on special interests
Something that I've never related with as much about the autistic experience1 was the idea of a special interest. Not because I didn’t think I had one, but because my sense of self is so disjointed and my interests are so ever-changing that it was hard to pinpoint any interests I’ve had consistently throughout my life.
Well, besides bugs. We love bugs.
However, lately as I’ve been rediscovering my passion for coding, I’ve come to realize that I do have at least one other special interest, it’s just a bit more… conceptual.
I’ve always been fascinated by the intersection of aesthetics and functionality, especially in contexts where the functionality leads the aesthetics of the design, without aesthetics simply being an afterthought.
As an example, when making layouts on miscellaneous little sites throughout my life, sometimes the background choice will determine the whole page orientation. If the background image has a large graphic in the middle, I can’t do a standard centered page without ruining it.
In a different direction, in high school I was always particularly interested in the textiles aspect of fashion and figuring out how I can play around with utility in unintended ways (such as making a sturdy purse from some houndstooth couch upholstery).
Even in a more playful sense I find that intersection to be entertaining though. A couple of weeks ago I was mildly fixated on making both cute and aesthetically pleasing teams on Pokémon mystery dungeon DX, simply because I refused to have an awkward hodgepodge for water dungeons.
Now that I’ve pinpointed this, it'll be interesting to see where else it pops up in my behavior. I’m sure it’s more often than I expect.
as it is represented on social media↩