Published on 12, July, 2020
What so called "childish" or innocent pursuits does anyone have?
Myself, I like blowing bubbles. I always have a pot of them in the car, and often take them out when I go on a walk and sit down and blow them and watch them float gently over the landscape or historic site. I do find it very therapeutic and suppose it is a sort of stimming although it is usually done when I am calm, although sometimes I must say when I have had a difficult few minutes I get the urge to blow them.
I also love watching old children's television programmes from when I was young. Catweazel, the Gerry Anderson puppet series (Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds and even Four Feather Falls), Follyfoot (I fell in love with Dora as a teenager!).
And I am never far from my recorder. Although I stopped being taught at the age of 11, I carried on with playing it and even though my music reading is below very basic I can pick out a tune and change the key to suit very easily.
So does anyone else have these sort of so called childish pursuits and what are they?
Tom, it's people like you (Aspie or not) that push the boundaries, not publishers.
Publishers only want a sure thing because of profits which makes them very conservative and not willing to recognize new talent. Pity it's not up to the kids themselves to decide what they like and don't like.
Hope said:I am that daydreamer with books person - can spend whole days without seeing anyone other than my dad and the person at the checkout. Will spend the day immersed in philosophy. Mind you, many philosophers have argued the case for solitude - the crowd can be corrupting. Also philosophers are often described as having a childish curiosity and aversion to the falsehoods of society.
I am that daydreamer with books person - can spend whole days without seeing anyone other than my dad and the person at the checkout. Will spend the day immersed in philosophy. Mind you, many philosophers have argued the case for solitude - the crowd can be corrupting. Also philosophers are often described as having a childish curiosity and aversion to the falsehoods of society.
A couple of interesting books, if you've not read them, are Anthony Storr's Solitude and Anneli Rufus's Party of One: The Loner's Manifesto. Storr talks about solitude as an important element in stimulating the imaginative capacity in children. He goes on
'Many creative adults have left accounts of childhood feelings of mystical union with nature; peculiar states of awareness, or 'Intimations of Immortality', as Wordsworth called them. Such accounts are furnished by characters as diverse as Walt Whitman, Arthur Koestler, Edmund Gosse, A. L. Rowse and C. S. Lewis. We may be sure that such moments do not occur when playing football, but chiefly when the child is on its own. Bernard Berenson's description is particularly telling. He refers to moments when he lost himself in 'some instant of perfect harmony'...
'In childhood and boyhood this ecstacy overtook me when I was happy out of doors. Was I five or six? Certainly not seven. It was a morning in early summer. A silver haze shimmered and trembled over the lime trees. The air was laden with their fragrance. The temperature was like a caress. I remember - I need not recall - that I climbed up a tree stump and felt suddenly immersed in Itness. I did not call it by that name. I had no need for words. It and I were one.''
I understand that so well! From around the same age - probably not unconnected with my starting school and having to be with others all the time for the first time - I've always relished my solitude. Throughout my school years, I generally found other people - pupils and teachers - to be hostile towards me. When I was fourteen, we moved from South London to a tiny village in Devon. The school there was awful. I became more and more withdrawn, spending hours in my room reading horror and detective stories, or listening to comedy shows on the radio. I also started writing stories then. When I finally left school in June 1975, I spent three months (before I started my first job) relishing my total freedom at last. I'd spend days with the dog, just wandering alone over the hills and fields, not seeing anyone. I still tune into that innocent, wonderful feeling now. I've cohabited twice in my adult life and it's never been good for me. The rest of it - as now - I've been alone. And that's how it will always be. I don't have to put on a front when I'm by myself. The only other people I don't put on a front with are the special needs people at work. The reason I like them so much is that they are all adults - but they behave and think like children.
They're my only people!
lostmyway said:I can imagine kids liking those, Tom. Maybe it's because you can think like a kid you can come up with stuff that kids will like.Actually, from what you said about what you did when your dad died and also your divorce, it kind of reminded me of what Henry Darger did in his apartment in Chicago for over forty years.
I can imagine kids liking those, Tom. Maybe it's because you can think like a kid you can come up with stuff that kids will like.
Actually, from what you said about what you did when your dad died and also your divorce, it kind of reminded me of what Henry Darger did in his apartment in Chicago for over forty years.
I tried to get the stories published, but was turned down by several publishers and agents. I was told they're not 'market-focussed' enough. The 'market' in children's books now falls into strict categories of age group. The boundaries are pretty rigid (that doesn't seem to have been a problem for J K Rowling - though she was told when the first Harry Potter novel was accepted that it probably wouldn't make much money!) I was told that the characters were too 'young' for the length of the stories - that I either needed to make the stories much shorter, or the characters more grown up. Codswallop to that! I argued the toss with one agent. Winnie the Pooh was one of the models I'd used for inspiration. I said to the agent 'So, from what you're telling me, I take it that if Winnie the Pooh was written now, it wouldn't be published.' She said 'That's right - it wouldn't.'
Well... I ask you! It's small wonder that more and more writers are self-publishing and bucking the market that way.
lostmyway said:Tom, you've missed your vocation as a political satirist!They really are quite clever.
Tom, you've missed your vocation as a political satirist!
They really are quite clever.
Haha! Thanks! Just a bit of fun. I've done loads of them. Programs like Gimp really open up opportunities for creativity. I'm no artist - I can't draw or paint to save my life - but these programs are great enablers. I also like creating my own pictures - collages of images taken from photos or the internet. A few years ago, during a really depressed period of my life following my father's death and my divorce, I escaped by writing some children's stories. I wanted them illustrated, but didn't know anyone who could help. So I started dabbling with Paint Pad and Photo House. Here's some of the images I came up with for 'The Sqwobbits'. Shows how childish my imagination is - but then, childishness is an essential thing in a writer. I mean, what we're doing is not exactly a grown-up activity! Kids are so imaginative and anarchic. Then we 'grow up'!
s1214.photobucket.com/.../The Sqwobbits
Isn't this kind of what people at university do? They go to a closed, peaceful community in order to avoid distractions from their 'daydreaming.'
Of course, they can have some 'down time' when they feel they need it too.
I like jumping and skipping - trying to stop masking this side of me when walking down the street because it relaxes me, and I need to stop worrying that other people will judge.
I enjoy, from time to time, a good old Disney movie, and will happily listen to Disney soundtracks.
Ha ha! Thanks!
You might like this one, then. A bit dated now, but...
s1214.photobucket.com/.../1174892_664761653552973_1279655571_n_zpslvp3nyep.jpg.html
Great picture Martian Tom!
I'm very childish. Always have been, in many ways.
It's why I like the work I do. When our special needs people arrive at the Centre in the mornings, it's time for me to slip into my 'child' mode: acting the fool, singing, larking around. It brings out the Spike Milligan in me. I identify with him so much. I find it hard to take so many things seriously, and usually try to bring a joke into things.
As a kid, I used to love playing 'Misfits' - putting the wrong heads on the wrong bodies. PhotoShop (or Gimp, which is what I use) has opened up things for me in that sense. Now, I can take someone's head or body and paste it onto something else, or otherwise play around with images. It's very childish... but great fun!
Here's an example (a bit political - hope no one's offended!)
s1214.photobucket.com/.../12046616_1492106181116200_3613577583657981472_n_zps3qgbzpuo.jpg.html
Islander said:I like to play with a yoyo
I like to play with a yoyo
Must have it's ups and downs, Aspergerix. (Sorry, bad joke)
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It's a good joke , a witty remark, clever, quick thinking.
Thank you.
lostmyway said:I like to play with a yoyo
Good question, Trainspotter.
I can't really think of any obvious activity that you would call childish right away, but I suppose I do tend to do something that you could classify as a hangover from childhood and that is daydreaming.
By that, I mean daydreaming my life away via fiction, such as TV shows, movies, books, etc. Now, a lot of people get pleasure from doing this, it's true, but when it is done as a substitute from really meeting people and going places then I think it is a bit childish and something people should grow out of as they mature. I never have, and I guess it's because of certain traits within my character that make it difficult to handle new situations.
I never liked leaving the house much as a younger adult, aside from work and other important reasons, but left to my own devices preferred to experience gratification via daydreaming.