Microstory 729: Credos, Convention Four: Cordiality

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The boy lifted his foot from the canister, fearful of letting it touch the ground, but ultimately finding it to be safe. The brilliant sparkle of the magic water remained intact. He placed his other foot in the fourth canister, and watched the story. There was another boy, on a far away world , who was different than most others. Everyone around him complained that he was too quiet, as if their lives were somehow not complete without his spoken words. They urged him to be more active, to participate in conversations. But these conversations did not interest him, and he could not understand how anyone appreciated them. For they were not real conversations. They did not stimulate the mind, nor solve a problem, nor help someone get through a terrible situation. They were, quite literally, meaningless. They would speak of the weather, as if any of them had any valuable insight into the matter. They would talk of...well, mostly the weather. They apparently had few other ideas for conversation. They were uncomfortable with silence, and would have to fill it with something, be it ever prosaic.

The boy was completely fine with silence, and was content to sit in it without saying a single word. He would mostly only speak when spoken to, and would keep his responses short and concise. His family would tell him, “that the people around you are engaging in small talk, does not mean they do not have more important thoughts as well, or that they are somehow intellectually stunted.” But he did not believe this. How could anyone knowingly appear to be so trivial? That is a paradox. Anyone aware of this in themselves would immediately alter their behavior. But if they could do that, they were not truly trivial in the first place, were they? No, that they choose to say nothing while never ceasing is irrational, but not in a good way. And the boy was not going to give into the pressure to fit in. But then the boy grew up, and like many others, had to go and seek gainful employment. Before anyone would hire him, they first had to speak with him in an interview, and though he was fully qualified, he would always fail this task. They wanted to ask him about his experience and education, yes, but they also wanted to be dumb and unproductive. That was somehow enjoyable to them. And so the young man sought advice from his parents once more. “I am sorry that I did not listen to you. I did not learn how to fit in. I don’t understand small talk, and now I fear it is too late. What am I to say to these people who are responsible for my livelihood?” And his family smiled upon him and said simply, “fake it”. And so he did, and he found this to be easy, for it turns out the people really were as mindless as he believed. It was easy to trick them. All he had to do...was be cordial, and they would think he genuinely cared about their thoughts on the weather.

Microstory 225: Perspectives (Introduction)

What the hell is happening here?

There is an old expression that goes something like “judge not a man before walking a mile in his shoes”. I say it’s an old expression, and fail to provide you with a proper source, because there does not appear to be one. Many have attempted to pinpoint its origin, to no avail. Regardless of where it came from, there is a lot of wisdom in its words. I was recently diagnosed with autism, and this opened my eyes—not to how I see the world, since I already understand this—but to how others may see me. I’ve always been “the weird one”. I’m extremely quiet and reserved. I generally speak only when spoken to, not because I submit to others, but because I see little reason to communicate unless we’re trying to accomplish something. Whenever you talk about the weather, or your other aglets of conversation, I just cannot relate. I’m not saying that every conversation you have must be all business, or that I don’t want to hear your anecdotes. It’s just that my brain isn’t wired for appropriate response, and my default reaction is silence. Though I did not know my specific mental condition, I grew up having a pretty decent grasp of who I was. I developed coping mechanisms to function in the world. It’s still easy to notice how strange I am, but I can get through a sentence, if need be. I can convey information, if need be. It may be more difficult for me, and it causes a huge amount of stress and anxiety for me, but I’ve become surprisingly good at faking it. Sometimes, I even convince myself that I’m human. If I acted the way my brain is constantly demanding me to, however, I wouldn’t have so much as gotten through middle school.

I’m not telling you this so that you’ll treat me differently, or stop judging me. That’s not going to happen. I’m at this sweet spot on the spectrum where people can tell that there’s something wrong with me, but they still think that I should be able to “get over it” and “act normal”. I’ve accepted this, and I know that the only way I’m going to survive is to pretend to be a neurotypical. I don’t know that I could raise much awareness about this one specific issue, mainly because I’ve not researched it as much as I probably should. Instead, what I’m going to do is spend the next 74 microstories trying to give you—what’s the word...perspective. Each installment is going to be told from the point of view of a different person. I’ve not thought much about the kind of people I’ll be profiling, but I feel the need to note that any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This is still microfiction, and even though I occasionally open a door through the fourth wall, I do not intend to tear it down completely. Except for the 100 stories coming after this series. I’ve not yet decided how those are going to work. Lastly, my Word Origin of the Day entries will temporarily step aside to make room for Name Origin of the Days.

Enjoy, and please...keep an open mind.

Perspective One

Microstory 72: Aglets of Conversation

The other day, my shoelace broke. I pulled it out and tried relacing it, but found myself doing it horrifyingly wrong. How I managed that, I will never know, but it reminded me of the concept of aglets of conversation. An aglet is a small piece of plastic that is fitted around the end of a shoelace to keep it from fraying. You’ve seen them. You know what I’m talking about. Much like a literal aglet, an aglet of conversation is something that is very important to one that owns it, but means very little to others else. It is a story, or a piece of information, or a musing that is only relevant to the person who expresses it. A certain microblogging social media service is full of these. We all have our own aglets, but the trick is to keep them to ourselves. Every time you try to bring other people into your aglet crisis, you will lose them. Let’s say you try to tell a story about how your shoelace broke. In the middle of it, you realize how disinterested the person you’re talking to is. That’s because it’s your shoelace, and it must remain yours alone. Don’t bring up your aglets in a conversation. Don’t talk about aglets of conversation, because aglets of conversation is an aglet of conversation. Can you imagine an entire paragraph that talks about nothing else but aglets? Why, it would be no better than a paragraph with only a few words, repeated over and over and over and over and over and over.