matter what our beliefs, regardless of whether we belong to a formal religion or not, or what name we call the Divine Power, we need to experience It for ourselves. We tend to 'learn by doing', and so mere dogma out of a book, no matter how holy, will almost certainly not suffice. We can build a solid relationship with the Divine through prayer and meditation. In my experience Divine support tends to be either fairly indirect, or not quite in the shape I might expect or think I want, but it does happen.

We need to keep our spirituality simple. Convoluted theological abstractions tend to tie our brain in knots. Especially if we're the visual type of autistic, as we almost certainly can't understand what we can't create a picture of inside our heads. That doesn't mean that we can't develop a moral code, as we can easily imagine concrete examples of behaving morally, and understand and follow rules. Nor does it mean we lack intelligence, just that it's better that we keep our spirituality not too complicated.

Don't hate the world. It's hugely screwed-up, yes, and functions by rules and values that are often not ours. Plus, we're often treated badly by it. But Hate only damages you in turn, and separates you from the Divine. So many in this world are deeply damaged, and have lost their way, and lash out at others as a result. The world is a troubled place, and it needs compassion, but if you can't manage that then work on pity. Or at least indifference.

Don't hate the Divine either, for what people do. Yes, the Divine is immanent in everything and everyone, so we all have a core of Spirit within, whatever we call it - 'Higher Self', 'Christ Consciousness', etc - but some drift a long, long way from that Spirit within, or they deny or suppress it. We all have free will, and unfortunately some people use it to do bad things. If we are a victim of these people, that doesn't mean we've been forgotten by the Divine.

The Divine wants us to protect ourselves. Being spiritual doesn't mean we have to be patsies. Whether we can feel compassion for the world and the screwed-up people in it or not, we do nonetheless have the right to protect ourselves from those who would harm us. Just as we might feel sorry for the tiger in its cage at the zoo, but we wouldn't jump in the cage and try to pat it, "there, there, poor kitty," we have the right to distance ourselves from or eject from our lives any toxic, abusive or unwelcome people. This is an act of self-love, self-respect, and self-nurturing, which the Divine wants for us.

And perhaps most important of all... The Divine Power is Eternal and Unchanging. You know how we aspies dislike change. Even people that love us and that we love can die, or leave us, or fail us in some way. The Divine will not. Ever. Even when we think It has, It's working for us behind the scenes. Remember that tale of the footprints in the sand? It's there for us, forever and ever, amen. I think that's pretty cool.

So there you go. Maybe this works for you, maybe it doesn't. I'd like to know, either way. And maybe you can improve on this, write something better. I hope so. I would never think that I have the last word on anything, so I'm open to new ideas.

God, Religion, and Atheism

I have some trepidation writing this, as I fear I may offend some, but recent events, as I’ve said, have compelled me to lay out plainly what I believe. In no way am I trying to ‘convert’ anyone here, or ‘dis’ anyone for believing what I cannot.

I say ‘cannot’, because though I have never been and never will be an atheist, I find more and more that I am largely in agreement with them on many points. Most especially, on the absurdities just about all religions would have us accept as ‘Truth’. Anyone expecting me to believe in such blatant nonsense as virgin births or the world being created in seven days (no-one’s ever explained to me why The Almighty was in such a tearing hurry), will have their work cut out. I believe in evolution, rationality, the workings of reason, and the findings of science. And no, I certainly don’t see that as incompatible with my bone-deep spirituality.

Now some would have us believe a lot of this nonsense simply because “it’s in the Bible” (or some other Holy Book), and that that document is ‘God-given’, Sacred Word Never To Be Questioned. Sorry, but no. Though the Bible (the religious book I am best acquainted with, and yes, I have read it, all the way through) has many lyrical and spiritually moving passages, it also has plenty that is, well, less than inspiring (all those boring begats), or even violent. It’s a human document, and even the most inspired passages have had to be filtered through human minds, with all the prejudices and limitations of their times, and written down by human hands, in language they felt others would understand. Not to mention it’s now known to have had several ‘revisions’. It can be beautiful, but it’s not perfect. Not even close.

I see no more reason to believe in these ancient Jewish myths of creation, etc, or whatever stories the early Christian leaders dreamed up to ‘prove’ the divinity of Jesus, than I would literally believe the Maori legend that Maui fished up the North Island, or in mythical Chinese dragons, or Irish tales about Finn McCool. If I ever did subscribe to such fabulist tales, I outgrew them along with the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus. I can understand people believing in those things in a more credulous and superstitious age, but surely nowadays we know better.

On the other hand, my feeling is that when atheists discard God along with religious ideas and concepts of God, they’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Forget, for example, that antiquated image of an Old Man with a long white beard, sitting on a throne on a cloud, up in some mythical heaven, waiting to thunder down retribution on those who ‘sin’. The Infinite Power is so much more than such limited, prejudice- and dogma-ridden ideas.

I find it hard to delineate exactly how I perceive God, as there are no limits on Its nature. It’s the underpinning of the Universe, the Matrix that holds it together, the Source of All Things, the Energy that runs through us all, and the True Nature of all of us. We all come from this Source, and will return to it in the end. A spark of it is in each of us, usually slumbering, sometimes burning bright, often seeking, though for what, the seeker often doesn’t know. God is present in mountains and trees, birds and fishes, oceans and stars, in everything and even in the spaces between. God is present in you and me. God is.

God is Infinite Love. Unconditional, immense, limitless love. Most people have no idea how huge that love is. I have touched the merest fringe of it, just a few times, and each time it blew me away. I had always ‘believed’ before, from then on I knew. God is also Infinite Wisdom, lovingly guiding us and supporting us through the trials of our lives, in ways we usually don’t see. God can be seen as impersonal, a Force or Power, or in a more personal way, as the Perfect Father or Mother (The Infinite is beyond gender), the most wonderfully supporting Best Friend, or whatever else you want. And The Infinite will wait for you until you’re ready. There’s no hurry. (I also believe in reincarnation and karma, so I know we don’t have to rush to ‘get it all done’ in this lifetime.)

Moreover, I believe that God doesn’t judge. Humans judge, humans define ‘sin’, usually to suit themselves, and set themselves up as judge, jury and executioner for those who ‘transgress’. They forget that God is Love, and make all sorts of claims to ‘knowing’ what God wants or thinks eg, ‘God hates homosexuals’, which subsequently sees them descend into morasses of twisted, hate-ridden thinking and even violence. Such people are as far from truly being ‘one with God’ as a worm is from the sky. The Infinite may see some of our actions (most especially those that hurt ourselves or other people) as less than perfect, but It created each of us exactly as we are, and loves us just as we are. Without condition. God created me aspie, female, gay, creative, Kiwi, spiritual, and just a little bit geeky. I’m content with that, it’s a pity so many don’t accept what the Divine Power intended me/us to be.

Some people may decide, after having read the above, that I am ‘anti-religion’, or anti ‘their’ religion. Let me make myself clear. The only things I am ‘anti’ are hatred, bigotry, prejudice, persecution, abuse, oppression, violence and deliberate stupidity. (By which I don’t mean the intellectually disabled, but the attitudes of those who have a fully functional brain and don’t use it, preferring instead to spout reactionary prejudices, regurgitated dogma, or the latest ‘party line’.)

There’s much more I could say, but I think this post is long enough!! Perhaps I’ll say more another day.

Mysticism and Me

Ages ago I said I would write more sometime on my spiritual views. I’ve not done so, because a) there’s been so much else to write about, and b) I’d hate, as I’ve said before, for anyone to feel I’m ‘pushing’ my views on them. However, lately some events have propelled me into doing so.

The first of these was finding a book in my local library on mysticism. It looked interesting, so I took it home, but I wasn’t prepared to find that my concept of ‘mysticism’ was awry. I had a vague concept of ‘mystics’ as the sort of people who deliberately made their body of ‘spiritual’ knowledge obscure or secret, so as to seem more mysterious and powerful than in fact they were. To me, therefore, ‘mysticism’ was the practise of a lot of mumbo-jumbo, self-serving bull.

In fact, I found, mystics are those who seek to approach God/The Divine Power directly, rather than through intermediaries such as churches, priests, ministers, imams, rabbis, etc. Their methods of doing this have varied – meditation, prayer, sacred dances or trances, certain drugs – but the central theme is clear. There have been mystics since the days of the prehistoric shamans, and they still exist today. Some people simply prefer to have not a conception of God (ie an idea), but a perception – ie a direct experience.

Sometimes they were, at least nominally, members of one religion or another – there have been Christian, Jewish and Islamic mystics – but this didn’t mean they were exempt from the persecution and hostility heaped on mystics over the millennia, as they of course threatened the power of those intermediaries over their ‘flocks’.

                     

I am a mystic too, I realized. Through meditation, prayer, and trying consciously to live my life according to my spiritual principles, I have sought to establish, maintain and strengthen a direct relationship with the Divine. I neither need nor want a church, minister, whoever, telling me what to do, or ‘what God wants’, or how I should live. I outgrew formal religion about the same time as I became a fully-functioning adult, but have never seriously considered not having a connection to the Infinite. I am a spiritual being, it is who and what I am.

And as a spiritually-minded aspie, mysticism suits me – I always like to ‘go to the source’, to go deeper into things, to not just accept ‘Received Truths’, but to find out for myself. I doubt I will go round telling people I’m a ‘mystic’ – although I have included it on my Facebook page in the space for ‘religion’ – but it’s nice to know I’m part of a long, long tradition of like-minded people.

I hope to say more about my spiritual views in further posts.

My Outlook on Life

I’ve been meaning to do a piece on my spiritual views for ages, and I will get to it soon. But first I want to say something about my general outlook on life.

The central fact anyone needs to know about me, is that I am a spiritually-orientated person. The thing I desire the most is to be One with The Infinite. Because nothing else beats that feeling, no high or thrill of any kind. The Love of the Infinite is the most powerful force in the Universe, and if you know that Love, you cannot but help love Its creations, human beings. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, you cannot help but feel compassion, because humans in general are in a mess. Wars, oppression, poverty, violence and difficulties of all kinds, from large to small - we all know what a sorry state the world is in. And most of the pain is caused by humans themselves, on themselves or other humans. You have to either loathe them or feel sorry for them, and I prefer the latter. Because to allow bitterness, prejudice and intolerance into my heart, takes me away from God, and I’m not going to allow that to happen.

I admit, in my earlier years I often felt that bitterness, and even sometimes edged close to that intolerance and prejudice, because of the pain that is the inevitable result of living with undiagnosed, unknown-even-to-me Aspergers. Those on the spectrum, especially those over thirty, will know the struggle of which I speak. But though I often floundered in confusion and angst, I couldn’t ever sustain negativity, not completely, and never for long, it simply isn’t in my nature. In the end, burnt-out and worn-out from trying to be ‘normal’, I knew I had to take a different approach to life – or die. It was that stark. I couldn’t go on any longer the way I had, I was beyond even ‘running on empty’, I was bone-dry, not a drop left in the tank. It was at that point I sought out a spiritual centre and learnt meditation, consciously stepping onto the spiritual path, which I’ve been on ever since (admittedly with a good deal of meandering!). Over a decade of meditation, prayer and ‘living with God’ has not only given me tools to cope with the world, it’s helped me to understand this crazy old world better – and to feel compassion for it. I see the pain, I see the troubles, and my heart can’t help but be moved. It’s who I am, what I am.

So I feel this compassion, and naturally I want to help. Well, I’m still an aspie, and I can’t cushion things much – I speak the truth, about how I see things. But here’s the thing – I want that truth to be a way by which people are helped. As a writer, words are my stock-in-trade, and I do my damndest to use them wisely; to help people see their own Truths, to clarify their lives, understand themselves and others better, simplify complicated situations, and generally make the world a better place. (Because who the heck wants it to be a worse one?) I see this as a responsibility that comes with having a gift for using words. So though I may at times seem forthright, even blunt, it’s not with the intent to hurt, but rather with the object of ‘cutting through the thicket’, unravelling the complicated, and laying bare the heart of the problem. Sometimes, yes, this is painful. But only when the problem is clear, can people actually do something

about it. If I can’t find the right words to help someone to see their way, or if I feel unclear in myself about what’s happening, then I try to refrain from saying anything (or at least until something does become clear). I remind myself that no-one but God can know everything. (And in case you were wondering, yes, I also do this ‘cutting through the thicket’ on myself. How else do you think I learnt it?)

It may seem arrogant to some, this belief that I can help others simply through my words. Let me be clear on this - I have no illusions (a kind of wistful hope, maybe, but no illusions), that I can, simply by my words, ‘wave a magic wand’, and utterly transform people’s lives for the better. Sometimes my words are rejected, resented, or ignored. Fine, no-one has to listen to me, and I’m not the fount of all wisdom. (If I was, I’d have handled my own life better!) But I do have certain understandings, mostly gained the hard way, and if I feel I can help, I will say something. And more than that, I seek to be a channel for a Greater Wisdom – something that doesn’t come from me so much as through me. And sometimes you can sort of ‘plant seeds’ in people’s minds, which might grow and flower in time. Or just enable them to look at things a different way, empower them to make their own changes. Others have done this for me in the past, I’m simply passing the favour on.

So my philosophy can be summed up basically as – to do good whenever I can, or at least to do no harm. I figure there’s enough negative energy and aggro in the world already, and I don’t want to add to it. I want to help people when I can, and if not, then refrain from making things worse. Sounds simple, perhaps even ‘woolly-wafty-liberal’, but it’s actually pretty radical, and not always easy in practise. I admit, I have my bad times. Times when I feel down and rejecting of the world for a while; or times I curse out a driver who cuts me off in traffic and give Jesus Christ a new middle name (though this is mainly fear, because my driving reactions are not that fast, and drivers who drive recklessly or carelessly scare the crap out of me); and other times I get stressed and snap at someone, or I say the wrong thing – even when it feels right - and hurt someone’s feelings. And still other times I know there’s probably something I could say, but I’m too emotionally scattered or stressed to find the words, or the energy to say them. There are people I fail. I’m human, I have shortcomings and make mistakes and blunders like anyone else. And I’m also aspie, with all that that entails.

But the main thing is that I try. I have this approach to life, this outlook, because it’s the only way I can live with myself, the only way I can stay close to The Infinite, the only way I can be a spiritual being and a person with Aspergers, and not succumb to pain, bitterness, and the downward spiral. It’s the only way I can live. Literally.