I knew I’d be coming back around to reading First Steps With WordPress again shortly after having read it not too long ago. Take a quick scroll down to the middle of that page where you see a light blue box saying, “This website will be dedicated to X, Y, and Z, and cover the topics of A, B, and C. The audience will be blank, blank, blank. I will be adding posts every blank about blank, blank, blank. I am doing this because blank, blank, blank.” Etc., etc., etc.
Oh, all that Now What? advice sounds wonderful — to neurotypicals I’m sure. But what about us aspies with poor executive functioning abilities? Can anyone imagine how endless the decisions are when you’re beginning something new without any clue that anyone even cares? . . . and if that’s not bad enough, add to all that, the nightmare which comes when ideas come in like a tsunami but executive functioning tends to be, well, a bit dysfunctional?
It’s just another one of those it’s a blessing, but it’s a curse things. I need ideas like a body-builder needs weights. He needs a plan for building up his muscles. I need a plan for building up my ability to plan. That’s much of what I hope to gain by sticking with this blog. It forces me to stick with a plan (vague, but it’s still a plan at least).
I wonder if NTs realize Aspies often begin plans with vague goals. Even when I bought my computer, I had no clue what I was going to be doing with one. The dilemma though was that I knew I would have no other way of knowing what difference a computer could make in my life until I began to live with one. Wow! . . . I don’t know what changed my life more: becoming spiritually born again, having children, or getting a computer (okay, maybe some of it’s a bit exaggerating)? All of those things aren’t much different than blogging in a way. I had no clue how my life was going to change when I experienced those other things and I have no clue how my life is going to change from blogging either. It’s said that the pen is mightier than the sword (I assume that it depends on what you’re saying).
Getting back to the executive functioning issue and planning . . .
WordPress didn’t seem to take into account give and take aspects in blogging. When I read the plan, it was as if one would be planning to only write, and write, and write — without much consideration to reading comments, other blogs, new articles from links, etc.
I don’t doubt a lot gets accomplished because of a well thought-out plan utilized by a functioning executive; plus, it’s great that most people work this way! However, logic would dictate there has to be a time, place, and purpose for those of us who do things differently. We can’t fill in those blanks in forms. (Generally speaking) expecting aspies to follow a plan would be like expecting the sun to shine on a particular day a year or so away because it’s when you’re getting married. Would you then say the sun has poor executive functioning or would you just accept the weather as it comes and enjoy what you can when you can?
Because I can enjoy what I can when I can, while having to fit in a world where mostly everyone else judges people by their goals accomplished, then I know to expect NTs will always view most aspies like me with these nonconforming traits as having a disorder and/or being dysfunctional. They’re the ones who come up with saying a phone is out of order when it won’t work for them. For me, if a phone wouldn’t work, I’d just say it’s doing exactly what it should be doing and that I’m simply lacking the knowledge to know what its reason is at that moment for not conforming to my expectations.
