Hi! My name is Kenneth Udut. I’m a Religion and Cultural Studies major at UCF, minoring in Cognitive Science. The Cognitive Science minor is what brings me here. Outside of that and to correct my use of “recreational” as not meaning “drugs”, but rather, the contrast of work vs play, I won’t repeat what’s in the video in this space.
When I was in school, I would always score 40-60% on “Listening Comprehension” in standardized tests, while scoring 90-99% on everything else. “What was the author’s intent?” would baffle me every time. From age 12 on, it seemed everybody else had a secret book (that I didn’t) where they understood what each other wasn’t saying. Inference, “main idea”, these things eluded me.
So, I studied people. People’s words and habits and customs. Cultures and subcultures would fascinate me. I’d observe online subcultures, making a few friends in any group, trying to understand their words and ways, to see, what makes them unique and yet sharing in these bonds. Neurodivergence can become an asset because the social outsider role is familiar as is the search for the kind-hearted in group dynamics willing to embrace differences.
Online since 1989, my “screentime” becomes a window to the planet where my challenges aren’t barriers and where inference is far simpler than the real-time multi-model communication in real world spaces where a poor “close-reading” of social cues can have disastrous consequences.
As I finish up, I’m realizing that this is the space to share commonalities; I bring up cats (cat person) and hobbies (trying to understand how everything functions and being amazed at it all), travel I’ve done, jobs I’ve had. If you’ve read this far or watched the video, thank you.
PS: I took four years of Spanish in high school. Reading Borges in Spanish and having the images FLASH in my brain directly was a treat for 17 year old me, particularly the Aleph.
I also taught myself Russian while going through an uber religious phase in my mid 20s. I could write in Russian script well and understand a few Russian words. I can still read some things – at least pronounce them poorly. But I realized I didn’t have much to say in English so why would I have much to say in Russian and so I stopped. I taught myself a little Portuguese online when Orkut the social network was around.
From New Jersey, in Collier County in the woods right now living with 9-15 people – all family – depending. Cats are fond of me. INFP
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