I’m a bit odd, and that’s OK – I have made peace with it.
Much comes from being on the autistic spectrum – high functioning / Asperger’s. Some of my thoughts and experiences around this are in my occasional blog – MyAspergers.info
I am high-functioning, but that mostly describes how other people might not notice that I am autistic. It doesn’t mean it has been an easy journey, which it definitely has not been. Being odd/different and not knowing why can be devastatingly painful.
I like being nude. I’m not a nudist and have zero desire to be nude outside of my home, although I did once spend a few days camping at a nudist beach in Hawaii. I choose to be nude over turning on the aircon, but I won’t put on heating to be nude.
There are many things I have not ever eaten. Autistic people tend to be overly sensitive (as in senses – lighting, noise, taste, smell, clothing labels…) and when I don’t like the taste of something it is more in the direction of terror than dislike. I do love food, but some things have never appealed enough to risk trying. Examples – donuts, almost every form of confectionary except for chocolate and ice cream, prawns, kimchi, goat (and I love curries), egg (boiled, scrambled, whatever), banana, kiwifruit (and my Dad invents new and wonderful varieties), pavlova… I could go on and on.
I wrote a screenplay. It is futuristic, fun, conspiracy theory horror/thriller. White Mice, about a medical experiment gone wrong, and I did a medical experiment once, so it has some level of realism. Screenplays are very hard to write!
I once made 10% of all humans anxious! As Robert Bast, the end-of-the-world in 2012 meme got quite big. Reuters did a global survey and 10% of respondents said they were anxious that the world might end in 2012.
I eat left-handed but am otherwise right-handed. My best guess is that I am very bad with understanding mirror images, and I copied my parents literally, as they ate facing me. Second best guess is that it is logical – a fork needs more dexterity than a knife.
I once had dreadlocks. They weren’t designer. They were like what some homeless people have, and I tore the wad into three. So a bit like Sideshow Bob. People regularly tried to buy drugs from me.
I came 10th in a contest to find NZ’s smartest high school student. The following year I came 8th.
I was a nationally ranked sprinter (in NZ). I only competed a few times, but got in the top 25 for 200m. And I never used starting blocks, didn’t know how.
IQ 172. Tested by Mensa. That was the Culture Fair test. In the other test. more word-based, I got 152. Age 18.
I was once an Internet Millionaire. It only lasted a few years, but my marketing agency did well. One year I earned $650K, and I paid almost half in tax….
I have Chronic Fatigue. It happened right when I had a booming Internet business with 10 staff, was running the 2012 community, was running Freecycle in Australia, and was a full-time dad with a wife who was stuck in a wheelchair for a few months. It came from glandular fever, and my work rate has not been the same since. You do get used it and create coping mechanisms.
I have a lot of kids. A dozen in Australia and untold others in Scotland, who I have never met. It was a good thing to do, but my motivation all those decades ago was easy money.
I have been on TV a lot. Aside from 2012 (documentaries, live TV…) I have been on it because of a medical experiment I did (memory), Freecycle, and game shows (5 I think). Also a full page newspaper article about my work for Google.