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Fundamental Incompatibility

I don't identify as human.  Many autistic people report feeling as though they were born on the wrong planet.  I take this as metaphor.   When I say that I'm not human, I mean that literally.

Modern humans are a subspecies of Homo sapiens called Homo sapiens sapiens.  I believe I am distinct enough from H. sapiens sapiens to consider myself an inhuman person.  I outlined some reasons for this in the previous blog post (Am I Human?).  Here is another reason.

Humans flip switches in each other.  This is a reductive way to describe a series of complex neurological processes.  When you hear your name or see a human face, something happens in your brain: a switch is flipped (so to speak) that causes your thought and behavior to change tracks.  Hearing your name changes how you focus your attention.  Seeing your friend in a crowd changes your behavior.  For the most part, you aren't in charge of how these switches act.  Their actions and effects are subconscious.  But some switches can be flipped consciously.

I don't trigger the same switches in humans that humans trigger in each other.  For instance, I don't trigger the attention switch.  When I'm talking with a human, they have to flip their attention switch consciously.  As a result, simply paying attention to me is a chore.  It requires effort.  I can come off as irritating because of the work it takes to attend to me.  I'm like the crash of a dropped plate in a busy restaurant.  People might notice it, but they aren't likely to stand up and start looking for the plate.  They notice the sound and then they continue attending to things which promise more reward.  

I don't trigger the investment switch either.  The investment switch is what makes you consider helping someone.  It's also what makes you care whether your attempts to help have been effective.  When I ask for help, what flips instead is more likely to be the threat switch, if indeed any switch is flipped at all.  As I've said before, I'm like an allergen to human attention.  Humans' natural response to me is rejection, often with prejudice.

It is this fundamental incompatibility with and my essential dissimilarity to humans that makes me feel that I'm not one of them.

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