I read
this article, and it seemed to be
exactly the way I am...
I've always known that there's something a little different about how I work versus lots of other people.
There are various issues I have with my own personality:
- I
won't do mundane/simple things. It's almost like they're "beneath me"
in a way. For instance, homework in school (if I knew how to do it, I
wouldn't -- I was there to learn, not be a hamster in a wheel), fill
out time sheets for work (seems like a waste of time for so little
information, even though I know this is where my income comes from)
- Inability to rapidly multitask. I can do many tasks, but my "time slices" allocated to each task tend to be really large.
- Monotonous
tasks with work. Anything that is simple and unchallenging takes me
about 3 times as long as challenging things. If someone could figure
out how to keep feeding me exciting and challenging work, I could
perform at an amazing level of productivity.
- I need to know the exact
way things are supposed to be done, or I wind up floundering. The
perfect example of this occurred when my wife and I were taking dancing
lessons. I needed to be told the exact steps and was very
irritated when I found out that they had simplified the steps to teach
us in the beginning and re-taught us the right way. It was very
frustrating for the teacher and for my wife, but it's just how my brain
works. Obscure Corrolary: I also attribute this to the reason why I
never could slide in baseball. I couldn't figure out how it was done by
watching people. Since nobody described how it was supposed to be done,
I just didn't even try to do it. To this day I have not tried. Of
course, now it's because I have no reason too, and it seems like it
could be painful :)
There are also Asperger's like things that I don't mind, like:
- Nearly
OCD issues: I tend to have a seriously geometric mind. This allows me
to visualize things in my head to a great degree, but it also causes me
to do strange things like walk on tile floors in the patter of a knight
in chess (3 tiles forward, one tile to the side -- yep, I do that).
- I
tend to talk to myself: Mostly, this is silent, but I will actually
carry on conversations with myself; occasionally this is in the form of
talking with someone imaginary, but I am laughing at myself the whole
time. I keep thinking... "well, as long as I think this is nuts, I'm
doing OK" :)
- When I concentrate, I tend to rock back and
forth rhythmically. Especially when I'm in distress. This first
manifested as a kid when I would have really bad asthma attacks. It
would allow me to focus and calm myself down. Now, when I'm really on a
roll with work or reading a particularly exciting book, I will rock
back and forth too. My wife noticed this but didn't say anything :)
Maybe
I should see a psychiatrist about this and see if I have a real
problem, or if I am just reading into the inormation. But, considering
that I have a nephew with a PDD (Autism spectrum disorders), it might
just be true.
There are so many more quirks and examples that I
could put here, but this is enough for now. Maybe I'll come back and
add more to the lists later.