a reply to:
Profusion
I feel like writing in an altered state tonight (it's 4:00 AM) and all the political talk is driving me nuts so I'm slumming on this side of the board
looking for something to talk about. I hope this adds something to or helps kick off your discussion?
I'm not sure your kindergarten porn ring was precocious or just naughty? Are you just indicating your underground picture trading was precocious
entrepreneurship or that you were somehow objectifying and sexualizing women when you were five? I'm also not sure enjoying adult oriented television
programming is too high on the precocious scale? It might be?
My childhood may have not been precocious either but it was seriously bizarre and I was far more aware of things than any little kid should have to
be. In ATS parlance, I was born with my "third eye" open to certain things which has been both a blessing and a curse.
I won't cite particular examples of precociousness but I was always in a different space from other kids in terms of maturity, academic performance
and understanding of the world. I attribute that to several factors:
My earliest years, up until I was 8 or 9 were ones of mostly small family farm life in rural Ohio with my grandparents who were both born in the
1800's. Kids living on farms and doing farm stuff with animals and agriculture in old school ways are always going to have learned skills and
abilities, that when compared with city-raised kids may seem precocious.
I pretty much lived in big cities after the 3rd grade and have always been somewhat surprised at how inept some people are doing things. I still am.
My mom was raised in the same environment and we are/were both "handier" than most. But this is only a small part of my reasons and I only added this
to point out that what may be normal or just an enhanced skill set to some may be perceived as precociousness by others? I could drive a tractor when
I was seven. Does that count?
In reality, it was my problems that grew me up too fast that kind of fundamentally put me on a different level from everyone my own age. I was dealing
with some primary inconsistencies between who I was in my head, my heart and in my personality and soul and who and what I was supposed to be. It was
very dark and a heavy load and I thought about things by the time I was five or six that even most adults never have. My hyper awareness of the
differences between boys and girls and me, my "curse" if you will, were pervasive, invasive and obsessive thoughts from my earliest memories that
would never leave me alone, ever. I still hear this voice in the back of my head sometimes although it is much quieter than it was when I was a
child.
Dealing with these difficult things, things considered at the time to only be adult problems, is what made me really stand out from other children in
terms of maturity and seriousness and even appearance and behavior so in many ways, you could say I was emotionally precocious dealing with and
thinking about stuff kids just don't unless they're born with the same life sucking problem. (I started seeing child psychiatrists in 1965 when I was
ten.)
I'm not sure being different is being precocious by itself but it certainly set me apart in so many ways. I was always a lot more grown up than other
kids, darker, deeper and more pensive but having tough problems can do that. Even through high school and especially then, I was still somewhat in a
league of my own. Some saw this as being precocious. Others just thought I was broken. (I wasn't. Everything worked out)