Published on 12, July, 2020
I really struggle with intolerance towards people who break the rules. It's a bit like "road rage", but not confined to when I'm driving. Whenever someone does something they aren't "supposed to" I'm liable to overreact and have a fit. I wish I didn't, as it's stressful in itself and can lead to confrontations which just make it worse. I wonder if this is common in autism...
Rules I heard as a child
"Because I said So"
"As long as you are under my roof, my rules"
"You re a girl so you can't do that"
"Girls 'sposed to obey and have babies"
....a longer list can be made available to anyone who has never heard such dizzying cognitive dissonance from the mouths of large overpowering giants who held our small lives and well being in their grasps.
I did a little surreptitious study, when I was a juvenile, to find out the way in which rules are made, being curious about why a rule was a rule at all.
The more I saw how the "sausage" was made, the more I realized that some rules are just a byproduct of lack of imagination and/ or critical thinking, the rule maker being unable to think on an ad hoc basis. Concussion: people use rule making sometimes when they too lazy to think.
And some others are purely meant to empower one group over another's interests in order to dominate them to some financial benefit to themselves. It was but a 200 some odd years ago that enslaving a person was OK and a rule one could freely use for the above stated purpose. Another example of a rule, meant to dominate and control, is the new "subscription" based business model for accessing products that had previously been sold outright as copies - like post CS6 adobe products, or one's digital music library, stored on corporate sponsored servers, to which one must pay again to access - or lose access to in lieu.
So I study a rule and think of ways I need see it as OK or not, and if there is even anything I can do about it if not. If I can and it's a selfish or lazy rule I ignore it, or slink past it.
Absolutely! I'm glad I'm not the only one who looks at a rule and asks questions of it and the people imposing them. Much of the time I think rules are are just lealised bullying, they just dont' make sense and certainly don't stand up to scrutiny. I would say in defence of parents saying because I said so and other such things, is that you get worn out by small children who are in the "why/" phase of development, this follows shortly after the "whats'that?" phase and given that these small people are as yet unable to understand abstract thinking, you end up stumped when asked, 'How does the world hold everything up without falling over?'