In my experience, people are seldom straightforward. When they speak, they hide some things. Often, even if I can see what they're implying, I don't understand the reason for the implication. I assume that people have reasons for putting things in indirect terms. If you can speak directly but you don't, that must be significant of something. But what does it signify? This is something that I'm likely to misunderstand.
The sculptor Michelangelo is reputed to have said, "The sculpture is already complete within the marble block before I start my work. It is already there. I just have to chisel away the superfluous material." For now, let's imagine that he definitely said that. It's very poetic, but it's just another way of saying, "I improvise a lot." Why did he choose to say what he said? Is there anything implicit in the way that he said it? I understand what he meant, but I don't understand why he expressed himself the way he did. Maybe he really believed that he was freeing finished sculptures from superfluous marble. Or maybe he was just trying to sound a certain way so that he might seem a certain way. This is where I become confused. Perhaps a simpler example: "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" means "Don't rely on something that isn't certain yet." I understand the meaning, but why use an idiom to convey it?
The issue extends beyond idiom. If someone gives me an indirect answer to a direct question, then I assume they're trying to imply something by their indirectness. You may have heard the term "creature comforts." I have an idea of what that refers to, but I don't understand how a creature comfort is different from any other kind of comfort. What is it about whatever a creature comfort is that makes it necessary to invent a special term for it?
For me, speaking is a meaningful effort. I don't speak idly, even if it seems like I do when I'm excessing about a pet topic. Everything I say is a means to an end. Speech is a tool. It can be a tool for explaining, and it can be a tool for obfuscating. If someone wants to obfuscate, that means something. It means that they believe they have a reason to hide something, and it means that they believe they have something to hide. Whom they hide what they mean from is also significant. Unless, of course, it isn't. Some of what people say is junk that doesn't add clarity to what they mean. The fact that so many people use the tool of language so clumsily compounds my confusion. If I assume that there is never, in the things people say, anything to infer, then I will sometimes misunderstand them. If I assume there is always something therein to infer, then I could drive myself crazy trying to see what they're implying and why. The only reasonable thing to do is to assess on a case-to-case basis whether someone is deliberately being indirect or not. Here lies a big problem.
I can't navigate inconsistency. This is an example of where autism can constitute a disability. When people are unreliable in their conveyance of what they mean, I don't know how to conduct interactions with them. I will retreat rather than try. Many autistic people miss nonverbal cues. Some, like me, don't know what to do with nonverbal cues if we do catch them. An LCSW once explained to me that most communication is nonverbal. This may be, but I assert that nonverbal communication isn't the most effective way of saying what you mean. That would be direct speech. If there is a message hidden in a gesture or in some vague tonal modulation, I can't but imagine that there's a reason for hiding it instead of just presenting it directly. This is the pathology of my autism spectrum disorder.
Is it possible that choosing not to respond to verbal cues which we understand but which are confusing because they are presented nonverbally could look to some psychologists like failing to interpret nonverbal cues at all? I genuinely don't know. But I suspect that there are some things happening in the autistic mind which experts misunderstand because they aren't explained correctly. People in general don't realize how different we can be from each other.
Permit me this final illustration: imagine that your car breaks down. A mechanic tells you which part needs to be replaced. You've never heard of that part before. You didn't even know it was there to break. Your picture of the range of things that can go wrong with a car expands to include that part. Psychologically, humans are like cars in that they have many parts. Some of these parts are very small and most people don't even know that they exist. When your car breaks down, you will probably accept the mechanic's diagnosis of the problem even if you didn't know the problem was possible. We must expand our understanding of ourselves and each other to include far more diversity than we assume. Parts of the autistic experience, at least as autism manifests in me, are only difficult because of the way the World of Others is configured. In some cases, we only seem divergent because others exclude us. More and better understanding of the way neurodivergent people can communicate could increase the effectiveness of our communication across the board.
The sculptor Michelangelo is reputed to have said, "The sculpture is already complete within the marble block before I start my work. It is already there. I just have to chisel away the superfluous material." For now, let's imagine that he definitely said that. It's very poetic, but it's just another way of saying, "I improvise a lot." Why did he choose to say what he said? Is there anything implicit in the way that he said it? I understand what he meant, but I don't understand why he expressed himself the way he did. Maybe he really believed that he was freeing finished sculptures from superfluous marble. Or maybe he was just trying to sound a certain way so that he might seem a certain way. This is where I become confused. Perhaps a simpler example: "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" means "Don't rely on something that isn't certain yet." I understand the meaning, but why use an idiom to convey it?
The issue extends beyond idiom. If someone gives me an indirect answer to a direct question, then I assume they're trying to imply something by their indirectness. You may have heard the term "creature comforts." I have an idea of what that refers to, but I don't understand how a creature comfort is different from any other kind of comfort. What is it about whatever a creature comfort is that makes it necessary to invent a special term for it?
For me, speaking is a meaningful effort. I don't speak idly, even if it seems like I do when I'm excessing about a pet topic. Everything I say is a means to an end. Speech is a tool. It can be a tool for explaining, and it can be a tool for obfuscating. If someone wants to obfuscate, that means something. It means that they believe they have a reason to hide something, and it means that they believe they have something to hide. Whom they hide what they mean from is also significant. Unless, of course, it isn't. Some of what people say is junk that doesn't add clarity to what they mean. The fact that so many people use the tool of language so clumsily compounds my confusion. If I assume that there is never, in the things people say, anything to infer, then I will sometimes misunderstand them. If I assume there is always something therein to infer, then I could drive myself crazy trying to see what they're implying and why. The only reasonable thing to do is to assess on a case-to-case basis whether someone is deliberately being indirect or not. Here lies a big problem.
I can't navigate inconsistency. This is an example of where autism can constitute a disability. When people are unreliable in their conveyance of what they mean, I don't know how to conduct interactions with them. I will retreat rather than try. Many autistic people miss nonverbal cues. Some, like me, don't know what to do with nonverbal cues if we do catch them. An LCSW once explained to me that most communication is nonverbal. This may be, but I assert that nonverbal communication isn't the most effective way of saying what you mean. That would be direct speech. If there is a message hidden in a gesture or in some vague tonal modulation, I can't but imagine that there's a reason for hiding it instead of just presenting it directly. This is the pathology of my autism spectrum disorder.
Is it possible that choosing not to respond to verbal cues which we understand but which are confusing because they are presented nonverbally could look to some psychologists like failing to interpret nonverbal cues at all? I genuinely don't know. But I suspect that there are some things happening in the autistic mind which experts misunderstand because they aren't explained correctly. People in general don't realize how different we can be from each other.
Permit me this final illustration: imagine that your car breaks down. A mechanic tells you which part needs to be replaced. You've never heard of that part before. You didn't even know it was there to break. Your picture of the range of things that can go wrong with a car expands to include that part. Psychologically, humans are like cars in that they have many parts. Some of these parts are very small and most people don't even know that they exist. When your car breaks down, you will probably accept the mechanic's diagnosis of the problem even if you didn't know the problem was possible. We must expand our understanding of ourselves and each other to include far more diversity than we assume. Parts of the autistic experience, at least as autism manifests in me, are only difficult because of the way the World of Others is configured. In some cases, we only seem divergent because others exclude us. More and better understanding of the way neurodivergent people can communicate could increase the effectiveness of our communication across the board.
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