I try to do something that many people may find utterly futile. I try to sympathize with people.
I grew up a weird fucking kid. In primary school I used to hide under desks and scream at my teachers. I used to collect "spy equipment" and run around my neighborhood "spying" on people. Of course "spying on people" meant standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac and staring at houses through a shitty plastic folding set of binoculars. And I don't think James Bond ever carried his equipment in a "Toy Story" lunch box.
I would sit in my room for hours practicing magic tricks to show to people at school when they cared enough to look. I had trouble socializing with people so it felt a lot easier to go "Hey, watch this," than try to come up with anything to say that would in any way be relatable to the fucking normies that infested my school like boring, grey termites.
I would plant myself in the school library most days when everyone else was outside - presumably inhaling crack smoke through their anuses or whatever kids did back then - and read books about unsolved mysteries and true crime. I found serial killers to be particularly fascinating. I remember reading "The Silence of the Lambs" for one of my English class Personal Studies, as well as "Misery" by Stephen King. Something my English teacher at the time - a no-nonsense woman who used to work at a borstal and seemed to like me for some reason - was very supportive of.
I remember being asked by my Art teacher what I would like to paint one year. I told him I wanted to paint weapons. He led me to a cupboard where he proceeded to hand me a baseball bat, an axe, and various other blunt/sharp implements for me to paint. If I was in America he probably would've just called the cops, but this is Scotland; potential signs of sociopathy are par for the course. I remember feeling particularly joyful as I walked through that classroom, axe hanging down at my side, bat resting on my shoulder, and one could've heard a pin drop. Yes my sense of humour was warped and mostly based around making people uncomfortable even back then.
It did not come to my parent's surprise - or anyone's for that matter - that I turned out to be autistic.
The problem with autistic people is that they tend to have trouble looking at things from other people's perspectives. Which was why some people were a little skeptical when they found out I wanted to be a writer. I mean one has to be able to relate with other people's perspectives to be a writer, correct?
What I'm saying is that, unlike a lot of people, I had to teach myself a little to see the world through other people's eyes. I'm still teaching myself. It's a difficult thing to do. Which is why it isn't really that surprising when other people forego it. Some people like to keep looking at the world through their own eyes, just because it's simpler, and you can understand things better that way. When you're in your own little bubble reality is what you make it. It's a very appealing thought. You don't really have to think, you can just react. And you're always the hero. No matter what.
Sometimes it means sympathizing with one group of people but not another. Especially if they are two separate sides of an argument. I mean listening to both sides and weeding out the valid arguments from them is hard. Better to take one side and defend it no matter what. It's easier to perceive the black and the white than it is to wade through a grey fog and find the other side.
I've been thinking about politics way too much lately. It didn't use to be so difficult back when I was much more left-leaning than I am now. Things were a lot more black and white. The Right were full of mental, gay-hating, war-mongering, hysterical religious fundamentalists. The Left were full of peace loving hippies who loved freedom and secularism. Black and white. I knew who I was. I knew where I stood.
Things aren't like that anymore. Hell I'm not even totally sure if it ever WAS like that. I think I've made it quite clear on this blog as to why that is. Right now as I type President Trump has gone through with his so called "Muslim Ban", which doesn't even seem to be a ban as much as it is an extreme vetting process for people from terror compromised countries. And to be perfectly honest with you; I don't know what the fuck to think.
We know people who are part of a death cult that oppresses women, that sees non-believers as nothing but obstacles in their goal for a theocratic paradise, will disguise themselves as innocent people to enter other countries. We also know that the people that surround them have been through hell mostly because of those very people.
On the other side of things you have us.
People died in Nice. People died in Paris. People died in Orlando. People died in Berlin. And it seems to me as though every measure we take to try and prevent that from happening is denounced as some kind of racist/Nazi idea that assumes every single Muslim is a frothing extremist, decked with bombs from his balls upwards.
I want to be clear about this; we live in a time where the last couple of generations have never had to deal with the reality of Nazism. Whenever I hear people my age or younger call something they don't like Nazi, or anyone they disagree with a Nazi (un-ironically) I just want to slap them and yell "BOY, YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT A NAZI IS!"
We have such trouble seeing things through the eyes of others that we would rather attribute them to some of the worst people in history than actually sit down and try to understand what they're going through.
I try to do something utterly futile. I try to sympathize with people.
I wish I could go back to gathering spy equipment in my "Toy Story" lunch box and pretending to gather intelligence on my neighbours. I wish I could go back to immersing myself in silly mystery books. I wish I could go back to freaking people out by walking through classrooms carrying axes.
I wish I could go back to my own little bubble, where everything is simple, and there is only black and white. There is only me. I am always the hero. It's a nice thought. It's a tempting thought.
It's the easy way.
I can't. And I wont. I think part of being a thinking, rational human being is taking a point of view that you could never imagine yourself holding or experiencing and trying to do just that. Imagine what it's like to think that way and try to understand it. You don't have to agree with it in the end. You just have to try and understand it. I'm not saying we should start sympathizing with Nazis or other racial separatists/supremacists; I think we're beyond all that. Or at least we should be.
We can't just retreat into our own little bubbles where we're always the hero no matter what. When we do we become tribal. Our bubble is the Justice League and theirs is the Legion of Doom. It rarely fucking works that way and well we know it. When we try to make it work that way all we do is hurt each other for the things that we believe in.
It's half two in the morning and I have to work tomorrow. Or today rather.
Break free of your bubbles everyone.
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