Far Removed

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 ac...

Humans are tribal. They tend to want to belong, but they don't want to belong to everyone. Humans only want to belong to a group of like individuals. Feeling that they're accepted into such a group is generally good for their mental health. But a simple search for similar people is a shallow characterization of human tribalism. Humans want to belong to strong tribes. A quiet, inactive tribe with no standing is less attractive. Humans want competition and power. Tribes are, foremost, about war. The compound main purpose of a human's tribe is to support compliant members, exile non-compliant members, and to crush nonmembers. Even within tribes, there is constant vetting. Who is a real member? Who truly belongs? Fakers aren't tolerated. Humans want acceptance - but only for themselves. Given complete freedom to treat an individual or a group however they want, humans default to exploitation and abuse, especially in the case of their enemies. Tribes breed that freedom. They...

I often leave my therapist's office thinking about all of the things I tried to communicate during our session. I usually feel that I didn't have my thoughts as together as I'd wanted. I don't like improvising clinical therapy. I prefer to express fully developed ideas. I can't always do that, of course. And that is OK.  This is something that I wrote while I was trying to get some thoughts in order after my therapy session today: I am articulate. This attribute sits in isolation. Some might presume that my being good at talking necessarily means that I'm good at understanding. In my case, this is a bad presumption. I'm reasonably good at expressing myself. This is because I speak very deliberately. When others express themselves to me, I will have trouble understanding if they aren't just as deliberate as I am. I'm only normally competent within a very narrow range of types of communication.   As a writer, I've had to develop ways of thinking ab...

There are people who believe that one's family members necessarily deserve special standing in one's life. I am not among them. I accept no debt to my family. To me, family is just other people. Love is not inherited. What could I have loved even before I developed cause - effect reasoning or an understanding of object permanence? What could I have valued about relationships before I was capable of forming enduring mental representations? Mutual, giving love doesn't arise from nothing. It requires mature understanding. An adult who expects their child to have the same capacity for love that they do is, in my opinion, unprepared to parent. Parent - child love is unequal. It's not a good model for how adults should relate to each other. When I was a child, my parents and guardians wanted me to act like an adult so that I wouldn't trouble them. But they didn't want to treat me like an adult because that would mean acknowledging my autonomy. They wanted me to be non...

My books do not sell.  I ended my professional relationship with my publisher and resolved to retire as an author.  My therapist was unhappy that I had decided to quit and suggested that I contact the Autism Society of Indiana as well as animal rights advocate and autism spokesperson Dr. Temple Grandin.  He said I should ask for help promoting myself.  Maybe I could send Dr. Grandin a book.  Though I thought there was little point in doing so, I did as he suggested.  I sent messages to these two entities via their websites. I got an email from Dr. Grandin's people.  It said I could call her at a certain number and that she would return my call.  I don't like talking to strangers on the phone but I called anyway and spoke to someone who was not Dr. Grandin.  I told this person why I was calling and that I was uncomfortable speaking on the phone.  He said Dr. Grandin would email me.  She called me instead. I was very nervous....

I haven't made a blog post for a while.  I'm not interested in recording my thoughts and feelings.  These are flashes.  When I have insight, it's not worth imparting.  I observe for my own edification, and my observations only work for me, as far as I know.  My therapist tells me that I have good insights and that I should compile a book of them.  I don't know whether my insights are good for others or not.  Because I don't know what other people's insights are, I have nothing to which to compare my own to evaluate any assessment of them. Most of the observations I make about people are blind grabs made in desperation as I flail for purchase in a world that doesn't want to stop me from falling out of it.  I'm not grasping for handholds that I might instruct others to use.  I'm trying to make sense of the world for myself.  I presume that my specific confusions are limited to me.  But is there something I could say about people...

I intellectualize everything. My emotional intelligence is low. My life has very limited emotional dimension. If I must interact with others, I must decide whether to think about them or not. I decide to think about them because that seems safer. My reasoning is this: if there is nothing to think about regarding other people, then all I risk is a wasted effort. But if there is something to think about and I choose not to think about anything, a bad misunderstanding might happen. So, what do I think when I think about others? I think about understanding them. Is there anything about anyone to understand? Probably.  There are things about me to understand, and I make the same claims that others make. I say that I want things, that I feel things, and that I am conscious. I am having experiences. It seems safe to assume that others are like me. People probably aren't blank objects, but maybe they are. They seem to act with intention, but maybe they don't. If I'm wrong that ...

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...

 There is a cascade of questions: how can I live a good life? What is the value of goodness? What is the essence of value? We might assess our lives as either good or bad. We might say that good is better than bad, and that we should be good because being bad is the only alternative. But surely being neither good nor bad is an option. It must be possible to observe without assessing. This is what I want. I want to leave nothing in the world. Some will say that neutrality is simply in the bad category, and that we must want to live positive lives.  Let them say so, and let them condemn me if I live a life of non-participation. I have no interest in politics or society. I have no interest in justice or the common good. To some, saying this is the same as saying that I'm bad or that I'm at best contributing to the bad. Is appeasing critics to be my sole motivation for engaging with this evaluating system? Perhaps I should want to make the world better. But I don't believe ...

My therapist asked me recently if I thought that I had any unresolved anger.  Apparently, he suspected that I might.  I do have anger, but it's not unresolved. I used to be very angry.  I was angry because I didn't understand the world as others presented it.  Others' descriptions of the world didn't comport with my experiences of it.  I saw a world full of unnecessary limits and rules.  Others insisted those rules and limits were eminently necessary even though they couldn't explain why and, in many cases, hadn't even considered why.  This was disorienting and it made me suspect that people were lying to me. But they weren't, for the most part.  Once I stopped imagining malice, it became easier to let go of anger.  I learned that being angry without being considerate was conducive to objectification, and I was objectifying the people I felt anger toward. Some of the people who should have protected me acted to hurt me instead.  I ...