Far Removed

At the heart of every human person is an expectation of conflict. For their psychological well-being, humans need to engage in tribalism. But out in the world, they're expected to be civil and deferential most of the time. They're pressured to engage with outsiders politely. It's a big pressure, and it's counterintuitive. Given the opportunity to treat outsiders however they want with no consequences, humans reliably default to cruelty. Look how people behave online. Behind the relative anonymity the internet provides, people drop their politeness. They're eager to do so. Being nice must be a tremendous inconvenience. When the free opportunity to insult, accuse, shun, or ridicule presents itself, the temptation is too great for many. In fact, using the word "temptation" here may be a category error. Humans aren't tempted to violence; violence is inalienable from humanity. It's fundamental. Evidence abounds that H. sapiens doesn't want to use ...

Don't expect me to conform. I'm not like you. I've been called recalcitrant. If I seem that way, it's because I won't do anything that can't be examined. I never act without rationale because knowing why I'm doing something is an important part of knowing what I'm doing. If I don't know why I'm doing something, I probably won't do it very well. So I ask questions, and people don't like that. " Because I said so " and " Because that's just what is done " aren't reasons to do anything.  I can't accept them because they contain nothing to accept. They aren't persuasive because, pragmatically, they're defective in that they're circular. People don't like phrases like that either. They don't like thinkers. I've learned that simply thinking about directives looks to many like bucking directives. I find it difficult to accept that anyone does whatever they're told without thinking s...

I don't identify as Homo sapiens sapiens . I'm not the first autistic person to feel this way. But how can I justify that in conversation with another person? My belief that I'm not a modern human isn't scientific. It isn't a full flight of fancy either, nor is it just another way of saying that I feel like an outsider. I have no intent to prove that there is another subspecies of H. sapiens beyond modern humans and that I'm one of them, but I can at least try to describe my ontology. Biologically, what does it mean to be human?  I assert without evidence that Homo sapiens sapiens has certain traits that are definitive of the subspecies.  You would be right to dismiss this assertion.  Here anyway are those traits as I see them. Humans are tribal. I use tribal here rather than social very deliberately. Humans aren't simply gregarious; they are specifically warlike. They invariably form tribes that war with each other. Isolated from any groups, forced into...

I have a big family, but I'm not part of it. At last count, I had nine siblings, 4 uncles, 4 aunts, and 13 cousins.  That is certainly inaccurate. Regardless, I have no meaningful relationship with any of these people.  They are close with each other on their respective sides of the parental divide. Why have I separated from my family? Contemplating this, I arrived at another question: why has my family separated from me? I've always been different. I don't meet my family's standards for what someone who is worth their consideration should be like. I'm an outsider, and that means I appear to be a waste of normal people's time. No one in my family wants to talk about the only topics I'm interested in, so being around me isn't very fun or comfortable.  When I was young, even though I was weird, there was at least some potential that I might come to be someone my family could relate to. So, naturally, young me is what my family wants to see. The few members...

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...