i was going through a process of self-understanding. a bit late, to be honest. i guess i’ve known for a while that it takes me a lot of effort to react well to things. i now know that i’m autistic, and a highly sensitive person. i panic when i’m surprised, i hate criticism, i don’t even like compliments much. a few deep breaths. ok maybe this email is just an invitation to a seminar that i can accept or not and there is no underlying passive aggressive message to be offended by.

we want what we want because we want it. to some extent. not much more advanced than a flower turning towards the sun. but because we have so many complicated ways of expressing our desires, and because it can be quite hard to be sure what our desires are (am i hungry or am i anxious?) we can trick ourselves into believing that the ‘me’ from the internal monologue is running the whole show from a place of reason. when actually its just a chatbot that calms you down or riles you up or whatever.

i guess what i mean is that reason gets us what we want, if we use it well. but passions aren’t rational. hunger and horniness can neither be summoned or subdued with reason alone. (food and sex will do it though)

how do you take criticism?