Reticulating Splines vs Spoon Theory

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I've been bothered by spoon theory for awhile because it seems like a blunt instrument (likewise with token theory, and so on). The idea is you have a limited number of spoons or tokens, and daily tasks cost spoons, and eventually you run out. This didn't seem to describe why sometimes tasks were easy to do, and other times hard. It described being tired or overstimulated but not the growing sense of frustration that led to a meltdown, which was an entirely different mechanic. Nor did it explain why being interrupted from a task was so costly.

After giving it much thought, I came up with a new model, "Reticulating splines..." I wrote a blog post about it, and I'm curious to see if this fits other autists, or just me. I am very interested in feedback and discussion.

http://www.lunalindsey.com/2013/10/spli ... r-for.html

Thanks!

My entire brain told me you were writing about programming until I clicked your link; it's actually relevant anyway*...

"Reticulating Splines" roughly translates to rendering every zone of exclusion that relates to the rules or maps of those games. I think it's actually a jokingly concise way of referring to the functions of most strategy games. A quick Google told me it's also an easter egg in Minecraft. I hope I see it when I can finally afford to play things like Homeworld and EVE Online.

*at least for AS programmers...

Last edited by cberg on 15 Oct 2013, 2:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

EVE is an excellent game. :) (As is Minecraft)

I did run across a blog post or two discussing how it actually does mean something when it comes to rendering, but I'm fairly certain that in 1996 when Maxis first used the term, that it was completely irrelevant. I could be totally, entirely wrong on that point. :) I didn't research it that far.

One thing I like about the term is that it does mean lots of similar yet imprecise things, all related to rendering and calculating and networking all the things, which is what it feels like when I need to shift to a new task.

I absolutely love your theory, especially the Three Laws of Thermodynamic Autistic Motion summary at the end.

I also write, and this explains very well why my novels are not as complete as I would like them to be-- switching between College.exe and Family.exe and Hygiene.exe and Social.exe and Prevent Meltdown.exe (this alone can take up nearly 100% of my CPU at any given moment) does not leave enough spoons to reticulate all of the splines needed to open and run Novel.exe.

No matter the code, functions have to take on unique names in order not to misrepresent something else. Maxis probably used it initially to refer to the categorization of everything on the map, including the rules the map implied. The joke might also be a response to the useless things one might see by a Windows progress bar, but it's also a bit of a syntactic red herring.

reticulating spines: beautiful!

i love the whole software metaphor. that's exactly me. it's why i freaked this morning when BF suddenly appears announcing we need to go to store NOW. i wish he understood this better. i don't think this article would help (he wouldn't have the patience or frame of reference to understand it), but it helps me understand WHY i am the way i am.

very well explained analogy!

oh and the reference to 386's.... priceless

Excellent metaphor!

I like the spoon theory, but always felt it was missing something. This is great!
This is why a day working on one big programming project is relaxing, but a day working on several smaller projects is stressful.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

@Opi, Perhaps you can put the metaphor into your own words and slip it into conversation now and then. One reason I thought it up was so I'd have a shorthand way of conveying to my partners and children and anyone else exactly what they are asking of me when they want me to do something "real quick".

@WerewolfPoet That is amusing imagery, and yes, I can definitely relate.

I like your resolution to the same dilemma I've had with spoons. I found spoons a great starting point, but it's a bit more straightforward than what I deal with.

I don't find it complete, and I find it overly complex, I think the spoons-to-splines conversion should be simplified.

But the basic idea of splines I like. Now we need to make it better.

Linearity is a slippery slope...

I'm actually serious about the fact that the basic idea is good but I'd work on certain parts of it. Some parts of it don't actually get information across quickly. What's great about the spoon theory is that you can just show it to someone and they can get a quick understanding. Part of this is like that, part of this is not. If it can be worked into something that's at that level, then it'd be far more useful, not just as a way to evaluate ourselves, and think about ourselves, but as to explain to others.

Explaining to others what its like, why life is hard, is one of the big challenges to living with a disability, having a metaphor to turn to that is complete with the idea of task switching and the idea of only being able to do so many things, and the idea of sensory overload, would be great. But it needs to be simple enough to be understood on the first pass through, by someone reading quickly too or people won't get it.

It's a challenge I've actually been working on - how do I explain sensory overload, the fact that its not just what I do, but the world around me, that determines what I can do, and how much I can do, and just being surrounded by things can actually make me unable to do things for weeks because I'm that burned out by it? How do I do that in a quick metaphor that people will understand, like the spoon theory?

This is really the best idea I've found for task switching, as well as for other ideas surrounding that. It gets why I'm so locked into "I can't do this analysis, I don't have enough data" too, and why I actually get trapped there until something takes me out of it, even though its not me really doing something, more me not doing anything other than not being able to do anything.

And this is absolutely part of autism that needs explained.

I like that theory.

When I am involved in an activity, I forget about everything else. When I'm done I take a break to figure out what else I need to be doing and take time to reticulate more splines.

I often need more splines to finish what I am doing so I pause to take a break and think about it some more. It is normal for me to take many pauses to reticulate more splines while I am doing a single activity. so it takes me super long to get things done.

When I run out of spoons to reticulate more splines, I log on to WP or watch a movie or TV show or read.

Tuttle, your criticisms are valid, and your thought process there is similar to what I went through when looking for a sufficiently descriptive analogy. I tested plenty of ideas, but they all failed in much more major ways. Sort of like when Penny in Dr Horrible is using a fish analogy to describe "the system" and it starts to break down quickly. :)

The problem with any simple analogy is it will be too simple to adequately describe the very complex things going on for us. Spoons theory works when we need something simple. For those willing to really understand, we need something closer to splines theory. Sort of like how Newton's laws of motion are instinctive, and work in a rough sense, but to really describe the universe, we need relativity and quantum mechanics.

I've found splines theory gives me tons of insights as I go through my day. I had one today where it helped me describe monologging, and why NTs don't monolog or have patience to listen to it.

For those closest to me, who care about understanding me, they've been able to understand splines theory. Maybe it helps that they're all gamers and work in the computer industry. :) People in wider circles won't really care to understand much about autism anyway, so I'll throw spoons at them when necessary. Or not bother to explain at all. They're not going to listen anyway. :)

Interesting! When I take breaks, oddly it's to do something else, preferably something relatively simple and spline-free. Though sometimes I do fine parallel processing two complex tasks at once. As long as there are only two, and they are of a similar sort, I do fine. More than that will ruin me for doing all tasks. Like today, I worked on writing my book about mind control, and in the pauses I thought about autism and a related email my sister had sent. Since it was just "thinking", the splines didn't get in each other's way, and instead seemed to give me an energy boost. Had the phone rung on top of that, I'd be done in.

I don't actually think the spline theory describes everything sensory-wise, sensory-overload, and such.

Part of my complaints were actually saying "I think you can take the same idea and polish it, and take little bits of it and clean it up".

I am not reading it write now, but when I read it, I could tell certain parts that felt like it was flowing more naturally to you, and other parts that seemed like you were forcing it more. I think if you worked it out, and went through it again, it could be worked out into something cleaner, with the same main ideas as it is now, but polished up and made more accessible.

And for people who don't want it, we can give them the spoon theory, still, yep. But I think it might be worth the time to polish it still. It's a question if you think its worth the time.