rationale

So much is a matter of perspective that it's very easy to present who we are as a product of our own entirely reasonable interests, worldview, and ethics. To some extent, almost everyone should be able to relate at least a little to the old adage, I'm not crazy, it's the rest of the world that's crazy.

From our perspective, on a very basic level, yeah, that's why we are the way we are. I refer to my difficulties relating to people in neutral terms, but for the longest time, I let myself believe it's because I don't like them. What is the difference really? They are different interpretations of the same experience. 

It's easy to point to things that are wrong with people, by our standards of course, framing our feelings of alienation as only reasonable. Easier still, if you then avoid them all your life so as to make people into abstract concepts, easier to manipulate in our heads. This is basic othering behavior, extended to everyone other than ourselves.

Instead of calling myself disabled for not working, I could focus on how fucked up the whole system is. I'm capable of work, in the most direct sense, but what I'm not capable of is all the bullshit involved in getting and holding a job, aside from doing the work itself. I'm also disgusted by the whole proposition that we have to sell half our waking lives to make some pig rich, just to survive. Cut the bullshit, give me a job, and maybe I could work part time. I'm not disabled, I just hate capitalism, right?

In this country, a part time minimum wage job isn't enough to live on and in so doing, I'd make myself ineligible for disability, including healthcare and everything. It's a fucked up system, but the reality of it is that other people do it and seem to have much fuller lives due to being functional adults with value to society. Framing the problem as a dysfunctional system might be better for not only my self-esteem, but how I present my situation to others. Framing it as a disability wrecks my self-esteem. That's to say, I can't live like they do. I can't be a part of what they do.  

I've been feeling painfully left out my whole life, and getting close to people has made it worse, but training has allowed me to play with them. The longer I've been at it, the more I feel accepted and a part of what they're doing. Maybe with enough perseverance, all the way up to competing myself. Then doing some teaching. This would go a long way towards counterbalancing my deficiencies, and it seemed to be a challenge but within reach.

I was moving in that direction, but now I'm feeling more left out than ever. I've tumbled back into the lonely darkness where the best I can do is go stand around awkwardly in a gym full of strangers. Too much of what was working for me was predicated on all the people I'd spent years building rapport with. It takes me a long time because I am different.

They don't have a concept of how these things can change. They have no motivation to help me change. It's just who I am, so they have no interest in helping, aside from being condescending.

It's so easy to conclude that people are just assholes, but from their perspective, their behavior only makes sense, too. Let myself get too close to them and realize they're not really assholes at all. I realize that I want to be able to live as they do, striving to achieve things in the world. I realize that I don't do these things because I can't. I'm disabled. I'm not good enough. When I finally stand up, ready to show that I am good enough, they tend to smack me down. And now, really compounding it all, I'm getting too old. 

I realize that I want them to like me, but they can't, because they perceive the deficit. Especially once I've been cornered into explaining that I'm disabled. Nobody calls them disabled for not being able to live the way I do. That makes just as much sense, but of course society is going to be built around norms and not what fringe weirdos think.

That's just the reality of it. Apparently, it's neurodivergent of me to care more about material reality than appearances and feelings. To be more delusional would be less disabling.