Being a Well-Rounded Individual.

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Yes, I am at the point in my life where I have two pursuits to which I dedicate my life. I know everybody is different, and everyone with AS is different. I respect the fact that you are a late-bloomer, and thus, my early-bloomer needs are the opposite of yours. I suppose then that my post doesn't really apply to you. If you really don't know what you want to do until late in life, or you just like to be well-rounded and have diverse interests, than I guess you might be happier with the current status quo. However, I already knew who I was and what I liked by the time I was 10, so doing things that didn't matter to me felt superfluous at best. I knew, when I was 10, that I would never in a million years be a mechanic, so having to do 1 year of shop and 1 year of auto-mech. was a waste of my time. My parents did not recognize that I was different from the herd in this way and would not let me, even though I pleaded with them, to focus on the things I liked.

I know that when one goes to college, then he can finally focus on being a specialist, but I think that the time to develop skill and talent is in the childhood years when the brain is still pliable.

Some people may not like it, but I do only the things that I want to do and I don't care what anyone says. I will become one of the greatest legal minds of my generation and I also enjoy bodybuilding. I also dabble in playing the piano. By the time I am done with my main pursuits for the day, I have little time left for extraneous social stuff or other hobbies. Soon, people will recognize my abilities and will no longer hassle me to do perfunctory rituals of assimilation into society, since I will have distanced myself from the PLAIN. Trying to fit in with my peers has never been of any import to me and as a boy I did not care if I had any friends; I merely wanted others to leave me be. Being good at something can preclude oneself from having to be a social individual, if one is good enough at what he does to merit solitude. My goal is to separate and elevate myself as far from the herd as possible, not to run with them.

No need to be concerned specifically about the public education system. To quote Dr. Robert Stadler from Atlas Shrugged "Well what do you expect when you're dealing with people?"

You're different; people fear that. They want more of the same; and that includes turning you into it.

I don't care how many PSAs say otherwise, that's what people want. That's how they've always been; stupid as ever.


And just so you know, my life is action figures. When I was 12, my Grandma convinced my mom to yank them out of my hands, citing "you're too mature for these!"

while it didn't help in my developing my love and interest of them, they couldn't keep me away long term from them, and when I officially got back into them like...3 years later, I made a new rule regarding my toys "you touch 'em, you die".

To be fair, I no longer really play with them; I kinda wasn't even that into doing it when I was 10, let alone 12. I tried doing some Mortal Kombat-styled fights with them, and it just seemed lame.

I'm mostly a major collector now( aside from a retail website owner), and I just display them...not to mention having pictures of 1/3 of my collection on my MySpace and Facebook accounts.

My dad is 50 and he loves Hot-Wheels and his Batman collectables and whatnot. I'm not really into any action figures or anything.

My parents would always tick me off and try and limit the amount of time I would spend on anything. In my mind, they were determined not to let me get good at anything by being able to focus on anything. They instead wanted me to have many small little dalliances and be very socially adept. I still think that when you have people multitask, it prevents them from being able to focus on anything; keeping people impossibly busy and occupied keeps them from causing trouble.

I think that there was the "Non-conformist window" in American society between about 1965 and 1975, leading up to the Me Generation of the 80's in which it began to become acceptable in some circles to be unique. Between 1945 and 1965 the major sentiment in our society was for conformity until the latter such reactions. It seems though that for the last couple of decades we have swung back to being a more uniformly conformist society, and the sectionalism of the country is becoming more uniform as a whole. In 1995, there was a major spike of conformity in the school system and a rapid paradigm shift in style and expression, namely the real start of corporate advertisment on clothing. This phenomeon rapidly rekindled reclustering of groups based on socio-economic status, especially in the schools. To put it simply, students who could not afford some of the new designer outfits were left out of previously accepted spheres. This trend has continued throught the last 10 years.

To see me on the street, one would think me normal and conformist until they actually met me. I don't feel the need to display visible signs of non-conformity. I feel that most kids today such as "goths" who say that they are being non-conformist are actually conforming to a smaller subgroup, but they don't really realize it. Corporations tell these misguided people, "If you buy our outfits, you can feel like you belong somewhere." I just wear typical outfits, clothes that are comfortable, and no one would ever suspect that I had AS until they spoke to me. It is only when they meet me that they realize how atypical I really am.

I can see where that would be frustrating. I seem to have missed out on the whole "special interest" thing, so I just float in a sea of tepid interest and shallow motivation.

I'm glad you've found a place. Maybe someday I will too.

Personally, I don't agree that the school system attempts to create "well-rounded" individuals. The whole point and structure of the public education system was laid down during the Industrial Revolution, modified slightly in the Post-War Era, and hasn't changed much since then -- to create a moderately-educated workforce capable of moderate- and low-skill labour. Secondary eduction is where you begin to focus on a particular field or vocation.

I also disagree that heavy speciallization is a good thing. Very few people will be able to become an expert in more than one particular field; but there's no reason not to branch out and expand one's experience beyond one's narrow specialization. Society today is becoming too specialized, with people really unable to understand how the world works outside of their extremely limited range of interests. Being a well-rounded individual with at least a moderate amount of experience in many different fields is a noble and useful undertaking. It's not something that people can be forced to be, but it's a goal well worth pursuing. I've found that even subjects that I had absolutely no desire to learn began to interest me once I began investigating them and how they fit together with the things that did interest me. One of my overriding passions is learning. I want to know everything there is to know, and I cannot imagine the sort of mindset that would resist learning.

I can go on about this sort of thing endlessly; but I'll just leave off here with a couple of my favorite quotes:

"There ain't nuthin' so stupid as an educated man, if you get him off the subject he was educated in." -- Will Rogers Jr.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -- Robert. A. Heinlein

Well, first off, I don't think "those corporations" are trying to get people to conform any more than the school systems..or just humanity.

The whole thing about corporations is an attempt to take down capitalism, and while I'm no fan of that attempt--being a free market capitalist--it doesn't surprise me, considering what I know about humanity.

Luchog, I hate to bring this to your attention, but no one ever seems to understand how the world works, except for a very select few.

I totally disagree that being well-rounded is really that great. As someone once described it "jack of all trades, not good at any of 'em".

I mean, if you're more interested in seeing a lot more moderately successful people engaging in mediocrity that's fine.

I'd rather see a few more very successful people engaging in revolutionary amazement.

Same here. Too bad being the worst at selling yourself is not a competitive sport. I'd win something for a change.

I wouldn't win, because I wouldn't bother to enter.

I remember thinking, in elementary school, that I didn't care whether the teacher knew that I knew the answer to whatever question he was asking. I had no interest in impressing other people by appearing to be smart and talented.

Now, I've realized that (a) getting ahead in the world is all about impressing other people, and (b) due to being a child who didn't care about impressing people, I've become an adult who doesn't even know how.

Also, (c) aside from recognizing that impressing people might get me things that I want, I'm still not interested.

I just don't understand why everything has to be a competition.

Actually, the trick to impressing them is knowing how they think; and if you don't want to concern yourself with impressing them, go into a field where you really don't have to: like copyrighting!

I own my own business, as I mentioned here all the time, and while I do have to impress people, it's usually either by phone or email, which is a lot easier I assure you than in person!

That sounds good. Could you use a partner or an assistant? I could send you my resume.

At the moment I actually have a partner, but when we expand our operations, I'll drop you a line-- and rest assured, I will

I know impressing people is about telling them your achievements and making it sound like you're good at something. When I talk about some of the things I've done, I feel like a pretentious intellectual poser. So I don't like doing it.

A friend once told me that, compared to her other friend, I was smarter but talked less about how smart I was. I consider this to be one of the nicest compliments I've ever gotten.

What's copyrighting?

I feel the same way and I really stink at it. Still, I somehow figured out that it is necessary and make what pathetic effort I can.

My son, on the other hand, doesn't get it. He's about to graduate from HS and I can't get him to write a simple resume. He's done some good stuff that's worth mentioning, but he says, "If I'm applying for a stupid cashier job at BlockBuster, what do they care about CISCO networking or what I did during my internship..."

If someone can figure out a way to explain it, I'm all ears.

You know, I think the math is against us.

Most people inflate their accomplishments, adding X%. Listeners know this, and automatically subtract X% from how awesome the speaker claims to be.

People who aren't good at selling themselves deflate their accomplishments, so we don't add X% and instead subtract Y%.

I also read a paper that showed that the people who are most competent in a given area, don't realize how competent they are, and underestimate their abilities by an average of Z%.

Thus, when I tell someone about my accomplishments, what they hear is my actual skill level minus Y% which I subtracted from myself, minus X% which the listener subtracts even though I didn't add it, (minus Z% if I'm actually really good), which equals something much less than my True Sum of Awesomeness.

The winners will be the people who inflate themselves by more than X%, in proportion to how incompetent they are.

As for your son, there must be some crossover equation in which perceived competence in one area increases perceived competence in another area... but I'm bad at math and haven't figured it out yet.

Guys, you already know the majority of socialization is fraud and deceit, and you basically just keep implying it without realizing it. You're basically just stating what you're already more than aware of...and at times it appears that you're wishing you weren't aware of it.

Not exactly. It's more complicated than that, although it's still pretty repulsive. But what else can you do? Either you find a way to make it work, or you live in a tarp under a bridge.