Writer Dude Stories – Thoughts from July 24, 2022

We have a new person who works in our department who I hardly ever see because she works mornings and I work at night. I told her, “I hardly ever see you. Tell me something interesting about yourself.” She told me about her past jobs and that one of her sons has autism. She talked about many of the things that are common to families with an autistic child. I told her I have been autistic since I was a kid, but only recently realized it. Autism only started being discussed in the 80s so I missed being diagnosed as a kid. I still think I have fewer autistic traits now than I would have had as a kid. All of this started with me asking her to tell me something interesting about her.

Stories are everywhere. Some of us don’t think of ourselves as having stories, but we all do. The art of writing good fictional stories is combining stories together to create a multilayered larger story. If you have a character who doesn’t seem to have a story, they are underdeveloped. They need to have a life before the story takes place. When you meet new characters, you should have indications of their backstories. I like stories that don’t fit everything together perfectly. There’s a reason fairy tales end with characters living happily ever after. Happily ever after is perfect and boring.

When I was young, I thought a story could be told with no conflict. I now realize that would be a boring story. Perhaps I was reacting to certain conflicts. I still don’t like characters who only hate each other in stories. Conflict is boring without cooperation. This is why I find sports boring. They are mostly competitions with brief stories. When you get the stories of the athletes, you find the long hours of practice and singular focus on their athletic skills makes them pretty dull people. An accountant who is crunching numbers is just as boring as an athlete doing crunches on a field. Both are good at their jobs, but their jobs are boring. An accountant’s life is only exciting if he has to deal with life outside accounting.

Let me ask you something? Yes, you who are reading this in the future. I’m talking to you. Does reading my words make you want to write your own thoughts? Are you frustrated by my ridged thinking? Do you think I’m not ridged enough? Are you glad you never wrote your thoughts out because you think it was a mistake for me to have done so? Are you thinking, “Just write your thoughts Writer Dude, and leave me out of it”? I just wanted to know some of your story. Calm down. Fine, I’ll just drop it (for now).

New paragraph, new attitude. My attitude is usually positive. I find I can say anything about myself to others and it’s accepted because I spoke it with humor and positivity. Having given up on embarrassment years ago, I don’t care what people think of me when I talk about my cats, my anxieties, or feminine qualities. I’m not gay, but I wouldn’t be ashamed if I were. I will share my thoughts with anyone. People will judge me for them, but I also know my thoughts will only be judged harshly by people who don’t like reality. Those people will never get close enough to me for me to care about them. Our judgements are strongest against strangers. We should all strive to turn strangers into people we can care about.

This being one of my longer Thoughts papers, why don’t I just leave you with one final thought. Perhaps I could address the thought elephant in the room. My final thought is about thinking itself. Oops, I ran out of time, so I’ll have to think about this later.

Later!