I’m ungemutlich. It’s German for “uncomfortable”, but it’s also a reference to the original descriptions of autistic people, that we don’t have souls. From the book Asperger’s Children:
As commitment to the Volk became a priority in the Third Reich, Nazi child psychiatrists like Schroder and his colleagues increasingly noted children they believed forged weaker social bonds and did not align with the group. This new paradigm led a number of practitioners to develop diagnoses for children who lacked community connectedness, which resembled and preceded Asperger’s definition of autistic psychopathy.
Nazi child psychiatrists used the term Gemut to express their ideas of social feeling. Gemut is one of the German language’s famously untranslatable words, and its meaning changed dramatically over time. For Nazi thinkers, Gemut referred to one’s fundamental capacity to form deep bonds with other people. It had metaphysical and social connotations. Good Gemut was essential to one’s worth as an individual, and to the health of the Volk.
The term Gemut emerged in the eighteenth century as synonymous with soul, or Seele. As ideas of the soul secularized and people paid increasing attention to personal emotions, Gemut became a favored term in German culture. Philosopher Immanuel Kant saw Gemut as the seat of one’s “transcendental faculties”, animated by Geist, or spirit. In the Romantic period Gemut became the innermost layer of the soul–more elemental, emotional, and irrational than one’s Geist…
The meaning of Gemut did, indeed, regenerate by the mid-nineteenth century. In everyday conversation, it lost some of its existential and artistic flavor and became more about positive personal and social emotions. Having Gemut meant possessing a rich internal life, strong bonds with family and friends, and a warm and friendly temperament. With the common usage of “gemutlich”–cozy or homey–it also encompassed casual, everyday sociability. But in philosophy, the arts, literature, and other intellectual fields, it retained more metaphysical connotations.
This is my outlet for writing about the problems of life. Identity is complicated.