Incidental Beauty

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Sometimes I am struck by the beauty of ordinary things, usually because of whatever light and shadow and color come into play. This could be light in a cloud or a watching cream being poured into a clear mug of coffee. I just want to stare and stare. I wish I could without getting funny looks. Anyone else like this?

Yes, I hike/run early in the morning and on my drive to the trailhead I often have to pull over just to admire the glow on the horizon that precedes the dawn. It is magical. The whole place is beautiful especially in the morning and that is one reason why I much prefer to do this hike alone.

But also, like you, I am caught by little moments during the day of intense beauty in little ordinary things (that are very plainly there if you only look), although I have learned that pointing them out to anyone but my husband, in private, labels me as weird. I was told once (after pointing one of these things out) that I have "a photographer's eye). I don't take pictures much, but I find that if I precede my observation about something being very striking with "I wish I had my camera...", they don't regard it as quite so strange. I guess artists are allowed a lot more latitude in these things.

My GF is genius at capturing this little nothings using her cellphone camera (guess that how she spotted me )
it could be just anything and we could never understand why staring at some nice pattern in a heap of dirt for more than a few seconds invokes such a strong and negative reactions from the typical social environment
like
u can be noisy and violent and behave like an ass and nobody cares but god forbid u get into trance by some incredible beauty u find in the simplest of things
for some reason staring at some stain on the pavement is considered it's too disruptive to the average NT

finding and staring at beauty found in the most ordinary thing is typically autistic
i have a theory as to why we are like that but never mind that
anyway it's very consistent with our other autistic traits

I'm often captivated by how combination of light and shadow and even smell can affect the mood or ambiance of a moment...this week there were two consecutive days in which the weather conditions were virtually identical - slightly overcast and mild - the trees just a week or so past Autumn glory, now a more uniform mixture of browns.

The first day the atmosphere was slightly bleak but tranquil, even seasonally cozy. The next day, the look was the same, but something had changed almost imperceptibly - maybe it was my mood, perhaps just the barometric pressure made it slightly more humid, but it seemed different - melancholy and cloying, it suddenly felt claustrophobic and depressing.

What up wi dat?

I always have a camera with me, and I'm always taking pictures of things I think are pretty. A lot of my pictures are textures on a rock, or a puddle with a strange shape. Or just a unique shape or arrangement of things that will never exist again. I didn't know this was an aspie thing, I just like looking at beautiful things or people, and I see beauty in places that NTs don't notice, but they can see once I point it out to them.

I also heard somewhere that autistic people use the object part of the brain when looking at faces. But I think it's reversed for me, my brain looks for facial features in all objects, and I can see the shape of a face in non-facial objects, or animal shapes all the time.

I just heard that there's a part that processes the looking at of objects, and another part for faces. And supposedly, autistic people use the object part for both things. I can recognize faces immediately, but I see facial structures where they don't belong, so I assume I use the face part for all objects. Even though I can recognize objects immediately, my brain WANTS to see a face.

I also don't like being alone with mannequins or human sculptures, something in me thinks they're gonna come to life and say negative things to me. I know this would never happen, but it's a feeling I have that I can't get rid of, and it's really annoying.

I could stare and play about with running water all day but other people think that's crazy.

I like how water feels. I love being in water, especially at the beach. And it's strange that my favorite place is the beach, because the sun is too bright and the water is cold and there's too many people and I don't swim very well. But being in the water cancels out all that other stuff.

Yes, I totally relate.
I take photos of little cool details in the environment. And I don't bother to not stare at cool stuff. Screw what people think. Life is difficult, and I'm going to find joy where I can no matter who thinks it's strange.

You mean stuff like this...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13669377@N02/2662605801/in/set-72157606136891281/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13669377@N02/2662598635/in/set-72157606136891281/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13669377@N02/2726656909/in/set-72157606510639360/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13669377@N02/2726664829/in/set-72157606510639360/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13669377@N02/2727480192/in/set-72157606510639360/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13669377@N02/2726656037/in/set-72157606510639360/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13669377@N02/1461504025/in/set-72157602205789116/