Mind Meld

Give it your single pointed focus, give it everything you have. In the era of mass produced drivel, if I don’t see your humanity, your vulnerability, if I don’t see your love in the work, I don’t have time. Why would I give my time to anything you gave only half your attention to? Why is it worth my glance?

How are you? I’m doing better as the weeks roll by. Last week I purchased two things that I know are going to be game changers in my life: a weighted blanket and a fancy stim toy. It’s a double roller that fits in your palm. It’s made of aircraft aluminum. I love it. If you struggle with anxiety and sensory overload like I do, both of these are game changers. The weighted blanket calms my nerves and brings me to a baseline, the stim roller helps me to focus on what’s important when my mind wants to do everything at once (which it often does). Honestly these might be the greatest inventions since noise cancelling headphones and cannabis cultivation.

Needless to say I can feel the burnout slowly fading, and I am immensely grateful for it. As the burnout is fading and I am recovering from years of sensory overload and masking, I am feeling more and more like myself as time goes on, more capable of focusing on my passions.

One of those passions is: the mind. Perhaps “mind” is simultaneously broad enough and specific enough to include all of my passions.¹ It certainly stems back further than this, but I spent an extra year doing my undergrad so that I could turn my media major into a dual bachelor’s degree by also majoring in cognitive science.

I’d been toying with the idea of pursuing a higher degree since I graduated. I might have, but I had been in school more or less constantly since I was five. I knew I needed to spend some time outside the educational institution.

I started a cycle of working and traveling which continued… until my cognitive overload and burnout started taking longer than a few months to heal from. I knew I could not go on living the same way, I had to find another way to survive.

After trying for years to maintain, only to get swept away into burnout again, I knew I had no choice but to recover. Learning how to maintain my nervous system nearly became a full time occupation. Finally, after almost a year of fully diving into every resource I could find on recovering from autistic burnout, I’m starting to feel better. I’m starting to maintain, to recognize the signs my nervous system gives me so that I can allow myself space to recover. Once I’m healed, and I’m already so close, I need to find work which meshes with my passions instead of merely funding my passions. Though I will work more jobs in my life, I now feel more capable of living more in line with my calling.

Long story short I’ve been getting back into reading cognitive science papers over the past month or so, and it’s really getting me amped over the prospect of going for my masters. Hopefully a PhD as well!

I’ve been looking into programs every three or four years since I graduated from UC San Diego, and though some had intrigued me I never applied, due to high cost or the low confidence which has the tendency to lurk during my burnout days.

I’m happy to say, those times are changing. I’ve found a school that seems to be an excellent fit for me and I will be applying. Rejoice!

Also, the whole point of me starting this blog was to find my voice. I guess I already had an inkling about what it was going to be about, but the whole idea is to write about my interests as pertains to cognition and design. I hope to hone my focus, and eventually conduct research based on questions that may arise here.

Just before I sat down to write this, I had been under my weighted blanket, reading a paper called The Extended Mind, which happens to be written by a PhD student at the same university I decided last week was my top choice for attendance. Yeah it seems like kismet, but I’m jaded. What really gets me is that I am hot on the trail of the stuff that lights my mind on fire.

I am beyond stoked. I’ll get more into it soon.

Footnotes

1. I’ll need to consider that statement but it could be accurate. ↩