What Now, When Growth is Inconclusive?

The Eternal Evolution of Self

The Start of Something Else

I can’t help but feel that summarising this series is really the start of something else. It’s been a kind of cathartic ironing out of a badly creased cortex, and I wonder what might come of it. Will it help someone? Or be buried in the great sarcophagus that is the unmarketed internet, perhaps uncovered by future societies or sentient AI mining for old-fashioned human experience.

Unexpected Doctrine

A Jehovah’s Witness knocked on my door today, offering his particular brand of purpose and meaning.

“What’s your view?” he asked.

“Well,” I said, feeling cheeky and up for a chat, “I’m impressed by a great many religions from a philosophical standpoint, but they can’t all be right.”

He was good-natured and began regaling me with a military story from his youth, trying to steer us back to his point. As I tried to follow the thread, it struck me that maybe this old boy just wanted someone to listen. And perhaps I could give him a more engaging interaction than he might be used to.

But I also wanted to make him think, just as much as he intended me to. After all, his chosen path rested on the shoulders of his particular place in time. Had he been born in Nepal, I ventured, he’d be selling me something else entirely. He nodded wryly.

And this is the thing that lingers. How do we all have this built-in sense of self and what’s right, when so much of it is clearly shaped by culture and ancestral drift? Outside of all that, who would we be but apes in need of fig leaves.

He told me no Jehovah’s Witness had ever started a war or taken a life. When I suggested that might change if someone threatened his family, he laughed and said, forgivingly, “You’ve certainly got all the answers.”

But that was my point. Not to be flippant, but to suggest that nobody does.

It’s all questions, really.

Dialogue Turns Inward

A lifetime of extreme thinking in the face of perceived hardship has a new tint when viewed through autistic eyes.

When relentless thoughts of suicide begin to fade, clarity creeps in. And with it, the question of legacy. What can I contribute to society without being told what it should be, without chasing fame or fortune? A breadcrumb of my existence in a world I’ve spent a lifetime hidden from.

But why hide? Aside from the obvious avoidance of criticism, distaste for self-celebration, and my gold-medal variety of introversion, I think it ironically allows for more authenticity. I’m free to say what I mean and mean what I say. It removes the shackles of expectation and performance.

This autism thing runs deep. I can’t just reboot a lifetime of carefully constructed persona, and I also can’t sustain the Truman Show of my undiagnosed life. So perhaps this outlet releases a valve without dismantling the whole machine. It allows something more honest to emerge, slowly, in parallel with the life I am still learning how to live.

A Kind of Quiet Extinction

There are plenty of easy explanations for my lack of purpose. I haven’t married or had children, for one.

Marriage strikes me as a brilliant but outdated idea, especially in the face of divorce statistics. Sure, you want a solid unit for raising children, but then the contract seems to mean little in modern times. The wedding itself, how cringe. A day all about me and my other half, speeches, gifts, pressure for a good time, dancing. It would be the performance of a lifetime.

Sometimes I consider my absence of children as a kind of slow-motion suicide. A quiet extinction of my genes, which I’m not especially fond of anyway.

If you aren’t contributing to the continuation of the species, to the expansion of your own unique code, then what are you doing? Selfishly swanning about at the expense of your ancestors who fought for survival, taking for granted the absurdity of chances it took to allow you this tiny window of existence within civilisation. Is that the epitome of selfish?

On reflection, I think my divergence played a big role in convincing me I wasn’t suited to the task. Children are chaos for a brain in need of control. The harm I might cause by being agitated, depressed, or simply not loving or enthusiastic enough. My perfectionism would be persecuted. Then there are the children’s parties, the idle chit-chat with excitable new parents, the absolute minefield of another mind developing under your guidance when your own is missing in action.

I’m in awe of the rest of civilisation who simply decide they’re going to be with a stranger for the rest of their life and have a load of mini-me’s. Don’t they realise how messy brains are? Do they consider the statistics, the cost, the weight of their chosen path? And what of growth that diverges from who you both were, does it meld or branch off?

Pragmatically, I can see that it’s all worth it. That’s what we are here for. I’d probably be quickly relieved of my own concerns once my focus was on another. I already feel the pang of guilt for not providing my parents with grandchildren. I’ve even wondered if being an anonymous donor might relieve the existential weight.

Breadcrumbs and Bird Boxes

In the aftermath of my breakdown, I started leaving breadcrumbs closer to home. A way of feeling like something may outlive me, or at least contribute in a small way.

Having lived abroad for most of my adult life, I always had a metaphorical bag packed. I resisted personalising the places I lived.

After a decade in the latest rental, there was no trace of me. No pictures on the wall, no personality expressed. It was time to change that, regardless of whether I was going to stay.

So I got to work with my hands. I built rough and ready furniture and bird boxes from scrap wood. I made home improvements with paint and pillows as a thank you to the landlord.

Likewise in the community, I had been invisible. Meeting up with struggling friends was a start. There was a very dark corner of my mind that believed if I didn’t pull myself away from the abyss, there would at least be some memories left behind that might make the smallest of differences.

Preluding Something Else

I know my writing can want for deeper explanation, more fluid transitions, and tighter phrasing, but I want something that simply springs forth. A lifetime in creative industries has taught me the joy of making something from nothing.

Rather than trying to hack an audience, I’m hoping to be uncovered by one that enjoys the nuance, confusion, and regret that comes with organic, sequential thought.

I often think, after posting, that I should have taken more time. Or that I didn’t say enough. Or too much.

I think I’ll drag this series out a bit. Perhaps I’ll elaborate if clarity is requested. Like an old interactive pick-a-path book.

I’m not looking for eyeballs. I’m looking for meaning.

Threadbare Truths

Perhaps this isn’t a summary after all, but an interlude. Especially as there’s no resolution yet in my search for meaning and contentment.

Am I adding threads to the embroidery of life, or simply pulling on them until it becomes bare?

Either way, I suppose the thread is mine to follow.