Inconsistencies and Interpretations

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I'll try responding to both of you without entangling our exchanges.This is my first exchange on any forum, so help me out when I break custom or if u see a better way for me to participate--without lecturing.

[i][i]Colina, your research sounds fascinating. Are the psych grads just beta testers of the app, or is the app geared toward anyone who's had trouble connecting with others?[/i][/i] [how to italicize?]

It's not primarily research, but developing an ONLINE app that mimics our Trio method for teaching psych students at various universities. The weren't beta testers, but young adults who have relied on intellectual strengths to survive. They came to my courses with real fear about learning about close-conversation, and then practicing in a private 3 person environments. Last year I thought of finding a small group of bright aspies who could look at our written drafts of online instructions, tell us what they thought about making it fit their needs. We want young non-psychologist Collaborators--not just testers.
The original real life version was for geeky advanced students which means bright people who have lots of relationship trouble.Regeniversity felt like a good possibility for several reasons including his way of taking interpersonal communication seriously--carefully.
Actually, we will be recruiting more women than men because of my profession's failure to diagnose women early: their social skills differ from male aspies. England is more advanced; starting to recognize a distinct female phenotype.

OK, You will give it a try. Good. And u want to know how u can start.

Let's start with (Maybe, you two) reading an in-house rough draft of an announcement intended for interested women. Send me a page of utterly honest reaction.Not just intellectual reaction, but attend to your first feelings, eg. Any confusion, fear, overwhelm, pleasure, annoyance, a bit more hope?
Pay attention to your experiences while reading it. Then give it a day to see if your reactions change. Then respond when u please. Are you OK with this task?

Can u help me change colina to "Old professor"?-----it's more honest. And people will soon learn they are dealing with some
odd, absent-minded, geek. I cannot hide on this site.

I'll send a copy very soon, with some worry about making it public. But it seems only a few follow this thread, so OK. Please do not distribute. It's incomplete and sloppy.
But it may respond to DataB4's curiosity about humanistic psychology.

To both of u: Humanistic psychologists in universities are "hard-nosed" scholars/researchers that have shaped the major constructs of the new child-centered teaching around the world. They have been in conflict with the sexist, deterministic, fantasy inventions of psychoanalysis. The debunking has collapsed this "school of thought". It has rarely been a legitimate social science. Psychoanalysis is now only an historical course in major universities. Humanistic scholars developed a research based Client-centered therapy, which became Person-centered therapy that spread around the world. It takes many months, and thus expensive. So researchers like me have developed versions that can be taught to almost any bright adult. Millions of people have learned it or diluted versions of it.
You asked about values, which sorta means Principles, Assumptions, Biases, behind an academic discipline. A key assumption for Humanistic social science is Self-Actualization. Try google scholar for Maslow and Carl Rogers. Tell me how you feel/think about their values.
Our project assumes that aspies/aspie Lites, have inherent capacities to actualize their social lives, which means their capacities for maintaining close relationships, which means really understanding conversation, which means learning how interpersonal talk works---learning the half dozen basic tools of talk. That's what the Trio's have done for for small groups of university students over decades.
We want to go beyond the university.

How about a more practical answer than a service that would charge $15 a month from a university that I don't know of. OP, you are struggling with the same issue that most young adults are struggling with. Just by reading your post, I can feel and understand that most people are going through what you are going through right now at this moment.

Aspergers or no aspegers, people go through the "Oblivion" dialogue options in life. Social awkwardness is in everyone. My cat even has it. Honestly, my cat goes through much worse in social communication than someone with aspergers. I don't know if my cat wants food, wants to go outside, or anything since all I can understand is "meow".

DataB4:
Relationships are definitely a two-way street. It is difficult to be as considerate as I'd like to of the things I don't know about that are going on in other people's lives which will influence their moods. I had a kind of interesting conversation with my ex last night and it felt like the first time in a while where we were both being authentic. She told me that she feels like she could easily get sucked back into our relationship but that it would consume her so she can't. I think that has kind of tied together some of what I have been intuiting and wondering about what is going on. I know that neither of us have responded to what has been happening in the best way but I still love her more than I can comprehend so.. I told her that I understand and am proud of her for doing what feels right and that if there is a time in the future when it doesn't feel like it would consume her that I'll be here. Now I just need to get better at giving her as much space as she needs while being there to listen if she wants to talk to me and to be as supportive as I can.

As far as the music stuff goes, I do play a lot of covers of other people's music but no one that I was in a group with was interested in doing that much. It seems like a pretty fun way to build a performance dynamic in my opinion but I guess everyone I worked with so far was more interested in having original stuff and becoming popular for original stuff.

I guess that even though I focus a lot on one topic at a time kind of, I don't feel like it really keeps me from following through with commitments to other people. Social interactions sort of exist on a separate plane for me than my other interests do where I am interested in interacting with people regularly throughout each cycle of my interest change. I don't interact with people a lot but when I do make plans with someone I do them - though sometimes anxiety causes me to be a little late.

I agree quite a lot that meaning enhances the good times as much as the bad. I think that happiness for its own sake is not what I want out of life, I would prefer to work towards contributing as much growth to humanity and the biological life on Earth in general as I can, though that seems difficult to do at all..

I will try the gratitude exercise you mentioned. Writing things out clearly and in detail is something I have been trying to do more lately and it seems pretty helpful.


colina/Old Professor:
First off, your post is showing up for me. I see four copies of it.

I'm not sure if you can change from colina to Old Professor but if you click on Account Settings in the upper right corner of this website and then click on the blue Edit Profile button, it will show you fields that you can and can't edit. You can't change your username but you can change your first name and your "nickname" perhaps if you change your nickname to Old Professor it will let you select that from the drop down menu below those text fields where it says "Display name publicly as".

I would be fine with reading the rough draft of your announcement, even though I am male, and respond with my reaction including emotional response rather than just thoughts.

If you decide that you'd prefer to send the announcement by other means, I would be fine with using email or something. Also would be fine with just reading it here. Whatever works.

Your crisp instruction for--possibly changing colina feels supportive. Thanks. I'll try it after I clear up the problem of not seeing my posts. I just wrote to our thread's ?coordinator asking if Zach's post about useless guidance, 15$ charge, unknown university, and advice about just quit fussing and realize everyone is like you. A form mailed to me by our ?moderator mentioned spam. Whew. Interesting first experience on a forum. I've been called names in the media for years about our work with "Giving Psychology Away", but never called a spammer. Funny.

I'll keep u informed.

Sure, lets do some non-public communication so I can send you the draft before we post it on WP. Please start the process.
Our work will be for anyone on (or almost on) the spectrum. Right now I need 3-6 specific bright people regardless of gender. My staff has pushed me to get involved at a grass-roots level--as I've done in past projects. Thus WP, and you, my first promising contact.

DataB4 has reached out trying to help u with nice thinking, warmth, non-pushy ideas, and some constancy. When I howled about site malfunction, she rushed in with hypotheses. M'thinks this woman has some strong personal helper genes. She might be interested in joining my hour-per-month (an under-estimate) "Development Team".

DataB4, Can we discuss the possibility?

To both: Your help in bringing me into this forum process is valuable. My son is one of those super geeks that publishes research on internet social organization, but cannot help me cope on a forum.

Hope this gets posted.

Colina, I'll send you a PM to connect about the project. As for self-actualization, the concept makes sense. How do humanistic psychologists deal with the issue of finding meaning, practically speaking?

Regeniversity, I apparently misunderstood the part of your post where you were talking about your interests getting in the way, thought you meant they were getting in the way of your schedule also. As for stuff getting in the way of creativity, I can definitely relate to that. I'm not as creative when I'm the most anxious, depressed, or preoccupied. I rarely feel inspired to write anything for fun anymore, and I'd love to change that.

Thanks again for helping.

How do we approach "meaning practically". First we struggle with what it is for an individual. It's an existential concept that scholars define inadequately.
Most people approach thinking about the absence of meaning which is a key for thinking about depression. I can tell u more if u tell me how you're using the concept.[ Damn, typing impossibly slow.] I'll try to finish this when WP behaves: they announce it's temporarily offline.
Try answering my hard question, and I'll search for a clip that begins describing the experience of meaninglessness--if that's where you're going.

Please assume my personal geekiness is , in some ways, opposite of most folks on the spectrum. I'm typical or slightly disabled with cognitive techy thinking, but born with a penchant for seeing interpersonal process--human connection, moment-to-moment. "Seeing" =visual representations of conversation, verbal sentences. That's what I professor about.

So, how do we do PMs? Please dont worry about talking with baby steps, like I'm doing with you about meaning.

Communication is so much easier for me via email or skype.

Old Professor, you're better off writing your posts elsewhere, and then copying and pasting them into the forum.

I'm asking about how humanistic psychologists help people discover or create more meaning in their lives. I'm not really asking about the absence of meaning, although talking about its absence could just be a more negative way of framing the same issue.

Since different people define meaning differently at different times, I'm thinking you probably have each person define it for themselves and go from there, right? You must see themes though:
Contemplating life purposes, big dreams, or visions
Creating or influencing change in self, others, or systems
Considering how one's words/actions can make a difference in someone's life
Connecting to other people through shared purpose, feelings, or experiences
Achieving or creating something, or overcoming challenges
Connecting seemingly meaningless mundane tasks to goals or values
Realizing the value in one's work and/or adding value
Using religious faith or ethical principles to live a more purposeful life
Realizing and creating other opportunities to help people or animals

I'm not sure I understood the rest of your message. Are you saying that you're more intuitive than analytical? Also, what do you mean by visualizing conversations? As a blind person, I won't be able to see your diagrams or other representations, but I'm curious about the concept.

Regeniversity, if at any point this discussion becomes too much for your thread, please speak up.

Please do discuss as much as you want about whatever you want on this thread. I only wish I had more to contribute that wasn't necessarily related to myself but I am not sure how to do that with any amount of confidence since my perception is all I know.

That said, my thoughts on meaning are generally related to purpose and.. importance in the context of making pain worthwhile or giving reason to the experiencing of unpleasant things.
Like for me it feels like "why stay alive when I feel miserable 90% of the time? Well, there is a greater good to be attended to than my emotions." That is my meaning.

I guess to me it seems that the themes you described would sort of be contained in that quest for purpose/reason for living.

Old Professor, I sent you a PM which you can get to by clicking on the "x new messages" link in the top right corner of the website, next to where it says "My Account". I provided my email in that message in case you would prefer to communicate that way.

Many social psychology studies have proved that people remember what they believe, not pure reality.

Sometimes they believe things which is not reality (interpretation), sometimes they add details, sometimes we retrieve some, sometimes they remember just opposite from reality... Sometimes, they mix former souvenirs with recent ones, and they are able to invent some (believing firmly it IS the truth), especially when emotionally charged. Some more than others.

It upsets me sometimes as well when it happens However, you can see it as a good way to know what they believe, their deep certitudes about reality, how they perceive it.

Imagination is typically human. It has its good and bad sides

Perception vs. reality is a really strange and confusing topic because there is no way to verify anything beyond perception so you can never know if you are the one adding things that didn't happen or maybe you're not adding things that didn't happen but you just literally experienced something different than the other person. Even though it seems there is a reality beyond perception, there is literally no way that I could ever know if that's true.

This is why it bothers me to such extreme extents when I don't understand what I have done that causes other people pain or, as in this context, what caused her to become disconnected from me. If I don't understand what the other person's perception of me was, how can I adapt? How can I go on interacting with people without being able to identify what I've done to cause them to perceive things or what role I've played that resulted in interpersonal problems in the past? It seems reasonable that I would react to this by further isolating myself - though of course I still try to interact with others because I am weak and selfish.

It is very unclear to me how to determine what someone else perceived based on how they acted when their actions are very inconsistent. It is even more difficult to determine what I did that resulted in what they perceived when they won't even discuss it with me.

I started writing something the other night. It is kind of supposed to be ironically Dostoyevsky-ish but for a bit more contemporary of a setting. I think this shows some of the ways that I fundamentally differ from a lot of people in terms of views and language.


Free will is an oxymoron

Freedom: that acclaimed grandiosity that so many of my peers throw themselves over the edge for. To be free of pain and to live with ease; to take each moment as good and just and to see each thing as love and stardust. This is the dream of the weak. Oh I have been so weak, let me tell you, weaker than maybe any of the others I've known. But I - and likely you - have also a strength that sustains, perhaps occasionally misdirected, which sours hard at such a strong dream to be free. The opposition inside me, “you are not a creature to be free! To be free is to be nothing!” it implored, for years my mind only seeing it addressed to what drives me. It is because of such weakness I have that I now see the weakness in that dream. Even in this moment I feel splotches about me which whisper that it would be so good to be unattached; I feel those whispers of surrender. There is purpose above all else to be attended, that attention which throws us under heavy blow after heavy blow. Us as the world is a destructive way to move when we are so many weak through and through. What are we weak by? Well, that ferocious knowing of heavy blow after heavy blow. It is our remaining intellect which predicts the coming pain and tells us early that it will be bad. Bad like the death throes of a closed system. This early warning system and our own complexity locks down fortitude and we trust in numbness to secure passage through such pressure and writhing. Numbness tells us right away that we must find feeling again, but that numbness survives through the dismissal of meaning so the feeling it directs us to is the nearest pleasure.

What purpose could there be that sets such pain inside you where it is felt fully in its badness and thanked? This purpose could be a direction towards the endless horizon. Far off a day when the world sings as one - do not pretend it already does. How can this numbness be avoided? We must accept the prerequisite of contextual influence for individual power to emerge. And I have been so weak; still I only see what I say. My play is still of weakness today, but I see that weakness and I tell it that it is also that context which is creating my power.

This means remains 10% which is not so bad Take the 10% analyse it and make it higher.

If you really have no clue, but you still guess at what people might think of you or what you could've possibly done wrong, then you're creating stories that don't serve you. They don't help you improve your communication. They don't help you feel better about the situation if you don't believe in factors outside your control that could've affected it. Instead, the stories just help you put yourself down, even though they're made up and might have little or no truth to them.

What about "I don't know" as a start to your search for the truth about how you communicate? It seems to me that you've tried your best to figure all this stuff out and you're confused. That makes you a good person who's struggling, so you deserve to still interact with people so that you can improve and work toward building relationships.

Your writing: not sure whether to call it poetic prose, or free verse, or what other words to use? The piece is powerfully, and somewhat darkly, beautiful and nuanced. That complexity also makes it somewhat difficult to take in, but I wouldn't change those qualities. If you did, you'd lose a lot of the beauty of the piece.

It always amazes me how many people actually realize this dream to freely live at ease in the moment, for many, many moments of their lives, without necessarily lacking purpose or drive or goals. It's not really a black-and-white thing, to be free or not to be, even for those of us who tend not to live in the moment as often as we'd like. I feel that we can still give ourselves permission to feel this freedom in the moment, at least some of the time, because all our concerns or responsibilities or regrets will still be there when we're done. There are so many times in life when we can do nothing to address them. When we know that in our hearts and let go of the effort, I feel we can experience a measure of the freedom your piece described.

Or feel free to just cross out that last paragraph if I've totally misunderstood the point of your piece.

Hi Regeniversity. How's it going?

I definitely don't think that feeling free is the same thing as having freedom and I don't think anyone can ever be free to any degree other than the degree to which they are random.

It is going over here like it usually does. pretty unpleasant, lonely, and overflowing with toxicity!

make sure to attach your earlobes to your fingernail clipping jar so that it can flit and flutter and fly aaaaaall around the penguin shed. I don't know how to type the sound of metal scratching against whatever makes the loudest possible scratching sound while scratching against it.