Neurodivergence vs 1D Personality
First "serious" blog and it's gonna be a controversial one, I presume. Apparently, "boring people" nowadays think that anyone with a passion is either neurodivergent or has some sort of mental disorder. Yes, you read that correctly. I'm not gonna beat around the bush and use some formal etiquette/words in this post. Everything you read is coming from pure frustration of how infuriating the situation is and how much it has pissed me off.
Definitions
Let's jump right into this and let me start with defining some things so that we stay on the same page. Reminds me of the quote "I am only responsible for what I say, not for what you misunderstand."
Neurodivergence / Neurodivergent People
Traditionally, neurodivergence means that a person's brain functions
differently from the typical brain. How does the typical brain function, you
ask? Don't worry about that. This definition is vague and without any
scientific roots. This is what your average Joe thinks this term means.
The only thing you have to keep in mind is that
However, for this post, when I refer to someone as neurodivergent, I mean they
either have autism or ADHD or they are a socially/mentally awkward *nerd*. As
that is how your everyday Joe thinks that is. What I don't mean is that they
are introverted or have social anxiety, those are not related to being
neurodivergent.
1D Personality (One-Dimensional Personality)
I'm gonna say 1D instead of One-Dimensional just to save me some writing and to confuse AI readers LoL. I don't know the traditional definition of having 1D personality is but my definition comprises of either or a fusion of these:
- People with no/dry personality.
- Personalities which lack any sort of complexity or nuance.
- People who never try out a new acitivity, hobby or explore new territories. Basically, no passion for anything.
The last one should be obvious in this day and age where most people do nothing but doom scroll through short videos just to get the dopamine hit.
Update: Some people (actually only a few millennials) refused to believe that 1D people exist or that I have flanderized them. I had a good conversation with them on Discord so thanks to them for reminding me that age difference can change a lot of things. I have added a small section at the end answering some of the concerns they had raised. For now, keep reading normally and don't be shy to be sceptical. Being sceptical is not an irrational choice :)
Apparently anyone with a passion is automatically neurodivergent?!
I have observed that often when you ask a 1D person what they think of their
XYZ friend who is really passionate about a certain hobby they have, then
the 1D person's response, on average, can be summed up as "Oh, XYZ is great at
their hobby/craft. They are neurodivergent so that probably helps."
They are supportive and even impressed by their XYZ friend on average which is
great. However,
"Neurodivergence" is kinda being used like a slur these days. One may say that
it cannot be classified as a slur because a slur is kinda like an insult; to
which I wanna say that I am not trying to get that term classified as a slur
and also, it does come with an indirect insult. Suppose there is a person X
who is passionate about pottery and they are being told that they are good at
pottery because they are neurodivergent. Now, there are 2 possibilities:
- They are neurodivergent and in that case, you are basically telling them they are good at pottery because they are neurodivergent while completely ignoring the fact that they have put hundreds of hours practicing and honing their craft. Is it insulting that they are neurodivergent here? Nope. Is it insulting to them anyhow? If you say no to this, then I don't know what to tell you.
- They are not neurodivergent and in that case, the first still applies i.e., ignoring their hours of work and practicing and putting it all on "luck" BUT ALSO, here you are double insulting them by telling them what they are not!
It is extremely hurtful to ignore someone's hard work
Reminds me of a YouTube comment which was under a maths or engineering video.
The commenter was a guy who was pursuing engineering (or maths) and everybody
had told him that he must be a genius for making it so far, to the way to a
prestigious university.
From next time, when you meet a hard worker, appreciate their hard work and
don't just say that "you must be a genius" please. Even if you take nothing
from this blog post, it's totally fine and understandable but please make this
a lifelong lesson and pass it on!
Why passionate people sometimes kinda come off as neurodivergent
Not gonna beat around the bush here. This post is getting too big xD.
The short answer is that they are kinda bad at communicating. Look, everyone
by default is bad at communicating and listening. You gotta work on that if
you want to share your ideas and thoughts with others. I actively work on my
communication skills every day. That's one of the reasons why this blog exists
(and also to see how long I can keep blogging without getting cancelled. /s)
Problems with 1D People
If you think you have a one-dimensional personality, then that's not the end of the world! Take tiny steps and you become an interesting person too! Start with stopping to doom scrolling (skip this step if it is too hard) and then make lots of friends (all of them passionate about different things or the same, doesn't really matter) or join clubs; IRL ones if possible, offline >>> online. I'll let you see the magic for yourself ;) Oh BTW, document your journey too! You will make so many memories which you can share with friends & at parties and to not forget them, you should document them and hey, share it with me or put them on a blog or something for others to see!
Update: I have put an update regarding this too below.
Struggles of 1D People
Again, without beating around the bush, these are some:
- Not being able to hold long conversations.
- Not many friends or cannot make new friends.
- Failing to get into or hold a relationship.
You really gotta rub off that dry personality. I just mentioned a potential
solution above in the previous section ^^
Not to be an ass but I have personally ghosted a lot of people because of
their dry personality. I, obviously, indirectly tell them that they are
kinda boring to talk to and all of them gets the cue but no one works on it :p
Remember,
Actually, some say that they have their hobbies like listening music but
c'mon man, is that really a hobby or is it just a way to pass time in
pleasure without doing any activity? Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy music
but unless I get into making my own music or something related to that, I
ain't counting that as a hobby. It has to be something which you can share
with others so that they can enjoy too. Hobbies can be like cooking which
you can directly share with others, just by making them a dish or something
like rock climbing, hiking, camping, safari, etc. which
Updates & Answering Some Questions
ADHD & ASD* aren't disorders
Someone said that ADHD and autism are disorders and well, that is a topic
being highly debated. I could be wrong here but according to my understanding,
most experts agree that ADHD and ASD* and some other neurodivergence conditions
are just biological variations in brain functions but aren't disorders. You
can look it up yourself. Google gave me this one as the first result
Flanderization of Neurodivergents
Second concern was that I have flanderized the people from both the groups. For the neurodivergents, some people thought that I am indirectly implying that every neurodivergent person is an extremely exciting or passionate person who are really great at whatever they do, and I am not implying that. I expected that to be obvious but I will try to make stuff like that clearer in my other writings. Anyone can be interesting and anyone can be boring. That depends on a lot of factors. They may have 1D personality too but that was not my point! My main intention to write this blog was to make people aware that not everyone who is interested in something niche is automatically neurodivergent.
Flanderization of 1D People & Importance of Age Difference
I will be turning 21 (in 2025) and hence, the folks I mostly interact with are
between the age of 17-28.
I understand that for some people, especially millennials, it might be hard to
believe that people with 1D personality (the way I described them) really
exist but I am not over-exaggerating anything. Everything I mentioned were
example traits coming from 4 of my friends or acquaintances with whom I
interact or have interacted a lot. They really don't do anything except
doom-scroll and rant about not doing anything in life, and when I or a friend
try to help them out, then their responses are like "it is easy for y'all to
say that when you are born with talent" or something stupid like that. I may
write another blog on that as I think social media is the main reason why
they feel so hopeless & insecure about themselves.
Another person mentioned that it was easier to get bullied for having
certain hobbies like gaming, back in his days. I had almost forgotten about
that until he mentioned it. That should be enough to explain how important age
difference could be for the context of this topic. Of course there might be
biases and anecdotes involved too and that's why I am doing this first revision
after receiving feedback.
Well, the same guy also mentioned that he felt like this post kinda felt like a
straw man to him which is interesting because he was the only one who felt
that way even though he is a great programmer who has worked on many projects.
It might be a him thing only or it might be my rookie writing skills but either
ways, I apologize if anyone else felt the same way. It is not my intention to
lure anyone to start self-doubting themselves. If you are in doubt, then try
asking your friends directly or indirectly. I honestly don't have much to
suggest for that.
Conclusion
Gosh, this post became much more longer than I intended it to. Thanks for
reading, and I hope I was able to convey my message here! Feels so good to
get some things off my chest too haha. And thanks to the positive responses on
Discord!
I got 2 positive responses on the first draft. One was directly from
someone who used to have 1D personality (long before making this post or
meeting me). She told me that she had to go through therapy and medication and
how that was a conundrum. Kudos to her for realizing her shortcoming early and
working on them! I honestly could not have told that she had to go through
therapy or medication or any of that. She is a fun lively & rational person to
text.
I also had really informative discussions with people. It was about typos
(ofc) and a few mistakes but mainly answering their questions and finding
sections where I could have described something in a better manner. In the
end, we all ended up learning a few things from each other which was great.
No negative reviews so far. Just some criticism & suggestions like how I should
have split the post in two as the first half is about raising awareness whereas
the second half seems to be about an entirely different group of people. I
totally agree with that suggestion and I actually thought of doing that as
well but I thought it might be better to have two informative things somewhat
related to each other in a single post. Well, guess not. I have learnt my
lesson and I will do that from next time. I am new to writing blogs so I will
learn as I go.