Chapter 1
I shall allow myself to do an absolutely unforgivable thing, which is to divide people. On those are able to make decisions about themselves and on those who follow the body. No one is surprised when animals behave as they have been taught – wild ones growl, and domesticated ones seem defenseless without you. The same goes for children. They are simply trying to survive a difficult period of vulnerability. Their bodies are mechanisms oriented towards survival. We understand that as we grow up, we become less and less animalistic and more human. After all, we adults are free beings. I do not disagree completely. I understand why we should believe in our free will. Judging citizens and maintaining order requires us to assume that people are responsible for their actions. Of course, there are extenuating circumstances. It is easier for us to understand the brutality of a person who was treated this way as a child. It is easier for us to understand inhuman acts when people are in extreme despair, hungry, tired. I believe that in every good person circumstances influencing both their own and others’ behavior should arouse sympathy. However, we would not be able to function as a state, turning every court hearing into family therapy to find out the first one to blame for actions of the criminal-obviously-someone’s-child. We would not be able to function by holding parents responsible for the actions of their children, or by explaining every harm by disturbed homeostasis of the body caused by hunger or nervousness. Primarily, because if one person were forgiven because they were actually frightened and justifiably angry, other intelligent speakers would use this example to obtain an innocence verdict for their definitely guilty clients. And it hurts. But that’s the way things are.
However, I do not want to talk about extreme situations, because I do not want to pretend to be a man who, when tortured, would keep a straight face and would make decisions according to higher morality and not the needs of the body. I was born in a place that, despite inflation and things like that, is damn rich from historical perspective. However, the boring everyday life is enough for interesting observations. For example, how differently people behave before the meal. How the circumstances of the articulation of one’s request can cause difference between the expected and real result. It seems pretty obvious, yet it took me longer than you might expect to figure out. Perhaps it is a matter of my innate, different way of thinking. I never had a specialist confirm if my tendencies were on the autism spectrum, because at a point in my life when I was open-minded enough to consider that idea, I was also familiar enough with my preferences not to require much outside support. Perhaps one day I will find out. For now, I stick to the narrative that my perception is different from that of the majority of the population. This probably why I assumed that hunger does not affect decisions that require only rational reasoning. So why would my mother yell at me to come back to my room when I suggested my outing with friends, supporting my disquisition with logical arguments (how nothing bad would happen and that I would be very happy)? Why should I wait until morning to make her breakfast in bed and then, starting with a few suggestions, finally ask for permission?
When I was old enough to have some awareness, I devoted myself to observing people as mechanisms. As a child, I was too involved in this world. After all, my well-being depended on my parents and I had to adapt to their will, regardless of my needs. I also wanted to make friends, and that required submission to the will of the group. For a long time I played my role perfectly, not understanding I was fulfilling wishes of my need of belonging. I remember teaching my friends that you should not tell a particular kind of joke when it does not make anyone laugh. It took me a long time to understand that I was trying to put restrictions on all of us that would prevent us from doing what we wanted to do most. I was afraid that what someone would want to do was leave me alone again, for me to sit on the floor with a book until the rest of school, trying to silence the omnipresent noise with my fingers. Then the idea of being just myself touched my heart. I remember wailing as I listened to a woman with autism talk about her daily life. I just felt overwhelming sadness. I tried to explain to my friends that my needs were different from theirs. I wanted to spend time in familiar places, without music in the background, and refuse trips to distant places. I was treated like a problem. I was told that they were having more fun without me complaining. I heard my own words from a few years ago from the mouths of my friends. In retrospect, I can say that I was wrong. I used to be irritated by jokes that echoed off the walls, because I felt compelled to react to them somehow – to laugh, to reprimand someone that their comment was inappropriate, to start a different topic, to break the awkward silence. The longer my devotion to being myself, the more I allowed myself to ignore the inner voice suggesting the right path to survival in society. Nowadays I hear racist, transsexual or anti-transsexual jokes – when one makes me laugh, I laugh, if not, I continue what I did. There are phrases that still disgust me, but somehow I cannot get emotionally involved in opposing them. I say that I do not like such teasing, or I even shout, but even then it is an external scream, subsiding when it ceases to be useful. And I love this real world a lot more than I liked my old world. That is why, probably once I saw how much wider the horizon is, when I look beyond what is socially acceptable, unquestionably by everyone (that is, in my understanding by my group of friends), I could not close my personality within the four walls of decency. I was presented with an offer to either adapt or be myself. Guess what the fuck have I chosen. However, you cannot understand how surprised I was when people respected and trusted so much did not object. I am still so fucking sad when I think about it. And I admit that despite my earlier talk about how natural it is for me to act rationally, I have an absolutely irrational grudge against these people, because the whole situation hurt me badly. The blood from this wound slowly washed away the remains of who I was. And I was a happy man. I lost my naivety and childishness. I can no longer look at people who seem so wonderful and charming, hoping that one day they will change and stop making all the mistakes that make them terribly insulting and destructive toward people on their way. The moment when I have chosen my fate still remains before my eyes. I remember my impression of the people created in that moment. And I walk away from the shiny greatness, disappointed once again. Hence, in a way, my bold proposal about looking for people different from the majority. Those who are like players, unlike NPCs who are afraid of adventure, are only satisfied with what the moderators have taught them. I cannot assure you now that I know what I am trying to communicate, yet I hope to explain my way of seeing the world.
