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Memores acti prudentes futuri


You're unsure if I am a loose end or a strand
that waits for you to mend or understand
A few words
"When we describe the Moon as dead, we are describing the deadness in ourselves. When we find space so hideously void, we are describing our own unbearable emptiness."
~ D.H. Lawrence

"Is the meaning of life defined by its duration? Or does life have a purpose so large that it doesn't have to be prolonged at any cost to preserve its meaning?"

"Living is not good, but living well. The wise man, therefore, lives as well as he should, not as long as he can... He will always think of life in terms of quality not quantity... Dying early or late is of no relevance, dying well or ill is... even if it is true that while there is life there is hope, life is not to be bought at any cost."
~ Seneca

"People will tell you nothing matters, the whole world's about to end soon anyway. Those people are looking at life the wrong way. I mean, things don't need to last forever to be perfect."
~ Daydream Nation

"All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows where to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories-- if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death."
~ The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes

"The road now stretched across open country, and it occurred to me - not by way of protest, not as a symbol, or anything like that, but merely as a novel experience - that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic. So I crossed to the left side of the highway and checked the feeling, and the feeling was good. It was a pleasant diaphragmal melting, with elements of diffused tactility, all this enhanced by the thought that nothing could be nearer to the elimination of basic physical laws than deliberately driving on the wrong site of the road."
~ Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend."
~ William Blake
TICoSME
Musicalities!
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A Distant Soil (Some nudity)
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Blue Milk Special
Bug
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Curia Regis
Cyanide and Happiness
dead winter (has some explicit stuff)
Devilbear: The Grimoires of Bearalzebub (PG-13?)
Diesel Sweeties
DUBBLEBABY
Eat That Toast!
E-merl.com
The End
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Forming (Explicit)

Girls with Slingshots (some explicit stuff...?)
Mirror
The Last Halloween
Last Train to Old Town
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Legend of Bill
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Love Me Nice
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xkcd
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Aardvardkbutter.com
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Die Anstalt : Toy Psychiatry
The Frown
Hoogerbrugge

Other
Bogleech
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Damn You Auto Correct!
Jhonen Vasquez's site
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Submarinechannel.com
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Whirled
The isolated self
Sunday, August 19, 2018
The word "autism" comes from the Greek word "autos," which means "self." It describes conditions in which a person is removed from social interaction. In other words, he becomes an �isolated self.�

When I'm not in a relationship, I spend the majority of my time alone. I mean, I have passing interactions with family, and I do have to socialize to some extent at school, but a combination of shyness, anxiety, and introversion has nudged me towards a life with a lot of solitude. I think it's kind of been that way ever since middle school. Because I went to competitive schools, I didn't hang out with friends very much after elementary school. In 7th grade I spent most of my time during recess and lunch at school in the library, reading. I did have a friend group in 8th grade and through high school, but I started spending a lot of time online.

Before I ever had a blog of any sort, I went on chatrooms in the summer when I was at my uncle's house in Hawaii. He had DSL and we only had dial-up at home, so it just wasn't feasible for me to be on the internet that much during the normal school year. When I was 14 we finally got DSL at my house, not long after I joined Nutang.

I wasn't inducted into the online world as early as some people, but I became attached to it quickly. Socializing in person was difficult for me. I was afraid of talking to people I didn't know well, and to some extent I still am. Today I was considering my options for getting a dress tailored, and I read that it could easily cost $70. Given that I make very little money, that's a big sum to me, but the prospect of going to a tailor was still somewhat less terrifying than doing what my mom suggested, which was asking our neighbor (whom I don't know very well) for help sewing it. (I think I have resolved to use temporary hem tape though, which will probably require the least social interaction of any option)

On the internet, I'm not crippled by shyness the way I often have been in person. It's so much easier to talk to people through text, to express myself and receive the expressions of others. The lack of nonverbal communication changes the game, though. I spent my adolescence being more engaged in online communication than in-person communication, and I think I adapted to the former as a result.

Awhile ago I was linked an article about how blind children can exhibit autistic features that are actually caused by their visual impairment. I can't seem to find it now, but I thought it was a very interesting idea... that being cut off from certain experiences can mimic the presentation of autism. Blind kids, being unable to see body language and such, can't socialize the same way as kids who can see. You might be able to see where I'm going with this.

A few months ago, a friend asked me if I had ever considered that I might be autistic. I felt fairly offended at first, partially because of the context and partially because I really don't think I'm autistic, but I've been thinking about why she asked that and what about my mannerisms could raise that question. I wonder if my relative lack of experience in face-to-face social interactions compared to online interactions might be coming off as slightly autistic tendencies in certain cases. I'm doing a lot more socializing in person these days than I used to, and I'm learning better how to navigate such situations, but I think I'm still behind, and it's slow going.

Something else that I think has hindered my development of better in-person social skills is the way my mom intervenes in social situations when I'm out with her. Due to the aforementioned shyness/anxiety, for a lot of my life, outside of school or hanging out with friends (which I didn't do much for a long time), my mom was present in most of my social interactions. When I was younger my parents would try to get me to interact with people directly, but I was too shy and/or anxious, and eventually my mom just started talking to people for me instead. I would go shopping with her and route communication through her. If I had a question about something, she would ask an employee for me. If I wanted to buy something, she would pay and talk to the cashier for me. I'm not trying to make her responsible for the delayed development of my social skills, but I think this has factored in. I've been oddly successful in avoiding most in-person direct social interactions above the bare minimum for a long time. The fact that I didn't get my license until I was 23 and relied on my parents and friends to get around also kept me from gaining social experience.

So, yeah. I don't think I am naturally socially disabled, I think I've just had a variety of life factors that combined to reduce the level of social experience I've had relative to other people my age. In bygone eras I think they would have just labeled it as "awkwardness" and left it at that, but nowadays if you're socially awkward you can't escape suspicions of autism.
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