One of the crucial questions anyone wants to know about another person's religious or philosophical beliefs is: How has it benefited your life in tangible or substantive ways? In this post, I'm going to tackle that question head on and illustrate for you how philosophical Taoism has benefited my life in one specific area: learning to accept myself as an introvert.
I should say here at the outset that I've addressed this issue many times before, but not at the length I plan to do today. In fact, this episode of Real Life Tao will be laid out in three parts.
Since as long as I can remember, I've been a very introspective kind of person. Part of the explanation for this trait is neurological -- Asperger's Syndrome -- and part of it is environmental. It's hard for me to know which one is the predominant feature or which one has exerted the greatest influence.
I was born without a fully developed left hip. Within the first few months of my life, I was placed in a set of braces with a rigid bar between my two legs. At some point between 18 months and 2 years, the bar was removed, but the braces were not. They remained a central fixture of my life until I was nearly 3.
Because of the braces, I neither learned to crawl or walk at the rate of my peers. While most two year olds go scampering to and fro on wobbly legs, I had very little mobility. Because of my disability and great difficulty getting around, my parents didn't take me to public parks or other venues where I might interact with children my own age until I was nearly 4. So, I started off life with a definite social disadvantage.
At around age 4, I started to catch up with my peers in many areas except for social skills. In retrospect, I believe this resulted from a combination of my earlier social isolation along with my autistic tendencies. Try as I might, I have never caught up and even now, at age 52, I can best be described as socially awkward.
As I started public school, I quickly learned that the other children considered me excessively weird and strange. I was never included in any of the cliques. When choosing teams for kick ball or dodge ball, I was one of those kids that no one wanted to select for their team. When there was adult supervision, the team leaders were told that one of them had to pick me, but where adult supervision was lacking, I tended to end up on the sidelines.
Lacking friends and a peer-based social group, I spent a lot of my time alone. While other children raced home from school to spend the afternoon hanging out with their friends, more often than not, I hung out by myself OR with my younger brother's friends who were 6 - 10 years younger than I.
The loneliness and social isolation was excruciating! I so desperately wanted to be one of the gang, but no gang wanted anything to do with me. Faced with this situation year after year, I found myself faced with two choices: go crazy or learn to entertain myself. I chose the latter.
I made up imaginary friends; people who accepted me for who I was. I made friends with all the area pets. I read and studied nature. I collected baseball cards, stamps and coins. And even though I didn't seem to connect with my peers, I got along quite well with adults!
I struggled as best I could through elementary and junior high school. As I've mentioned before, there was a period in high school when I wasn't such a social pariah, but it didn't last very long. As I matured, I learned to mimic some of the social skills that I was lacking and this aided me in having a fair social experience in college. Most of my peers still considered me decidedly strange, but I did finally achieve membership in a group of other misfits which, for me, was a crowning achievement!
In Part 2 of Finding the Groove, I'll explore the territory known as early adulthood. Part 3 will tie this all together and show how Taoism has completely transformed my outlook.
This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.
I should say here at the outset that I've addressed this issue many times before, but not at the length I plan to do today. In fact, this episode of Real Life Tao will be laid out in three parts.
Since as long as I can remember, I've been a very introspective kind of person. Part of the explanation for this trait is neurological -- Asperger's Syndrome -- and part of it is environmental. It's hard for me to know which one is the predominant feature or which one has exerted the greatest influence.
I was born without a fully developed left hip. Within the first few months of my life, I was placed in a set of braces with a rigid bar between my two legs. At some point between 18 months and 2 years, the bar was removed, but the braces were not. They remained a central fixture of my life until I was nearly 3.
Because of the braces, I neither learned to crawl or walk at the rate of my peers. While most two year olds go scampering to and fro on wobbly legs, I had very little mobility. Because of my disability and great difficulty getting around, my parents didn't take me to public parks or other venues where I might interact with children my own age until I was nearly 4. So, I started off life with a definite social disadvantage.
At around age 4, I started to catch up with my peers in many areas except for social skills. In retrospect, I believe this resulted from a combination of my earlier social isolation along with my autistic tendencies. Try as I might, I have never caught up and even now, at age 52, I can best be described as socially awkward.
As I started public school, I quickly learned that the other children considered me excessively weird and strange. I was never included in any of the cliques. When choosing teams for kick ball or dodge ball, I was one of those kids that no one wanted to select for their team. When there was adult supervision, the team leaders were told that one of them had to pick me, but where adult supervision was lacking, I tended to end up on the sidelines.
Lacking friends and a peer-based social group, I spent a lot of my time alone. While other children raced home from school to spend the afternoon hanging out with their friends, more often than not, I hung out by myself OR with my younger brother's friends who were 6 - 10 years younger than I.
The loneliness and social isolation was excruciating! I so desperately wanted to be one of the gang, but no gang wanted anything to do with me. Faced with this situation year after year, I found myself faced with two choices: go crazy or learn to entertain myself. I chose the latter.
I made up imaginary friends; people who accepted me for who I was. I made friends with all the area pets. I read and studied nature. I collected baseball cards, stamps and coins. And even though I didn't seem to connect with my peers, I got along quite well with adults!
I struggled as best I could through elementary and junior high school. As I've mentioned before, there was a period in high school when I wasn't such a social pariah, but it didn't last very long. As I matured, I learned to mimic some of the social skills that I was lacking and this aided me in having a fair social experience in college. Most of my peers still considered me decidedly strange, but I did finally achieve membership in a group of other misfits which, for me, was a crowning achievement!
In Part 2 of Finding the Groove, I'll explore the territory known as early adulthood. Part 3 will tie this all together and show how Taoism has completely transformed my outlook.
This post is part of a series. For an introduction, go here.
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