Shitposting

Okay. Now that I don’t have a job to occupy my mind 24/7, I’m learning more about myself.

Stumbled on this thread the other day and was like oh! Am I… that autistic? I’m not one to self-diagnose, but from the conditions described in the thread and the rabbit hole of academic papers that followed, I found a number of relatable signs.

What I really enjoyed was the vivid description of the existential angst that emerges from the lack of a strong “basic self”. On my birthday this year, my mum shared a concern that I “just absorb everything”. I think it’s a similar sentiment.

I spend too much time inside my head. I obsessively over-analyse everything and struggle with feelings of shame and guilt more than I should. Even now, I feel like I may be doing it. So much about myself seems up for contemplation. I get new information and feel so strongly because “is that me?” Every time. Ah ahn!

I think strengthening my “basic self” requires me to share what’s on my mind more freely. It was easy to do at work; it’s harder to do in life. But here is a good place to start.

Hence I will be “shitposting”. Okay, it’s not shitposting but I want to call it shitposting. This essay (and the ones that follow) will be random and varied to slowly release myself from being so locked in. I’m also going to read more and talk to my friends more, which should give me other things to think about other than myself.

Hot take: I think the idiosyncracies of our world today have created a generation of people obsessed with self. We have language for every feeling, justification for every thought, and we hold this as truth. We create special labels to explain universal troubles. We embrace over-analysis and promote a logical understanding of self through therapy.

But I think the fundamental ailment is the breakdown of community. Globalization has created a false sense of kinship that - in many ways - pales in comparison to tribes: a group of people grounded to a physical area they all feel responsible for.

I had this in secondary school and uni, and I was much less anxious I think. I probably was just as autistic and weird, but it didn’t matter as much. So much else was happening in my world that my little quirks weren’t so important.