This post is in the Self category

Dear Reader

I am looking back at certain aspects of my life of some 40 years and looking for someone or something to blame. Frankly I'm pissed off. I am convinced that I could have done better, could have reached some higher potential, sooner.

If I had known about ASD when I was 15, would I have screwed up so badly on so many occasions? Would I be rather "better off" than I am? Would I have made some of the decisions that have been "right"? Would I have spent the last couple of years of high school drifting around in a Prozac induced haze or hiding in the music rooms? Would I have chosen to be a musician because that is what I "am"? Would I have fought against illogical religious bigotry and found the Baha'i Faith - that most logical of beliefs? Would I have been able to withstand waiting for five years to marry the girl I fell for at the age of 17 because she accepted me for myself? Would I have been able to persuade my family that there was a career in making music in a studio? Would I have figured out earlier that I just didn't have the life and business skills to make it work at that time, or the next time, or the time after that? Would I have understood that an offer of work that sounds like a great deal will have some flaws? Would I have been able to see the facts before we were so far in debt that we had to sell our house? Would I have had the misguided confidence to say "OK" when a certain Professor said to me "Why don't you enrol in a Master's degree, then I can employ you..."? Would I be able to see beyond next day, next week?

But my purpose in writing this dissertation is not to make excuses for myself or for others "afflicted". I want to explain and understand, not find forgiveness or solace or negation of a life lived. Decisions are made according to what we know at the time, the way we see things, the vision we can generate.

Now I know that there are things I don't know or find it difficult to see, and I have some clues as to where to look for them, how to interpret them.

It's a start.

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