This is a comment on a story on Slate.com about the apparent racial content
of the Dutch Sinter Klaas holiday.

“Allochtoon” does mean foreigner.
The reason that we call them foreigners is because that is what they call themselves.
If you ask a 8 year old Moroccan boy where he’s from. He won’t tell you that he’s born
in Utrecht or Amsterdam, but that he is from Morocco.
Although he’ll probably only knows the country from a few holidays.

Forty years ago we used to call people from Morocco and the likes “guest workers”.
But they never returned to their own country, so clearly they weren’t.
Instead they stayed to enjoy our health plans, unemployment benefits and pensions.
Although some Dutch people complained, the majority didn’t mind.

Nor did we mind that they continued to speak their own language and adhere by their
own religion and follow their own religious holidays.
Some ten, fifteen years ago head coverings started showing up in the Dutch streets.
And although it caused some annoyance, most people didn’t mind.

But you have to draw the line somewhere.
A few years back there was talk of demolishing the Christmas holidays in favor of the
sugar feast.
It never happened. But for the first time the Dutch people got the feeling that our
culture was under attack.

Now foreigners are complaining that the Sinter Klaas holiday is racist.
It might be.
But that’s not the point.
It’s our holiday. Part of our cultural heritage.
We, the Dutch people, are getting the ever stronger feeling that if those foreigners
really hate our culture that much, they should go back to where they came from.
But of course they won’t.
Where else could they enjoy a lifestyle that is as good as what they get in the
Netherlands?

I’m Henk.
I’m 50 years old.
I’m gay.
I have autism.
I’m half black, half white. (My father is white, my mother was black.)
But I never did anything with black culture.

My mother was one of the first black people in the Netherlands.
When I was born black culture didn’t exist.
More black people came to the Netherlands when I was in my teens.
But they where from a different part of the world.
They didn’t even speak my language.

I’m trying to be a writer.

I’ve been telling stories most of my live.
But I told those stories to myself.
The stories where about myself.

/begin cut
………………….
/end cut

I’m editing.
While I was thinking about this story I realized something.
While I feel the need to tell some stories over and over again.
Doesn’t mean that you feel the need to read those stories over and over again.

I’m single.
Not understanding the differences between NTs and people with autism I’ve been stuck for a few years.
But I’m getting there.
I don’t think I’m ready yet to say,
I’m in a relationship.
But I would like to be able to say,
I have friends.

Nobody likes to be called abnormal. Not even if it’s only implied.
So when I came out as gay, 30 years ago, I found that I had to educate people.
The opposite of gay isn’t normal but straight.

The same holds true for autism.
In autism the brain is wired differently. Of more scientifically we are neuro atypical.
The opposite of people who are autistic are people who are neuro typical. Or NT.

After discovering why I need to talk to myself I find myself talking a lot in English.
Talking to this blog. Thinking up stories I could write. Sometimes even finding
fragments without knowing to which story they belong.

It’s a little exhausting thinking about stories all day. So sometimes I order myself
to stop. But that turns out to be even more exhausting.
It took me a while to figure out why.

This afternoon cycling back home from my work I caught myself talking Dutch to myself.
I started within a few seconds after I stopped talking English.
Only the Dutch conversations are far more annoying.
I replay a discussion I had with some colleague to whom I couldn’t explain something.

In this case I replayed a discussion with a colleague who accused me of not being
social because I don’t obey Promen’s childish rules.
In this case the rule that you should stay on the department floor until you get
permission to go on break: Typically people stop working about 5 minutes before the
actual break starts and standing by the door wait until the manager gives them
permission to leave.
I don’t.
I work until it’s time to go on break. Leave my seat and walk straight to the lunchroom.

Of course this is a sheltered workplace and people have loads of problems.
The reason why they stand at the door is because they don’t dare to take
responsibility for their own lives.
Taking responsibility means solving your own problems and living by your own rules.
But if you can’t solve your own problems the safest bet is to live by the rules of the
manager and leave it to him to solve your problems.

I tried to tell this guy that not following Promen’s rules is a consequence of taking
responsibility for my own life. But he didn’t agree.
Which actually isn’t strange.
No grown man will ever admit to not being able to fix his own problems.

I know this. But still it annoys me.
For a few days. And then I find something else to be annoyed about.
But only when I think in Dutch.

It’s nice to know that I can choose either to think in Dutch and be annoyed or think
in English and create stories.

I never really considered it a problem, but I have been
wondering the last couple of years. Why is it that I
always have so many problems. And why is it that almost
everybody I know has a lot of problems.

.
..
…
….
…..
Bored….
Bored….?
Bored….!
Bored!

It always takes me a few weeks to figure out what it is
that I’m feeling.
A month ago I realized that I was feeling bored.
I had nothing left to think about.

So my first reaction was to go out and find me some kind
of problem to solve.
But after a few days it dawned on me that this is why I
always have so many problems. I search them out.

I love solving problems. Whether they are personal
problems, work related problems, problems of other
people or just problems I’ve read about.
People who worked at boarding houses group homes
where trained in recognizing problems by the way
people behaved. So it actually happens that I know
what is wrong with people with whom I’ve never talked.

I love figuring out what is wrong and finding a
way to solve the problem.
But there is a down side.
When problems get solved people run of in search
for a more happy life and I go out and find the next
problem. Which leads to a somewhat depressing life style.

On further thought I concluded that it isn’t the finding
of the solution that I love. It’s the thinking process
that precedes it. But this thinking process isn’t exclusive
to solving problems.
So I’m done with solving (other people’s) problems.
Now I’m going to work on my own future.
Let’s see how much fun I can get out of writing
stories for this blog.