Need a piece of advice on a bothersome dilemma!

Post Reply New Topic

Hi.

I have always desired a happy life, and of course I still do. I'm worth too much to not get a happy life. At this point I am not unhappy, but cannot claim to be completely happy either.

It took some time, but I have finally concluded that life is only about survival/existence which implies natural selection. So that is what we are all doing in our everyday lives (or should be doing to be considered mentally healthy, at least): trying to do as well as possible in the game of natural selection of life. Happiness simply equals doing well in the selection game.

The autistic side of me is, however, fundamentally against this selection game. I guess that is what is considered to be so bad about autism.

Being honest with myself I know that it is the autistic side of me that I truly love, and that that side of me is the reason why I believe I deserve to be happy.

So the net result is that because I love my autistic self, I have to act completely non-autistic, because that is the only way you can achieve happiness in this world.



(1) Do any of you guys have the same dilemma?

(2) If so, how do you deal with it?

(3) If not, how do you think I should deal with it?


Thanks in advance. Means a lot to me.

what? You must achieve happiness by being / accepting yourself. That is the only way.

Not entirely sure if this is what you're looking for, but I'll post it anyway.

You mean if anyone thinks about the purpose of life and how to be happy? I think everyone does. Some turn to religion for answers, others don't. I personally don't think that there's any purpose to life at all. As a species there is the goal to remain on top of the food chain but I don't think that there's a purpose to the existance of our (or any other) species.

Why does your autistic side dislike the selection game? Is it because of the hurdles it presents when trying to do well or because you feel as if the autistic genes are "bad"? Or something else entirely?

You don't have to act non-autistic to do well in natural selection. Natural selection IMO is about every individual trying to get on top and spread their genes. Perhaps people having more autistic traits may actually be a good thing in the evolution of our species?

Do you really feel that you must do well at the selection game to become happy? I personally don't think that happiness should rely on what you've done for the species as a whole. It should come from living the life you want, doing the things that you like doing and sharing it with people you like. IMO doing well in the selection game should not be your main priority in life.

This

I agree with you.

My problem is that those two things seem to contradict each other.

Life is fundamentally nothing but natural selection. The genes of the strong individuals are passed on, while the genes of the weak indviduals are not. In order for that to happen a selection process has to be carried out. This selection process is what we refer to as life. This is basically what you are doing in your everyday life, whether you are aware of it or not.

If you are strong enough nature is going to reward you with happiness, which ensures that it is more likely your genes will be passed on to the next generations.

If you are too weak nature is going to punish you with depression, which ensures that it is more likely your genes will not be passed on to the next generations.


My true "self" (the autistic side of me) is very much against this construction. Nature states that the strong individuals are those who are most selfish (maybe they think of others, but only if it in the end benefits themselves). Nature also states that the weak individuals are those who are the least selfish (thinking too much of others instead of oneself). Autistic people fall in the last category, and that is why so many of them are depressed. It is nature's way of "getting rid of the unwanted gene-pool". (It sounds rough, but that is how nature really is - why hide it?).


So my autistic side is very much against this construction of having to think egoistically (only thinking of others if it benefits myself). But at the same time I love my autistic self to not become happy. This means that I have to just play along the rules of nature and act much more selfishly than the autistic side of me really wants to. If I do not act that selfishly I am simply not going to be happy, according to the rules of nature.

I am curious as to why you don't experience this inner conflict?

My autistic side is very caring. It's as if I'd prefer to care more about others than myself. I like to care about others. I would like it was appreciated to be honest, open, sincere. But it is not.

The selection game states that the more selfishly you think, the more are you rewarded (hence the more happy are you going to be). The more you care the more are you punished. This is completely opposite of the autistic side of me.




I refer to selection game in a very wide sense. Doing well in the selection game really is equivalent to being happy.

If you eat enough, you are going to be more happy than if you don't.
If you sleep enough, you are going to be more happy than if you don't.
If your social skills are well developed, you are going to be more happy than if they are not.

When you are happy, it is really just because you are doing well in the selection game. It might not be apparent, but if you look it through, you will see that is what is happening.

People are more happy when they work, because it essentially is to become a good provider for oneself and one's family. This is an important survival skill, so nature rewards you for that with happiness.

People are more happy when they love others and are loved others, because it means you are part of a well functioning group. This is an important survival skill, so nature rewards you for that with happiness.

etc. etc.

It is really not something I feel. It is just how nature is.



When you are doing these things you are exactly doing well in the selection game of life. It might just not be very apparent.

I know one should just come to terms with this selection game by "living the life you want, doing the things that you like doing and sharing it with people you like", but my autistic side has a problem with it. The part of me that I truly love. It is as if nature I trying to tell me I should not love the part of me that I actually love. I just cannot accept it.

One should probably just think less about it. This would just amount to loving autistic self, but acting completely non-autistic.

In general people have this "participate in the natural selection game"-program naturally built in and activated. They are (most often?) not aware that that is what they are doing.

I have had to find out that life really is nothing but this selection game, and afterwards put that program "on".

From my point of view the purpose of life could have been many other things, but now I know it is only natural selection (and that has MANY disguises in the form of work, friendships, girl/boy-friends, work, play, sports etc. basically almost everything that people find meaning in).

You like the autistic side of your personality.

But the autistic side of your personality cripples your survival in society.

I think thats what you're saying.

Everyone on this site is in something like that bind.

You have to do what you need to do to survive- in jobs, school, whatever.

Usually that means going against your autistic nature and apeing NT's, but sometimes you can build on your autistic traits as well. Everyone has to do what they have to do - build on talents, compensate for weaknesses, and 'assume virtues if you have them not" even nt's.

Natural selection is not the purpose of life. As far as I know, life and everything were created without purpose. So you get to choose the purpose of your own life.

I am happy about your enthusiasm, but at the same time unhappy to disappoint you.

The "creating your own purpose in life"-thinking is a survival tactic meant to make it more likely that you will participate in the selection game of life as you are meant to do.

So if we don't go all the way to the bottom I agree with you. I we do go all the way to the bottom, there is only survival and a selection process of the gene pool.

I agree with you completely on the selection game and I don't participate in the "game" at all as I am very much against how people view success.

I don't find meaning in these things as normal people do. So no I do not experience this inner conflict.

Those people you describe as being normal and happy think all too primitively and that they need to live large and selfish to be happy. Grow with your mind through education or otherwise and you will find happiness. Fight against natural selection and you will find an interesting road in life less traveled where you can grow the free part of yourself, the one that is not controlled by your ancient hardwired instincts.

Last edited by Dreycrux on 16 Feb 2013, 4:17 pm, edited 2 times in total.

You are on spot. Exactly what I mean. Maybe I should have chosen a simple explanation as yours

The world basically says that the part of me I really love deeply, is actually very wrong.

I was born to act un-selfishly, but the world demands I act selfishly in order to survive. It is an ongoing inner dilemma inside me.

How do you come to piece with this? How can one accept something is completely wrong, if it deep inside of you is the thing you really believe in and love?

That argument overlooks the difference between what Dawkins calls the replicator (in his analysis the gene) and the vehicle (the individual). A gay marriage does not benefit the replicator, not if both partners are faithful, because genes are much less likely to be passed on to the next generation. The marriage may benefit the individuals a lot. Send me a pm if you want me to look up references for a more extensive argument.


A common misconception, but that doesn't make it any less wrong. Darwin already disagreed with that notion, Kropotkin wrote a whole book about the evolutionary benefits of cooperation in the late nineteenth century (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4341 and http://librivox.org/mutual-aid-a-factor-of-evolution-by-peter-kropotkin/) and the evolution of cooperation has been its own research field at least since the 1980s. Books for the general public are Frank's Passions within Reason, Ridley's The Origins of Virtue and Shermer's The Science of Good and Evil.


That is based on an oversimplified conception of evolution that can be traced back to the essay in which Huxley coined the phrase "nature red in tooth and claw" and to Spencer's ideas of social Darwinism, which was rich gits trying to find scientific justification for the stratified society that kept them on top. It does not logically follow from evolutionary theory and it is inconsistent with empirical data. In short, this is not scientifically tenable. Science does not force you down that path.

Last edited by Gromit on 16 Feb 2013, 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think this conclusion is flawed. Existence is implied in life.

Natural selection is a mechanism which has some influence on which individuals come to exist. (Another mechanism which influences which individuals come to exist is chance.)

You have made it through the gauntlet of natural selection and have come to exist; you have life, autistic side and all. You have managed to survive so far. You will die just as the fittest among us will.

Life in the universal sense is immense and it precedes the mechanism of natural selection in time.

What is life about? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's about more than the mechanism of natural selection.

Last edited by MountainLaurel on 16 Feb 2013, 3:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think what he is trying to say is that "natural selection" is not a purpose for anything. It is merely an emergent construct from the interactions of cause and effect in the external environment.

Without clear purpose and no determinant to the future except cause and effect (unless you turn to religious explanations), life purpose becomes purely vacuous from an external perspective. However, there still lies the existential, internal perspective, of which we have far more conscious control over.

To be and accept yourself is merely to not place blame on the mental construct of "yourself" for actions and events that occurred external to "yourself". Your genetic, biological makeup (which includes autism) was not chosen by you, and thus "yourself" had no effect on it. Coming to this psychological understanding is one of many steps to accepting "yourself" and not placing any blame on it.

Wow, thanks for all the competent answers.

But we should not fool ourselves. We can object against this "natural selection"-game all we want. It is not going to change the fact that we face that game every single day, each one of us.

Everytime you put food in your mouth or go to bed, you participate in the game. Eating makes you a better survivor, so does sleeping.

It is only a matter of how much one participates in the game. We all do it to some degree.

The less you participate in the game the more is mother nature going to punish you for it.

I guess the answer to the original question just is to participate in the survival-game because one loves the autistic part of oneself. It is, however, a contradiction. Because I love one thing, I should act completely oppositely.

One could also turn it around: If you don't participate in the natural-selection-game as well as possible you don't really love your autistic self.