I believed, at that time, that there was a way of "fixing" my brain. I believed that I could become like everyone else if I was smart enough. I believed that the way I saw things, the way I understood things, the black hole in my mind, the colors, the smells ... it was all because my brain wasn't fully developed or something. I thought if I trained it, if I exercised it, if I tried to expand my mind ... somehow I'd become "normal" and able to do things and have a normal life and mind.

5/

Of course ... it's IMPOSSIBLE to solve a Rubik's Cube if you have #aphantasia and even more so if you have #dyscalculia ... in fact I'd say that there is no way in hell I could ever be able to solve one.

But I didn't know that then.

That didn't stop me from trying as a kid ... it didn't stop me from having fun trying ...

After all the bullying and all the failings and all of the geek and nerd hatred I experienced growing up, certain things got sacrificed ... Rubik's was one.

6/

When I saw it was the 50th anniversary of the Rubik's Cube ... I thought ... I'm 50+ years old and I haven't touched one or "played" with one since I was a pre-teen and I started thinking how ridiculous and fucked up that was ... how sad it was ...

I know now that I'll never be able to solve one. I know that my brain is just different ... not broken ... just different but that those differences mean I have to accept certain limitations.

I know it's pointless to try.

But it will still be fun.

So, I'm not much younger than you, but your life seems like a mirror of mine. A mirror with a "Black" filter on it. Especially since I was always treated as "basically a woman" because I never conformed to what the closed-minded knuckle-draggers expected of a Man. Reactionary, Violent, Covetous, Confident in my own (imagined) Superiority. I refused to treat others as less than equal, and I was always empathetic. This meant I was obviously "Weak (like a woman)".

1/?

@thewebrecluse

I never had a problem like Synesthesia or Dys-anything, and that made things a little easier. But I've spent my entire life being seen as "different" or "weird". I can't even remember how many times I've had people on the street I don't even know yell out a car window or laugh loudly and point at me while saying "Queer" or "Faggot".

I've never been attracted to Men, or even acted as though I was, but that doesn't stop Dunning-Kruger adherents.

2/?

@thewebrecluse

Just being Intellectual got me attacked, tormented, etc.

I beat one such idiot (a teacher's son), across the face with a Trapper Keeper and broke his nose, because I couldn't take it anymore.

I was told hundreds of times by people who didn't have the capacity of independent thought that I am "going to Hell" for "being Gay" or "having long hair" or "playing D&D"...whatever their Pastor had been regurgitating that week in Church.

3/?

@thewebrecluse

@Heucuva8 I am reading your posts ...

@Heucuva8 It seems to be very common for anyone with a sense of who they are ... a clear path of what they want ... and a lack of interest in bullshit ... that they always become the target for everyone else's sociopathy. The more you walk your own path and the stronger your sense of self, the more people seem determined to drag you down and put you in your place, especially if you are a woman.

This has an obvious effect over time. It leads to one of two reactions.

Either a conformity. An attempt to fit in. "Masking" the weirdness to seem normal.

Or an aggressive rejection of everything those people believe in. A recognition that those people were wrong, not just in their behavior, but in the fundamentals of how they view the world.

Empathy for other people, protection of the Vulnerable, and an instinctual support of the Underdog.

Guess which path I chose?

4/?

@thewebrecluse

@Heucuva8 I couldn't begin to guess ...

Militant Leftist, Intersectional Feminist, supporter of the Deconstruction movement and the Satanic Temple (although I'm not a member)..., BLM and Antifascist...

Hmm. 🤔 Nope. Not sure.

@thewebrecluse

@Heucuva8 👍🏾 We can all only ever be ourselves. Whatever brings us to the path we walk ... Do you. ❤️

.

I will add also that back in the old days ... anything nerdy or geeky was very specific to white people. It wasn't until maybe 20 years ago that I discovered there was such a thing as Black Nerds and that was because of the Internet. In the Before Times when there was no Internet ... the only people around me were a handful of Black people who were so hung up on being Black that they had categories for what Black people did and what white people did. Black people STILL have these categories.

1/

The fact that I liked "white people things" was something my parents HATED about me ... and my mother said this to me well into my adulthood, that I attracted "white friends" because I had "white energy" ...

My mother was valedictorian of her class in college but to her, having "brains" and being "smart" was, at the time, rising above her dead end, racist, deep southern upbringing and PROVING herself to a world of white men.

But my intelligence was ... entitlement and narcissism.

2/

I played Dungeons and Dragons with white boys because no Black people were into that stuff back then ... very few girls either. And if you know anything about the 80s you know that there was a Satanic Panic around DnD and parents were banning it and schools were punishing people who carried Dragon Dice etc. There was a huge controversy over it so you had to play in secret or get grounded or even suspended from school ...

Everything I wanted to do was ... somehow "bad" or "white" ...

3/

I liked opera, Broadway, cars, motorcycles, classical music, reading, games, computers, writing, reading, farming, horticulture, chess ... and this stuff just made my parents so disgusted with me ... like I was some alien creature for liking Shakespeare and action figures and painting miniatures, and was interested in fishing ... and just TONS of "white people things". Apparently, Black people don't "do puzzles" ... who knew? My parents were "experts on Blackness" and I wasn't Black enough.

4/

That has been the case my ENTIRE LIFE in the Black "community". The gatekeeping around what makes someone "Black enough" and allows them to keep their "Black card" are all things I have failed at my entire life. The people who have bullied me the most and the hardest and the most consistently have only ever been Black people.

I had a Rubiks Cube keychain that I had on my backpack at camp and I got beaten the SHIT out of ... and it was torn off and thrown into the lake along with me.

5/

This was a camp for "Black" kids ... Camp Atwater .. (https://www.campatwater.org/) where I experiences some of the worst physical, emotional, and psychological torment and bullying of my life ... for WEEKS ... including things that were just straight up abuse and bordered on police worthy.

They threw some of my Piers Anthony Xanth books into the lake as well ...

So yeah ... bullying for being a "geek" or a "nerd" was pretty standard for me back then.

6/

The other thing that enraged people ...

Me being a stoic.

Oh lord ... being calm, reacting without emotions, being logical, showing reason ... oh that makes people angry as all fuck.

And I was a studying and focused on stoicism, as many of you already know, from a very young age trying to survive the abuse I suffered.

Angry people get more angry when you don't respond to them in kind.

It got me beat up more when I couldn't give them what they wanted.

Once I gave up on society and retired from it completely sometime around 2007 ... I focused on my tribemates and finding my way back to doing what I used to love doing ... Rubik's for some reason never got back into my life. I think for the longest time it kind of disappeared and I didn't start seeing it around again until maybe a few years ago with all those wicked cool videos of the fastest solvers etc. It kind of came back into the spotlight of popularity so more and more I was reminded. ❤️

@thewebrecluse I feel this thread so much. 🖤

@mistressticia ❤️