20250727

[2025/07/27, 4:54:47] James: Get the rootblade, not the surface

[2025/07/27, 4:55:22] James: I have a unique opportunity to reprogram myself here

[2025/07/27, 12:01:04] James: Happy I decided against Phuket

[2025/07/27, 12:01:14] James: The money was spent but the time need not be

[2025/07/27, 12:01:23] James: I would rather spend this summer holiday with my boys

[2025/07/27, 12:01:33] James: Moving into a new, quieter house with a park next door

[2025/07/27, 12:01:50] James: Listening to then playing with their schoolmates while I polish knives and contemplate life

[2025/07/27, 12:01:57] James: Just… time to be

[2025/07/27, 12:02:04] James: I’ve rushed around for so long.

[2025/07/27, 12:02:28] James: Even the years we planned to have quiet ended up with 2 large engagements per month; camping and such

[2025/07/27, 12:02:35] James: It’s like the Japanese tourists

[2025/07/27, 12:02:55] James: They have plenty of money but no time so they try to cram 10 days of activities into a week

[2025/07/27, 12:03:08] James: They succeed, and come home more tired than when they left

[2025/07/27, 12:03:23] James: Then you compare it to the Thai beach boys sat in their hammocks

[2025/07/27, 12:04:10] James: They have no money but loads of time. They sit there and soak up the sun, dealing with few things beyond the day

[2025/07/27, 12:04:16] James: I wonder which is happier

[2025/07/27, 12:04:26] James: Nah; it’s obvious

[2025/07/27, 12:04:32] James: This is why we left to cycle Asia after all

[2025/07/27, 12:04:43] James: To get away from the rampant consumerism and comparison of Tokyo

[2025/07/27, 12:04:53] James: To remind ourselves of the quiet way of life

[2025/07/27, 12:05:03] James: This was a decade ago. I had kids. I had work to do.

[2025/07/27, 12:05:14] James: In 5 years I worked enough to hopefully never have to work again

[2025/07/27, 12:05:29] James: I’m not wealthy but neither am I greedy. You don’t need a million dollars to retire.

[2025/07/27, 12:05:33] James: Better too soon than too late

[2025/07/27, 12:08:43] James: .

[2025/07/27, 12:16:48] James: So I’m finding this busy restaurant and the 6 conversations around me quite overwhelming

[2025/07/27, 12:17:09] James: Not like when I was on those medications but still; I don’t like these places and the voices grate.

[2025/07/27, 12:17:34] James: So I’m wearing these loop earplug things

[2025/07/27, 12:18:00] James: They help but now I’ve started humming, quietly to create a pleasant vibration in my head and cut out some of the noise

[2025/07/27, 12:18:08] James: It’s really helping if I’m honest

[2025/07/27, 12:18:16] James: And stroking my meteor of course ha

[2025/07/27, 12:18:54] James: I just look like a guy sat with earphones in. You can’t hear the humming. But for me I have a way to regulate in a public place while people are talking away

[2025/07/27, 12:19:02] James: I do wish they’d shut up though

[2025/07/27, 12:19:21] James: I’m one of the loudest when I’m on one, so I can’t complain really

[2025/07/27, 12:20:06] James: But I struggle with conversation that lacks meaning. I find it illogical and stressful. I’d rather just not have the niceties to be honest.

[2025/07/27, 12:20:26] James: Maybe this is what people mistake for lack of empathy

[2025/07/27, 12:20:31] James: But it’s just lack of normalcy

[2025/07/27, 12:21:13] James: And calling me unempathetic is very unempathetic of you

[2025/07/27, 12:21:14] James: .

[2025/07/27, 12:30:02] James: I should probably write about empathy soon

[2025/07/27, 12:30:15] James: I was told I lack it, which was quite the shock, but I think I misunderstood empathy

[2025/07/27, 12:30:35] James: My understanding was that it was a one-on-one thing and you should try to imagine you’re in their shoes.

[2025/07/27, 12:31:04] James: But I think the general understanding is more like ‘pretend to be the imagined social norm so that people feel normal in their emotions’

[2025/07/27, 12:31:15] James: My emotions are evidently not normal in this regard

[2025/07/27, 12:31:27] James: This isn’t empathy anyway. It’s fucking acting.

[2025/07/27, 12:31:31] James: It’s pretend. Fake

[2025/07/27, 12:32:17] James: I often feel empathy to a painful degree, but I maybe struggle to express it because my brain processes logic before emotion

[2025/07/27, 12:32:36] James: So me trying to solve your problem is me empathising

[2025/07/27, 12:32:56] James: And you … well … if you are trying to empathise with me and talk about emotions, you’re probably just making me more stressed

[2025/07/27, 12:33:08] James: Basically it should be a meeting in the middle between person A and person B

[2025/07/27, 12:33:23] James: Not A and B pretending to gravitate toward some imagined norm.

[2025/07/27, 12:39:47] James: Yeah it seems a bit unfair to drag an autistic person into crowded spaces and expect empathy afterward. Just simple exhaustion makes it hard. And I think my life to date was me denying that these places bothered me, denying empathy to the self.

[2025/07/27, 15:29:19] James: .

[2025/07/27, 15:29:23] James: This is very strange.

[2025/07/27, 15:29:28] James: I slept for about 90 minutes

[2025/07/27, 15:29:30] James: Broken

[2025/07/27, 15:29:32] James: Ish

[2025/07/27, 15:29:43] James: Waking up feeling like I have a new worldview each time

[2025/07/27, 15:29:54] James: Like the sleep is removing the stains of my old programming

[2025/07/27, 15:29:58] James: But..

[2025/07/27, 15:30:02] James: Is it real?

[2025/07/27, 15:30:06] James: I’ll go find my family

[2025/07/27, 15:33:04] James: Well one kid and my dad are here. The rest are on a walk

[2025/07/27, 15:33:16] James: This must just be high levels of neuroplasticity changing who I am

[2025/07/27, 15:33:21] James: But it feels weird as fuck

[2025/07/27, 15:33:34] James: Like that musashi comment wasn’t metaphor

[2025/07/27, 15:33:41] James: But only for a few seconds on waking.

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