I have an occasional practice of redeeming words that have a slightly unsavory aspect. I wash them up a bit and then embrace them in my common vocabulary. “Seduction” has been a recent word that I have burnished a bit and then claimed it as an attribute of mine. This morning, I have chosen to see myself as incorrigible. It was perhaps applied to me in jest. But I see it as insightful and accurate. I am incorrigible.
I recognize that I truly am a follower of patterns and rules. I yield and accommodate most social norms. But I also push back at boundaries. I sometimes find new meanings in old expressions and make them my own. I love following a path through the woods, but occasionally I wander off into areas that appear untouched by human trafficking.
Long ago, I was chosen in a seminar to play the role of trickster. It happened by lot, by blindly drawing cards out of a cloth bag. I never thought much of it at the time and I dutifully played the role of trickster in the group. Looking back, I realize that the name I pulled out of the cloth bag was truly my own. I am a trickster. I can be quite conventional and at the same time I can see situations with an awareness that is not at all common or conventional. I choose my vision over that of many others. I may go where no one else is choosing to go.
Perhaps this is simply one of the gifts of being on the autism spectrum. I see many things in non typical ways. I choose to make situations make sense, but I do it in a way that makes sense to me. I choose my own way, I choose my own path. That path goes beyond, or at least pushes up against, the boundaries that others see. I abandon or at least push against what is typically seen as normal.
I am aware that I push against the normal with confidence and conviction. For me, it is a normal thing to do. Being a bit of a trickster is simply who I am, and I wear that label with a deep sense of personal identity. A trickster does not hesitate to walk outside of what others see as norms. For me, that is about the same as being incorrigible.
I am not about to change. I embrace who I am, and the norms I see are the ones I follow. It is my vision of things, and I am compelled to follow the vision that I trust. I resist any attempt by others or institutions to impose norms on me. I resist control, especially if that control attempt to impose a norm on me that is not my own. I am comfortable being abnormal. I guess I am truly incorrigible.