Da og influenzas r now unkles, replaced by coolios

We used to be them. Until some (not very smart ones) among us got way too complacent and decided things would always be this way. 

But things changed pretty soon. Social media happened, and it took over everything. Changed the way we communicated, making present forms of communication obsolete and present-day communicators unkles. 

Unkle didn't like change, he never had. Change made him uncomfortable, because adapting to something new meant disrupting a current system. Breaking the wheel, in GoT terminology. 

Unkle's condition didn't not allow it. "No," the condition said, nodding its head, "not gonna happen. Stick with the present system, defend it, fight for it, it'll survive." 

But the coolios were a cool bunch, na. They came along and shoved their coolness into everyone's faces. If you weren't covered in the cool they shovelled, you weren't cool at all, and therefore an unkle. 

So the unkle system went away, because unkles could not defend their system. And the privileges that came with that system slowly started to be bestowed upon the coolio system. 

Travel, free stuff, lots of bhav. 

The coolio system came as a welcome respite for people banking on the unkle system, because the unkles, admittedly, were getting more and more difficult to work with. Once a system is established, and things get comfortable within that system, it's tough to change. 

But the more difficult change seems, the more inevitable it is slowly becoming. 

It is coming for you, if you're revelling in the system, very very slowly at first. But it will swoop down on you like a preying hawk and pick you up by its claws, and soar high up and drop you down like a little pithy mouse. 

Before you know it, a bunch of coolios are where you used to be, setting up a new coolio system that is far easier and better. 

15 years later you think back on the privileges the system bestowed upon you, for however little time, and you lament and moan. 

If only you'd had the foresight to become a coolio soon enough. If only you hadn't defended the unkle system. 

But it doesn't end there, because history repeats itself. The pattern will present itself again, soon enough, giving another bunch of people the chance to become coolios and relegating the current crop of coolios to obsolescence. 

What currently is that aspect where a sense of complacence seems to be setting in? What is the coolio system lacking? 

Unkle's gotta figure this shit out. 

DD vacation edition

The vacations start and we go off to the south. Somewhere in Tamil Nadu, which from where we are is only a couple hours away by road. Over there we go visit someone in a very tall building, like Papon's building in Goregaon. We're upstairs in the apartment for a while, then I come back down to receive someone else and we go back up again. 

But this time we take an elevator that doesn't go up to that exact floor, so we go one level below by lift and walk up a ramp to the floor upstairs. But the ramp is very narrow with not much head space, so I find it hard to wiggle in and make a loud groaning sound which resonates through the floor. The watchman comes running and yells at us for making so much noise. I yell back at him for yelling at us. 

Then we go to the area where all the security guards sit together, and I take a bunch of them in a corner and try to get them on my side by saying how the main guard behaved is definitely not expected of someone from down south. I'm very clearly, unconscionably trying to create a rift on the basis of cultural origin. As it happens, the guards (mostly all female) agree while the chief and some of his cronies (four men) stand a few feet away, their backs to us, ignoring us. The chief is from somewhere in the north. I walk by him and pass a comment taunting him, which he hears but ignores. 

Next we're in an old-school, 90s type movie hall watching some movie. I'm smoking a cigarette in the cinema hall, still livid at the incident, also slightly regretful that I've taken up smoking again. I turn around and spot four of my school friends - all Gujarati - who used to gang up against me in school. I think to myself that I want to get back at them since we're in the south and they're in my territory. Some sadhu type guy with a white beard and in orange robes is walking through the movie hall pausing the movie to call out to all the engineers in the theatre. Just then I stub the cigarette and throw it away. My father is sitting right next to me, but doesn't say anything about the cigarette. 

The movie ends. We get up and start walking out. I'm thinking about who's going to drive back, because I'm feeling super sleepy. I think that the vacations have just started, and there's a long time for school to reopen and so many places to visit in the meanwhile. 

We drive on down to our next destination. I don't see who's driving, but I'm in the backseat of the car and we're passing a line of closed shops. 

Me culture vs we culture

Dr Thomas Armstrong talks about the difference in cultures between the West and East. 

Western cultures are 'me' oriented and show a deep appreciation for individuality and uniqueness. Non-Western cultures are 'we' oriented where an individual is seen in the context of his culture, his tribe. In such cultures, 'me' is not appreciated as much as the person's ability to contextualize their lives into preset culture molds. 

But what when there's no defined culture or tribe around you? Is this why inter-cultural/ inter-faith marriages are discouraged in India? Because it might alienate the couple and consequently their offspring? 

I think cultural alienation is real. Being the product of a Hindu-Christian marriage, I don't relate to either in the context of cultural identity (not religious). Nor do my parents, I think, which is one of the biggest commonalities between them. Stereotyping is reductive, but it does present an honest (sometimes funny) picture of things. 

Do I relate to Christian stereotypes? No. Do I relate to Hindu stereotypes? No. 

Could this just be a thing among children of inter-faith, inter-language marriages? There's such a small 'we' due to the vast cultural difference that exists. Does this also contribute to existing cognitive difference? 

Is easy relatability to culture traits early on in life an indicator of cognitive patterns? 

Alag Hain Kam Nahi - episode 1

It's out! Released ep 1 of Alag Hain Kam Nahi today. And a bunch of people shared, liked and commented, so yay. 

Quite proud of myself and Aditi, honestly. Every last bit of the film is original - right from the idea to the video, the name, the graphic, the music... literally everything. 

Here you go -     

Alag hain kam nahi - opening slate

So here's a very bad quality render of the Alag Hain Kam Nahi opening graphic. 

Releases tomorrow. So kicked!

3 songs in one day

So we turned the Rishabh Birla conversation from Sunday into the first episode of an original IP that we're calling 'Alag Hain Kam Nahi'.

The long-term plan with this IP is to feature more people with neurodiversity and their stories. More writers, musicians, artists, lawyers, doctors... all kinds of people who identify on the ND spectrum.

Also, I'm going to score this series myself, not going to use any music banks. Mainly cuz I'm kind of bored of music banks, but also because these are short episodes and making original soundtrack for them won't be too time consuming. 

For eg, I sat and made three songs for the ST of the first episode, all in one afternoon. Three songs. Never done that before. Two came out pretty well, one is all right, but fits well with the episode portion that it's meant for. 

Going to upload all three songs on IG and SC as soon as the episode is out. 

Rishabh liked the episode. This one is informative, more conversational, unlike the Goa one which was more personal experience + self-discovery + bits of travel. 

This one is also less music-y. Which is neither good nor bad, just different.

Really like the format, though. Hope we're able to consistently do more of these, with more interesting people.

Also, I want to consciously treat this as a video IP rather than a vlog. Will give credits and all at the end, and make it all look like a proper factual series. 

Quite kicked.

In other news, finished Neurodiversity by Thomas Armstrong yesterday. Riveting read. Highly recommended for anyone beginning to explore the world of neurodiversity. 

Have a work meeting in Andheri at 12:30 pm today. For a 2-month-long factual project which starts soon. Read somewhere that the best way to ruin an ADHDer's day is to schedule a meeting at 3:30 pm. 

Hard relate. Lol.  

Day out with Rishabh Birla

Rishabh, Aditi and I at Nutcracker

Meeting someone new for the first time brings with it a fear that's kind of unexplainable. They call it social anxiety. There's that nice feeling of wanting to meet people, wanting to connect, because you're generally so comfortable with being aloof that it comes as a nice change. But that nice feeling is grappling for space with this ever present scare that social expectations will not be met. 

And because of that, you'll be a letdown. 

A disappointment to add to people's endless list of disappointments. 

Like Rishabh puts it: "I've experienced a tapering off of closeness in my friendships... after a while, I see the excitement fizzle out of the people that seemed to connect well with me at first. It leaves me confused." 

I feel him. It's happened to me, too. There was a point earlier on when I met someone new, hit it off well, and then anxiously waited for when they would discover the "real me." Up until then was the 'honeymoon period' of our friendship, when my masking would be at its peak. 

Slowly as the mask unpeeled, the people went further and further away. 

Rishabh Birla is scheduled to meet us below our apartment at 10 am. We've planned a brunch Sunday, and want to get to know him and take him through our plans. Rishabh is smack on time, and calls up Aditi from downstairs saying he's arrived. We ask him to come upstairs. 

We sit in our living room getting to know each other. We're from the same school, both only children, and sons of medical professionals. Quite a bit of common ground to start off on. 

It's not until you've spent time in the presence of another person with a similar neurotype that you realise how often and long you've been masking. 

Aditi, Rishabh and I drive over to town without much of a plan. I know I want to shoot some stuff, some intro bits, a bit of conversation, but I'm also kind of nervous, not really knowing when's a good time to start. 

On our way, we talk lived experiences, anxieties, stims, navigating corporate life... a bunch of topics. We jump from one to the next to the next, without any pressure to segue. Rishabh seems way precocious. He has a rich vocabulary. He's well informed and, contrary to my expectation, not camera shy. He's happy to talk about anything, no judgments. 

I'm finding it both difficult and kind of nice to be completely myself. There's random silences in our conversations, especially when there's a scenery change, and all three of us take a pause, look out the window of the car, absorb everything in silence and come back to the moment. 

The more time you've masked, the more time it takes to become comfortable in your own skin again. 

We go to Nutcracker. I order a kathi roll, Aditi a mac & cheese and Rishabh a soya kheema pav. The food is good, and we're quite hungry, so we eat it all up real fast. We take pictures, and Rishabh and Aditi talk for a while about autistic discovery, expression and cognition. 

I'm recording it and thinking that's good content for the next vlog. 

It's very hot by the time we leave Nutcracker, and we're exhausted as soon as we step out of the cafe. We drive around town, to Malabar Hill and Napear sea road, looking for a garden or lawn to shoot some b-roll. But it's peak afternoon and we don't find any open parks. 

We decide to come back home and sit and talk over some chai and aamras. 

We discuss some more lived experiences - our time at school, college, friendships. He talks often about his friend from Mysore, who, when I ask if he considers her a friend or girlfriend, he smiles and says, "she's family." He emphasizes how lucky Aditi and I are to have found each other. We say we agree, and all three of us knock on wood at the same time. 

He's a keen reader of expressions. He looks at my face and says to Aditi, "He's thinking... right now... about what's going to happen?" I joke and say, "That's my default state of mind... what's going to happen?" We all laugh. 

Then talking about people close to us, Rishabh mentions his nanaji (maternal grandfather). He talks about a time when the both of them took brooms and mops and spent a day scrubbing clean their family home. His eyes tear up reliving that time. Aditi talks about her dadi (paternal grandmother), and breaks down too. 

She says about me that I'm so hyper-perceptive, I know she's going to cry ten minutes before the tears start rolling down her face. I say about her that soon after a short spell of crying, she's in such a good mood she'll prance about the apartment like a little rabbit. We laugh again. 

For some reason I'm a bit overwhelmed, and feel my eyes moistening up. I mention how autistics perceive time teleologically; the past, present and future all meshing together, and Rishabh agrees. He says there's times when a past trauma plays itself over in his head like it were happening right then and there. 

The similarities in lived experiences are eerie.

At 5 pm, Rishabh has to go back. He has a wedding function to attend. As we're dropping him off near his bike, he says, "जाने का मन तो नही कर रहा पर जाना पड़ेगा। (I don't feel like going but I have to.)" We smile and exchange hugs. 

He wears his helmet and says, "I'll reach home and text you guys." 

Twenty minutes later, he does. 

The anxieties of the morning have been placated. Now there's a silent, heavy feeling, like a big, dark rain-filled cloud looming overhead. On some level there's a grouse - if only understanding social cues weren't everything, and people weren't written off so easily. On a different level, there's a quiet appreciation - a hushed gratitude - for the way we are. 

It's confounding. Our intense experiences and expressions, our singular interests, our proclivity for fairness, justness. Would I give it all up to have inclusion? To have a brain that finds its peace, its place in conformity? 

I wish I could say no, but honestly, I don't know. What I do know is meeting similar neurotypes puts things a little bit more into context. A small piece of a larger puzzle presents itself. And you like the picture that's beginning to form.

To stereotype it would be to say we're expert coders, and Silicon Valley geniuses, and stock market wizards and engineering marvels. But we are none of that. 

We're plain and simple dreamers. A complex mixed-breed of artists, anthropologists, experience scientists and self-advocates working and wondering our way through a hard-to-crack world.

The type that doesn't fit into any of society's ready-to-serve moulds.

And neither do we. Which, perhaps, explains the social anxiety. 

Rewind - ep 2 Kargil

Started this slow IGTV vertical format IP type thing some time ago, right after the Coorg trip last year. Called it Rewind, mostly because of the lingering sense of nostalgia for the trip. It's kind of like a SoC in video form I guess. 

This is the Kargil version.  

On the 4th day of the KVD shoot, we had an off. We went to Kargil city from Drass, hoping to get some good b-roll. It was damn hot, but we did manage to get some really good drone and establishing shots. This was also the day we went to Hunderman, the abandoned border village, and another tiny village on the way back where we got the shots with the kids.

I'd had this ready for a while, but only just got around to uploading it. Don't know why the delay, guess been too busy with Spectrum and all. 

Here it is. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Aalap Deboor (@aalapdeboor)

DD JVLR ferry edition

I'm riding a Kinetic scooty on JVLR. The traffic is dense, so dense that cars and people aren't able to move at all. Some guy, also on a scooty, takes a left into an alley surrounded by jhopdis. I see him force his way onto a ferry with his bike. It's a super crammed space. From where I'm standing, I trace the ferry's path by sight and figure it's going to get me to the other side sooner than by road. I follow the dude and force my way onto the packed ferry as well. Other passengers grumble and groan.

Once on, someone asks aloud in Marathi if anyone has binoculars on them. I ask why, to which he says he would've used them to look beyond the horizon and tell us what the weather's going to be like. It's already getting super drizzly. 

I reach the other side and my father calls. He asks where I am, I tell him. He says he's bored of bombay, of this weather, and can't wait to go back. I want to tell him about this one small pond near me that is collecting pristine rainwater, but I refrain. I get off the ferry.

I'm on our building terrace, except it looks nothing like our actual terrace. I'm shirtless, for some reason. I take the lift down and two guys - both college-going stoners - enter. They are both engrossed in some video, which they're watching on one of the guys' cell phones. I get off the elevator and decide to walk around the building. It's late at night and very, very quiet. The streets around the building compound are silent and empty. 

I decide to go back up via A wing. But there's patches of tiny gardens lining the walkway around the perimeter of the building. Lazing around in those patches are baby crocodiles. One section of the building has scaffolding, and the ends of the bamboo chutes have transformed into actual barking dogs. I freak out at all of it and take a big jump high in the air straight above the baby crocs and land safely beyond their reach. They don't even notice me, nor do they budge.

Someone calls and tells me Amar found Shruti. They say once he asked for 'Shrutikala' he was led straight to her, and the reason he wasn't able to find her earlier is because he kept asking for Shruti the whole time. I'm laughing and trying to think of someone I know whose short name we call them by and no one even knows their actual name.

But no name comes to mind. 

Keeping the conversation going

Figuring out Twitter very, very slowly. 

For someone who's patient, and who jumped on the bandwagon around 2009-2010, Twitter's presently a breeze. 

If they've been posting regularly, they possibly have a decent number of followers, an active community built around their interests, a good number of retweets on their tweets, etc.

But that someone is not me.

Also, this is my third attempt at Twitter. I deleted the first account out of sheer exhaustion for not having anything to say very regularly, and the second one I had for all of 5 or 10 days. Over both those accounts, I'd say I had about 150 followers.  

Started Much Much Twitter a month or so ago. And up until now, never could figure out how to take conversations forward. 

Then today, this happened: 

Pic credit: me

Pete Wharmby, who's a writer and an avid ND advocate, retweeted one of my tweets at him. Took the conversation forward, and it came so naturally. 

The diagnosis trap

Full article here.

The problem with this mindset, the “trap” if you will – that of ordered vs disordered – can be seen in the revisions of the DSM as it relates to human sexuality. For example, the classification of gay, lesbian, and bisexual sexual orientations went from “paraphilia” in DSM I to “sexual orientation disturbance” in DSM II to “ego-dystonic homosexuality” in DSM III. The variance in human sexual identity and preference was dropped altogether from DSM-III-R and subsequent editions. 

This is the end goal? To reach a point where there's a binary diagnosis of ND vs NT? Because that has its own traps, outlined by the 4Ds - diversity, disability, disorder, disease. Some NDs whose autism presents itself with harsher symptoms require more support. But that's not the point here. Up until the first iteration of DSM III, homosexuality (and alt-sexuality, alt-genders) were considered abnormalities. That thinking changed, and today we've got a pride month where the spectrum is celebrated. It's a different wiring, like autism, yes, but there's more to it. These debates are also dimensioned with a layer of ability vs non-ability - what your orientations/ wiring/ personality type lets you do and what it doesn't. And that's where the system comes in. 

For the sexuality spectrum, the system needed to be made aware of their differences, and taught how to include them productively in it. Because essentially all those diverse communities as capable as the average human (perhaps more) in every imaginable way. For autism, especially the kind that brings on grave physical and cognitive disabilities, we haven't yet been able to figure out how best to scale and economize facilities that will help the entire spectrum right from the mild to even the most severely disabled autistics. Plus the difficulty in acquiring a formal diagnosis (especially for adults) makes it all the harder, with some experts saying a formal diagnosis isn't even necessary in cases where the autism isn't impeding day to day functioning (Simon Baron-Cohen in The Pattern Seekers). 

Whatever said and done, we need to change society's baseline for what it deems resourceful. Like the eugenicists of 20th century Germany whose optimal human was the Caucasian, ours cannot be the city-dwelling, 9 to 5 job-working, multitasking & Zoom-calling, unconscionably manipulating, low-feeling, high-thinking, morally flexible person. The baseline has to be a lot more accommodating, not one that helps feed into crony systems and is making us all easily replaceable carbon copies of each other. Society needs to reward difference and not stigmatize it. Encourage competition, if it's an indispensable part of living, but make it healthy by putting in place hyper-thinking systems to help those who need it, in ways that make it a level playing field. 

What psychiatrists see as disorder is actually the result of an untrained person in control of this powerful tool as it processes time. There are two basic ways humans process time, chronologically and teleologically. The majority of humans process time chronologically – sequentially. The past is past. Here we are now. The future is ahead of us somewhere. Not so with the autistic brain. The autistic brain processes time teleologically. Past, present, and future are blended together with purpose and plan to form a multi-dimensional mental image of the person’s goals, or Quality World Picture.

For these reasons, looking at the issue from the standpoint of disorder and diagnosis doesn’t actually solve the root problem. The root problem is a general lack of acknowledgement and appreciation for the amazing range of variation in humanity, as well as the many ways that variety expresses itself. 

The bottom line is, the system will discriminate. It needs a certain kind of prototyped individual to run its cogs smoothly, and its in-built mechanism will work to drive away whoever it deems as unfit to uphold its singularly profit-oriented goals. Basically the system cannot say, no, we don't want empathy, conscientiousness and kindness, we want money and you need to be the bad guy to help us get it. So just go do it. Instead, it will politely say, no, your brain doesn't isn't wired right for us, or your hair pattern is not good enough or your skin colour isn't correct. Discrimination is a handy tool for the system, one they don't have to put too much thought into using.  

To accept that autism is in fact a disorder, and not simply a variation in the human wiring system, can lead one to not find one’s true purpose or one’s proper place in this world. These self-advocates proudly wear the label of autistic. It’s a means of grounding or placing one’s self in context. As Marcus Garvey has famously said, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” The autistic self-advocates are putting down roots, attempting to leave a legacy for the next generation of autistic people.

We don't believe there is anything 'wrong' with autistic and spectrum minds. There's a lot going on in their minds, and they experience and express differently. 

Mental health = everything, but != crypto

This article on Vice talks about how the crypto world, currently at an all-time low, is inextricably linked to investors' mental health. An abbreviation runs wild in these circles - HODL - which means 'hold on for dear life.' Basically dissuades investors from being "anxiety bitches" and dumping their investment after an acute period of panic. 

Just let's take a pause and examine this system. One that's supposed to be deregulating investments, taking the onus off a central body and therefore putting the control back into the hands of no one but the investors themselves. Just a blockchain network that keeps a ledger tracking millions and millions of records day in and day out. 

And because of that, the market never stops unlike a traditional stock market. Investors apparently aren't getting any sleep because they need to compulsively monitor their investments. Three to four hours a night is bound to drive you up the wall. 

There's now crypto-specific CBT consultants in the world. Specifically for anxiety arising from tanking crypto investments. 

Basically this system that was as democratic as things can get, with the added dimension of unbreachable security, was supposed to ease your investment worries. It was supposed to be a woke thing that lived up to the woke nature of new-age wokeness. And I don't say that sarcastically. I genuinely mean it when I say it's bizarre that Internet forums and wherever else conversations go on about crypto do not encourage anxiety-related discussions about prices, as this article suggests. 

They actively dissuade it. Because your emotions, your feelings about the thing you've put your money in, contributes to worldwide buying and selling trends. And - by extension - the value of the coin you're holding. 

It won't let you sleep, 

it won't let you vent. 

It isn't making you money, 

and it won't pay your rent.

What the fuck good is it? 

PS: Not like traditional investments are any better. The stock market is at an all-time low and everyone's lost money, but at least I'm not losing sleep over it. 

Personality gestalt

Reading Dr Thomas Armstrong's Neurodiversity and this thought came to mind: 

My personality seems to lie at the intersection of autism, ADHD and a mild mood disorder. 

1. My autism - my hyper-systemizing, low empathizing nature 

2. My ADHD - my hyperfocus, distractibility & impulsivity

3. My mood disorders - sporadic instances of anxiety, proclivity for melancholic states of being, choosing a creative outlet for self-expression

Journalism and filmmaking seem to be a good convergence point for this mixed ND personality type. In some cases, music too. So I guess I did wind up in the right profession after all. Don't know if it's a profession as much as it is two or three occupations bunched up together into things that periodically make me money. 

Nah, that's my self-deprecating side talking. Of course I'm a filmmaker, and a good one at that, and I make decent money too :D. 

As an autistic creative, I feel like single-person jobs are the only ones where I've seen conventional success. In the sense that people respected what I turned in, and saw it as my perspective, didn't demand any kind of objectivity of it. 

Back when I was a journalist, my copies were widely well-liked. My very first long-form article (as an intern) got a bunch of fan mail, including one from a father who had written in to tell me how much he appreciated my accessible writing and the topicality (it was an education article, published around when colleges reopen). 

Any kind of group work, especially among hypercompetitive NTs, seems to alienate me. Not because I'm not able to bring productive ideas to the table, but because it doesn't matter what ideas you're contributing in an environment where other variables - including popularity, clout, number of years of experience, style, facial mannerisms, turn to speak, urgency in tone, (faux) politeness, etc - seem to matter a whole lot more. 

For better or for worse I never could really become an intrinsic part of my team., managing one independent music show in my entire duration at my next job, prospering all by myself at the fringes of our collective success. 

Likewise at my next jobs, which were all heavily team-centric, one person working in a silo hardly could manage to accomplish much. Out of anxiety I attempted to manage a whole array of things on my own - drawing up budgets, organizing meetings, making decks, developing & pitching concepts, producing them - which was otherwise a 5-member job, easily, each requiring its own skill set. 

Only because working in a team required manoeuvring an interpersonal dynamic that seemed alien to me. And when leading a team, somehow always felt guilty about dumping the less important work to my subordinates and doing the "more important/ bigger" work. 

But that's just how it works. That's what I've been through at my first jobs too.

When you can't seem to lead well, you are expected to follow. And following isn't easy either, in a system that prioritizes emotion over logic. Like how are you supposed to advocate for anything other than what plainly seems the most obvious choice? How are relationships, moods, all the other variables at all important? 

Mostly everywhere you go, objectivity is compromised for subjectivity. 

Anyway, what's your personality gestalt?  

DD ASD outing edition

I'm rejoining work somewhere after a long gap. They welcome me warmly and seat me at a new place. People come up and speak to me about my break. HR comes by and very nicely asks if they should put me in "special abilities?" I don't understand at first, then someone points out that they mean ASD individual, and I go oh yes. At that moment I feel a rush of nervous excitement as that's my official declaration to the world about my condition, even though they somehow already know. 

I walk up some roads and go to a fancy pan tapri, a small roadside shop with AC. A few young men are standing there and smoking. I ask for a cigarette pack and the lady across the counter hands me one, I don't care which one it is. But I notice that one cigarette has brown powder in it, which on closer inspection turns out to be Bournvita. I figure she's running a scam emptying out cigarettes and filling them up with Bournvita and I ask for a replacement. Grudgingly she agrees, and hands me another one, which also is clumsily filled with Bournvita. I want to tell her off, but the men seem threatening and probably know her well, so I walk off, irritated about how entitled people will keep getting away with the shit they do. 

I'm transported to the back road of school (which led to the Vijaypath Singhania hospital) and I'm thinking to myself ohh this is where that road that I see from my classroom leads to. 

I have a flight to catch so I head home. There's an emotional moment there as I'm saying bye to my grandma and mom. I pick up my luggage and go to the airport. I'm clutching a memory card in my hand for some reason. The airport's very crowded, and just as I'm about to head to my terminal I spot another memory card on the floor. It's a 16GB card. For a moment I think about nicking it, but just as I pick it up its owner comes looking for it and I hand it over. 

I turn around and go away. 

DD Mere Sapno Ki Rani edition

I have a flight to Japan at 9 am, but for some reason around 3 am I wake up and start getting ready to leave in a hurry. Mom and dad are also in the hotel room I'm at, and it's actually a hotel inside the airport terminal. I quickly and quietly say bye to dad, take my bag and leave. 

At check-in there's a Japanese airport person who wishes me a good flight, and I'm thinking I hope she's not judging me for checking in so early. 

After check-in I realise I've left without saying bye to mom so I return to our room. They have just woken up and mom is telling papa why did he leave without waking me up? Mom suggests now that we're all awake let's have chai. 

There's a little kitchenette off by the living room where we gather round for chai, and I'm brushing my teeth again as dad boils some water and mom goes to the bathroom. I have to use the sink in the kitchen, which for some reason is super high up close to the ceiling, so I have to crane my neck to spit out the toothpaste. 

Papa suggests we put on some music, so I do, and 'Mere sapno ki rani' plays on the radio. I'm hoping it's not too loud and other the other patrons in the hotel don't get disturbed. 

Somehow I'm reminded of school mornings but I'm also thinking thank God this is nothing like those days. 

Just leaving this here

Was totally able to relate to this infographic I saw on Twitter earlier today, posted by Amanda Mc Guinness.

PC: Amanda Mc Guinness on Twitter (link above)

I suspect so many autistics are guilty of expressing in this manner. It brings to memory a time when my dad went to the local store in my colony in pouring rain to get me a packet of chikki just because I'd mentioned how much I like it in a conversation we were having earlier that day. He wanted to surprise me. 

I've done this too. Been guilty of info dumping or sharing TMI to show that I was capable of being a good friend because somehow secrets about your life = a display of good friendship = instant connect with a stranger. Or even talking about something I was really into (rock bands in college, books & TV shows in my workplaces). Ha, the things we realise later about the things we've done earlier. Lol.

Also, read yesterday that autistics experience time not linearly but teleologically, which roughly put is looking at experiences and events from the POV of the purpose they serve. Basically means that the past, present and future jumble up together to present a perfect world picture to an autistic's brain, which he's left to chase after without any real clue how to organise things in a way that'll help him get there systematically. 

But more on teleological time later. 

Been reading almost non-stop so got a lot of info to share and make sense of :). 

My SR-Q and EQ test results

Took Simon Baron-Cohen's SR-Q and EQ tests yesterday, right after I finished the book. Scored 12 in the SR-Q and 3 in the EQ. You subtract SR-Q from EQ to get your AQ, which ranges from -20 to 20 (-20 being Hyper Type E and 20 being Hyper Type S). 

Mine came out to 9, which is borderline Hyper Systemizing Extreme Type S. Which validates my deduction all along that my brain's not particularly high in the Empathy Circuit department, but isn't very well wired for systemic pattern detection either. Maybe on the lower end of the Extreme Type S continuum there's proficiency in language and music, which I do seem to have, and on the higher end a natural predilection to math, technology and the sciences, which I suck at (except maybe biology, which I seemed to be good at in school). 

In any case, read something yesterday and spent about 10 minutes trying hard to identify a pattern in in it and replicate it with other variables. Was successfully able to do so, and in fact it threw up some ideas for Much Much that we're now working on. 

Going to consciously work the pattern recognition thing into more things I'm trying to figure out. 

Except maybe for things that have emotion-based motivation as opposed to systemic. Like screenplays. 

The test is the last two chapters of The Pattern Seekers. 

How does it feel to mass delete a full year's worth of social media content from your account?

So we've officially converted Bakesplaining to Much Much Spectrum. It is going to be a "hangout spot for the ND, autistic and disabled communities." Basically a chill place for spectrum individuals, allies and creators to convene and share memes, original work, discover spectrum work, our work... etc. 

Thought it would be nice to have a place to do all this, that is different from our brand page, where we plan to only post brand-related stuff. Cuz mixing up the two just seemed to give a very different impression about Much Much.  

Anyway... because we don't want to keep on starting new pages, we cleared out Bakesplaining and rebranded it to MM Spectrum.

We didn't realise at first, but over the past 2 years the BS Insta had accumulated a fair number of posts and reels. All in all about 300+ if I'm not mistaken. So we had to delete each of them one-by-one, patiently going through the feed. 

Watching all those reels and posts again reminded me of lockdown '21, of all the time we spent at our Raheja home baking recipes, shooting videos and taking pictures, agonizing over what shot to include in which reel, how to grade which picture, how many iterations to make for each video, etc, etc. Lol. 

And now it's all gone. Shit.

But it's not like we don't have backups for all that content... cuz we'd be idiots not to. But still, taking it off just like that seemed so... strange. Like death, I think... cuz one minute it's all there, the next it's just gone. A blank slate for someone/ something else to come in its place. So impermanent. 

And there were views too, on an average between 5k to 10k views on each reel. Damnit. 

But I'm sure the Spectrum page is going to be even more kickass. Cuz both Aditi and I will have things to contribute to it, as opposed to BS, which was pretty much just her. 

Chalo, excited to see where this goes... 

PS: 3 blog posts for the day, which is a rarity, so I'm out. Plus it's almost 11:11 pm. Also, MJ put up a blog just today about blogging something before it slipped his memory. Doing this kind of in a similar vein... don't want to forget good beginnings :).

CODA & Temple Grandin

Trailer (an Apple+ release): CODA 

Full movie (Hotstar): Temple Grandin

So much to say about these movies. Both lovely in their own ways. 

CODA, a beautiful, simple, simply told story, is about a teenage girl living with her D/ deaf parents and brother. Much of the narrative revolves around the girl having to choose between pursuing an education in music and staying back in her small town to be the hearing facilitator for her family's new fishing business. Surreal performances, a simple but profoundly well-executed plot, and filmmaking that stays true to the theme it addresses by employing spectrum and disabled actors to play the lead roles. 

Temple Grandin is the eponymous true story about the life and growing up years of the autistic genius Temple Grandin. Always amazes me how well some directors are able to crunch 10-15 years of a person's life down into a 2-hour story and still make it all seem so coherent. Also, exemplary performances by Claire Danes and Catherine O'Hara. 

On a more personal note, despite Grandin's "odd" childhood behaviours and infantile schizophrenia diagnosis I find it really inspiring how she grows up to become so mindful of exactly in what ways she's different from her peers, and how those differences could best be used to help society. Really makes me wonder if long-term mindfulness is key to achieving stability of thought/ mood/ emotion in spectrum minds, and if that's one of the many ways in which unhindered assimilation into society can happen for low-functioning ASD individuals. 

The motif of the doors opening for Grandin and her passing through them into other worlds (a metaphor for finding success in life) is reassuring in some way, probably because autistics need help in some areas of life and seeing what they're capable of giving back it might be the universe's way of 'making things happen' for them? Don't know. 

But I would like to believe that :). 

Refrigerator Mothers & A Life Worth Living

The names of 2 documentaries I watched over the weekend.

First thoughts - why’s there always this one asshole at the centre of a mainstream (potentially groundbreaking) research movement that postulates all the wrong things, passionately goes against other (sometimes smarter but less social) experts in the same field, is super negative in their outlook towards life, and is depressingly fatalistic? 

Worse, sometimes there’s two. Like Joseph Fletcher for Down’s and Bruno Bettelheim for autism. 

Refrigerator Mothers is a short documentary about mothers from the 50s and 60s who doctors and the medical profession largely blamed as the cause for their child’s autism. Seems pretty absurd now, but that was the popular belief back then, thanks to the work of some people including Leo Kanner. 

This is an agonising tale of innocent mothers marginalized by society, left having to fight two battles in parallel - one with a mysterious condition called autism that seemed to have turned their loving little babies into kids whose life experiences were very different from their peers. And simultaneously, a cruel society that seemed so busy entangling itself in the establishment of a “normal” that it completely sidestepped the very hyper-systemizing types that had possibly been the torchbearers of human evolution with their groundbreaking inventions. 

Autistics from all across the vast spectrum - and their mothers’ journeys learning to deal with their disabilities - have been poignantly captured. And a beautiful, complex emotion underscores the narrative - one that is a product of crushed dreams, dead hopes, and weary wisdom garnered over the years, with the subliminal silver lining of living with a mind so unique, it is soul-enriching in indescribable ways. 

A Life Worth Living is about Down’s children. Chronicles the lives of about 4 or 5 families in the UK, and their coming to terms with their children’s diagnoses at birth. Aside from beautiful, touching montages of children with the most sincere smiles, the most empathetic faces and the most accepting souls, the narrative also captures their parents’ gradual understanding and appreciation of the cognitive differences in their children, and how those very differences make the world a better place to live in. 

There’s a point towards the end where one of the fathers tells this story about his Down’s girl where she went up to an inconsolable kid in her school cafeteria and through her mere presence managed to comfort him. That’s telling of their positive vibe. And another is a short interview with a 20-something Down’s woman who works in a bakery, and she’s teary eyed throughout the interview, clearly unable to mask her overwhelm at being at the receiving end of all this attention and love. 

Somehow, I’m very moved by people unwilling or unable to mask their true feelings. There’s just an honest vulnerability they demonstrate that both makes them so strong and so weak at the same time. Really makes me want to go up to them, hug them tight and tell them, hey, the world needs you so stick around, cuz some of us couldn’t be more glad to have you. That’s the feeling the film evokes, and it’s a good one. 

Gonna watch more docus on Real Stories.