Fears

I’m feeling down today. I got up more or less on time to discover that, because of snow, virtually every Tube (London Underground) line was running with delays and/or part suspended. I ended up going to work on the bus, which was OK, but I was nearly half an hour late and had to take a shorter lunch break to make up the time. Coming home on the bus was actually OK and I might consider doing it regularly, if the travel times are similar and there isn’t suddenly more traffic on a non-snowy day.

The office was cold (the boiler is still broken) and I had to do the Very Scary Task. I still struggle with that, no matter how much I do it. Some of it is lack of practice, as I don’t do it very often, but I’m sure my brain refuses to memorise some of it out of panic/spite, and having to deal with social interactions over the phone at a high-stress time is not good for autism and social anxiety.

I had intended to work on my novel plan at lunch, but because I got to work late, I didn’t have time to do more than eat lunch and go back to work. When I got home, I spent too long reading blog posts, dealing with emails and comments and writing this to do anything useful on my novel. Now after an evening looking at clichéd, alarmist writing by supposed public intellectuals and leading journalists as well as Facebook fights full of self-importance, passive aggression and fake apologies (“I’m sorry you twisted my words and were offended by them”), not to mention woke buzzwords, I wonder if I can accurately mimic a world gone mad, let alone parody something already beyond parody.

E said I just need to write for myself and not worry about anyone else reading it until I’ve finished a first draft. This is true. It’s hard not knowing if I’m wasting my time, but if I’m enjoying it, I guess I’m not wasting my time, even if no one else ever reads it.

The buzzwords and the clichés do annoy me. I’ve read a lot of Orwell, not just Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, but a lot of his non-fiction, and tired language indicates a lack of original thought. It’s scary to go on social media and see how little thought seems to go into so much writing, including by people who should know much better.

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I thought a bit on the way home about my feelings about going to my sister’s baby blessing. Although there are some halakahic fears, I think most of my discomfort is about (a) being in an unfamiliar environment and especially (b) having yet another public example of how adult and competent my little sister is compared with me. I am not proud of this (and it’s not true that my sister has had things easy), but there you go. The fact that E is almost certain not to be in the country doesn’t help.

Anyway, I spoke to Mum and it turns out the nearest hotel has no rooms and the next-nearest one seems to be further from the shul than my parents feel comfortable walking, so we may not go anyway.

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I was going to write some political stuff, but I really can’t be bothered. The world is too awful right now. I also wonder if I should be allowed to vote, given how changeable my thoughts are. I wonder at what point “open-minded” gives way to “indecisive” or just “gullible”? Or mindlessly following (or mindlessly contradicting) the last person who spoke? Walt Whitman said “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)” F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional.” I might contain many multitudes and great artistic potential.

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There is a widely-accepted idea in Judaism that Avraham (Abraham) epitomised kindness, Yitzchak (Isaac) strength/justice and Yaakov (Jacob) truth. This is challenging, as Avraham seems to be motivated by justice as much as kindness (in Judaism, love and justice are to some extent in opposition), Yitzchak seems to have very little strength and Yaakov seems outright deceitful much of the time. This article I printed out and read over Shabbat suggests that it’s more likely that these were traits they struggled with rather than embodied.

I find this reassuring. I feel very much that the interpersonal should be the focus of my religious awareness, but I find that difficult because of autism. Now I can see it as an area of focus and struggle rather than an area where I should expect to achieve perfection.

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Chana Marguiles writes movingly for Chabad.org about her infertility. She’s brave to do so in a community where typically people have families as large as Chabadniks typically have (nine or ten children in a family is common).

This post is about asking people to change the subject when they are focused on speaking about their children so that she does not feel left out. She says, “The belief that asking for what I need is pathetic because I shouldn’t need it leads to undignified speech that remains muffled within.”

I wonder if I can learn from this. I used to feel alone when all the talk was of marriage, careers, babies. Marriage is less of an issue now, but still a bit, while we’re waiting for E’s visa. And I’m obviously not going to go to my sister’s house and tell her not to talk about her new baby. But I wonder if I could challenge the assumptions of the frum dinner table and say, “Actually, X is not my experience”? I remember a difficult conversation at shiur (religious class) years ago, when the rabbi and one of the other people there had new babies (it was a young rabbi, my age) and they were talking a lot about babies, and someone asked how old my children were and I had to say I wasn’t married (and then got told I should be married…).

I guess the problem is that so many different topics of conversations, or so many parts of “normal” life, seem to be areas of struggle and lack for me, and I don’t have the confidence to ask for “adjustments,” even just to change the subject. Although my lack of connection to the frum world means that I have probably experienced this less than some other people with “issues.”

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