This past Friday, I had a wonderful conversation with my colleague Maria Iliou as she hosted the blogtalkradio program “KEYS 4 The Human Condition” (sort of an ironic coincidence to appear on this blog), which, along with her other program “Human Potential,” deals with autism advocacy, the autistic experience, and autistic rights. Friday’s program dealt mainly with the needs of autistic individuals in the American school system. Also on the show that evening was Rose Guedes - who has recently released a chapbook called “Heart of a Womanchild” - who made me aware of something worth noting about autistic experiences.
I was speaking on behalf of my own experiences with PDD, when Rose (herself an outspoken “Aspee”) began to talk about how autistic individuals (and I speak generally and invite others to share their thoughts) often experience situations and moments objectively, reserving subjectivity for later or not at all. This was reflected in my own experiences and was mirrored in conversations I have had with others, who talk often of “hypersensitivity” to social interactions, images, emotions, every day experiences, or moments. This would also explain the unique abilities of savants who seem to be able to reproduce or grasp concepts in their entirety, as if they naturally capture the world in an objective sense, like a photograph. This, to me, seemed precisely reversed to how most of us approach the world: We project subjective opinions, perceptions, emotions, understandings, etc. onto situations and can only perceive things objectively as an afterthought, with the aide of things like logic, reason, and perspective (which, once more, reminds me of the Local Gems anthology “Perspectives: Poetry Concerning Autism and Other Disabilities”). This revelation sparked a conversation between myself, Rose, and Maria that, for me, seemed to illustrate something that can better how all of us approach the world.
I was speaking on behalf of my own experiences with PDD, when Rose (herself an outspoken “Aspee”) began to talk about how autistic individuals (and I speak generally and invite others to share their thoughts) often experience situations and moments objectively, reserving subjectivity for later or not at all. This was reflected in my own experiences and was mirrored in conversations I have had with others, who talk often of “hypersensitivity” to social interactions, images, emotions, every day experiences, or moments. This would also explain the unique abilities of savants who seem to be able to reproduce or grasp concepts in their entirety, as if they naturally capture the world in an objective sense, like a photograph. This, to me, seemed precisely reversed to how most of us approach the world: We project subjective opinions, perceptions, emotions, understandings, etc. onto situations and can only perceive things objectively as an afterthought, with the aide of things like logic, reason, and perspective (which, once more, reminds me of the Local Gems anthology “Perspectives: Poetry Concerning Autism and Other Disabilities”). This revelation sparked a conversation between myself, Rose, and Maria that, for me, seemed to illustrate something that can better how all of us approach the world.
We’re not all savants, and we’re certainly not all autistic, but the autistic experience of the world does seem to reveal a lot about how humanity as a whole approaches life day to day. We judge each other and the world around us almost constantly, projecting ourselves onto the things we perceive. Of course, prejudice, racism, sexism, oppression, and ostracization are naturally not objective. Indeed, they are quite the opposite. Yet, they exist, they are prevalent, and they are subtle. Though we may not outrightly express it - as prejudice and the like have become culturally damned - the thoughts still persist, changing from overt to covert properties of society. Such judgements are subjective and do not represent the reality of things. Ironically, it seems, reality is constantly tainted by warped fantasy.
Is it possible to learn to see things, to see one another and our world, objectively? Is it possible to pause our precognitive judgements, our subconscious evaluations and authentications about reality, to see the beauty in things, the uniqueness in things, to experience things as they are? Can we see ourselves for who we are and not what we want each other to be or not be? In a kind of grand irony, autism - a term developed from the Greek ‘autos,’ which means ‘self’ - seems to create a natural selflessness, an ability to see that transcends the eye or the “I” it is a part of.
Your challenge: For one day, try to halt your judgements, refrain from opinions, step back, and see everything for what it is; try to lose yourself in the process; challenge yourself to find the purest kind of acceptance. Report back what you uncover about yourself and the world around you.
