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I like it here. I've always liked it here.
Thing is, I don't have that much free time. I look after my daughter (diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome); and my son who is looking very much the same way. Although I'm not diagnosed, I'm pretty certain I am somewhere on the spectrum.
My whole family is the same. We don't do small talk. We don't really talk at all, unless there are arrangements to be made. But when we do talk, it's likely to be about quantum physics or neurology or something. Among my siblings, our respective spouses all know that our family is a bit odd. Strange, lovable, frustrating, impossible, weird, intense. These are the kinds of adjectives that describe us. They manage to laugh about the very real difficulties they face, dealing with a bunch of Asperger / autistic people.
I'm fortunate compared with a lot of Aspies. I managed to find a wonderful woman who was prepared to marry me and have my kids.
So weekends are occupied looking after the next generation, helping them to deal with living on the spectrum. One of the great things about Aspies is that we can intellectualise almost everything. There are lessons we can teach; experiences we can pass on.
One of the affirming things about the Aspie community is that we are all a bit different, but we know that being different means we can effect change. If everyone conformed; if everyone thought the same way, then nothing would ever change. We Aspies are agents of change.
So, back to E2. Every few weeks I have a slack time and I can pump out a few nodes. Then life takes over again. I think that's a good thing. It gives balance.
I'm not in the least concerned about XP. I play the wheel of surprise far too often, and rather enjoy keeping the XP count lower than it might otherwise be.
Once, in another life, I worked hard to get high reputation. Now I just write what I want to write and when the urge takes me. Some of them do quite well among this critical crowd; others don't. I can't say I worry too much about that. It's a route to understanding the readership here, more than anything.
So what does this readership like? It seems to me that these readers likes things which are short. That makes E2 the same as the rest of the web. Attention spans on the web are famously shorter than elsewhere. So I suspect that a lot of the upvotes on longer, in-depth pieces are based more on the author and subject matter than on the text. Shorter pieces, on the other hand, get read and people vote on their merits.
The other area way to attract votes (up or down) is to write about things which this audience thinks it knows.
These are random thoughts which I might update at some point. Or I might not. It depends if the urge takes me or not.
But still, unlike SpiderJerusalem, I don't hate it here. Not at all.
What that comes down to is that I feel pretty comfortable with myself nowadays. It wasn't always that way. But age brings maturity and acceptance. Once I disliked the way I was and how hard I found it when I tried to relate to other people. Now I can enjoy the difference and relax in my own peculiarities.
Those idiosyncracies mean that I will probably not react in the way you might have expected, and I might not reply when you expected a response, or I might give far more information than you wanted if you asked a question of me. Is that a problem? Not to me. I know I'm a bit different and I rejoice in that. If you find it off-putting, then I apologise in advance. But I also offer a suggestion: look at your own perceptions of what is normal and what is acceptable, and ask if something different from the norm can ever be acceptable.
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