STOP MAKING SENSE #neurodivergence08/02/2024

While helping clean some of my old belongings from my dad's attic, I found a notebook from when I was around 13 years old. In it, my younger self explained that I seem to do a lot of things "the wrong way". I wouldn't even be aware of it if it wasn't for the way my classmates would give me weird looks. A lot of my primary and early high school years were spent trying my hardest to avoid their ridicule, to little success. I've often felt like I'm an alien visiting planet Earth, unable to fully blend in to human society. Always odd, always an outsider.

A lot of journalists that have interviewed or written about musician and artist David Byrne over the years describe him using similar words. Eccentric, fidgety, shy, alien..
In early interviews with David, you can tell he has a very different demeanor than most interviewees on tv and stage. He has a monotone, quiet voice. He fidgets in his chair, and avoids eye contact. I find him completely fascinating to listen to. You can tell he is thinking very hard about what he wants to say, and he has very interesting observations. In some articles, he is described to go on passionate tangents trying to explain his lyrics, much to the annoyance of his fellow bandmates.
David has often talked about how much he struggled socially as a teen and young adult. “I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.” Later in life, he would self-diagnose himself with aspergers, which is now known as autism spectrum disorder.

My own journey of autistic self-discovery began during my second year of art school. Plunged into an environment in which social rules and expectations were a lot less strict, and the lockdowns making me a lot more aware of my sensory processing issues, something started nagging at me that maybe my lifelong anxiety issues actually had a different cause.
The idea of having autism kind of unnerved me at first. Suddenly, all of these struggles were a part of who I was, not just bad mental health issues that I could heal from in time.
But over the past few years I have become a lot more at peace with this newfound side to my brain and identity. Mainly thanks to my friends, who made me feel safe and accepted. I had been wearing a mask so I'd be accepted by my peers and institutions all my life, and I finally felt comfortable enough to let that go, and see the positive sides of my autistic experience of the world.

As I watched the remastered release of Stop Making Sense in the cinema a few weeks ago, I saw a lot of my neurodivergent experiences reflected on the screen through the concert's narrative and David Byrne's performance. The concert starts with a tense and nervous looking David, alone on the stage, singing Psycho Killer. One by one, the band's other members join in with each new song, and the performance transforms into one full of joy and energy. It was absolutely captivating to watch. To me, and a lot of other neurodivergent Talking Heads fans, and even David Byrne himself, the movie took on a psychological narrative about autistic unmasking. "Starting off as this very twitchy person alone on a stage, or alone in the world, mr. Psycho Killer. And then gradually, over the course of the music and with the help of all these other people who begin to surround me, this angsty guy lets go and is liberated."

Another way in which the concert movie made me feel seen, was through its choreography. When I experience any kind of intense emotion, I work through it by stimming. Almost involuntarily, I make noises, repeat sentences or words over and over, jump up and down, clap or flap with my hands, run through the entire house, rock side to side, or even hit myself. When my emotions aren't as big, I'll absentmindedly twirl my hair, play with an elastic band, or fidget with my clothes or shoes.
All of these are examples of stimming, or self-stimulatory behavior, which is the repetition of movements, sounds, or other repetitive behaviors. It helps with regulating sensory overload, and can be seen in multiple kinds of neurodivergencies. As it is generally not socially acceptable behavior, I had learned to surpress these impulses. But learning to unmask also meant exploring how I could use stimming to relax and self-regulate.
David Byrne is famous for his eccentric dance moves, which he came up with while making recordings of himself exploring these movements in his apartment. During the movie, he can be seen twitching, falling onto the floor, flapping his hands, hitting himself, and rappidly running circles around the stage. To me, this choreography clearly looks to be inspired by the autistic impulse to stim, and it's so validating to see that celebrated on screen!

I still struggle a lot with trying to not be ashamed of my autistic traits.. it doesn't take a lot to make me feel like I'm back in freshman year of high school again, friendless and confused and trying desperately to fit in, not understanding why I was being rejected socially. But seeing David Byrne be celebrated for being his authentic, autistic self, makes me feel a little more hopeful that I can do the same thing.
He has called his autism his superpower, as it allows him to hyperfocus on his creative pursuits and express his unique perspectives through his art, which I relate to a lot. I make art not as a way to vent very personal emotions, but as a way to express my trying (and failing) to make sense of the world, too.

As my university experience draws to a close, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about who I am, where I'm heading, and what I want to do with my life. Learning more about David and his work has inspired me a lot in that process.
While working in the game industry has been my dream for a very long time, which I'm excited to pursue, I've also been entertaining the idea of becoming an artist in the broader sense of the word as well. I don't want to tie myself down to roads that have already been walked on. I want to follow my artistic intuition wherever it will lead me throughout my life, and express myself in my own ways, just like David Byrne. Not care about what other people will think, even if I find that difficult. So what if I do everything wrong in their eyes? At least I'll have made something close to my heart, instead of trying to imitate something that's not me. Fuck conformity! Stop making sense!

Coincidentally, in that attic notebook I also wrote that one of my favorite hobbies was blogging. I have no clue what my younger self was blogging about, and the blog has sadly been lost to time (and my failing memory of where I even hosted the thing).
So here I am, with my first ever blog on my neocities website! I'm hoping that writing these gets easier with time. I keep getting distracted by Talking Heads archive videos on YouTube.
I leave you with a lyric from the song Road to Nowhere, which I found very fitting with this blog entry.