50 Shades of Autistic Thinking, Pt. 1: Magic is Afoot…
A short post to kick off a series on “50 Shades of Autistic Thinking”….
BTW, politix ain’t the point of this post… please hang in there with me…
I was having a great conversation with my wife about the #BlackLivesMatter protests sweeping the USA… for approaching 3 months…
“What do you think about tearing down the statues?” she says.
We chew the fat back & forth a few minutes… about tradition… and cultural continuity… cuz that’s what you do between hits…
We’re both Lefties, so we pretty quick end up agreeing, “Screw the statues.”
“You remember my meme?” I say.
“Yeah, I just wondered what you think about George Washington….”
So I think… a moment. “It’s still just a physical object… Right?”
I get pretty preachy stoned…
And BTW, she’ll probably kill me when she sees how good I make myself come off as I report our conversation…
“A statue has size, mass, and duration. Nothing more. No magical powers. Even if they tear down a freakin’ Jesus… nothing much changes in the universe.”
We nodded sagely, probably mumbling to each other, “It’s not their fault…. they’re just uninformed.” Elitism gonna get us killed…
But…
Like a lot of autists, my symbol-manipulating mind doesn’t play well with my feeling mind.
I often don’t “know” as I am speaking… what I am feeling in the moment…. emotions, body sensations, pain, senses…. etc.
What “Many” call alexithymia, difficulty… even inability… understanding one’s own emotions…
Altho I broaden my take to include all forms of internal states, not just emotions. Because I see little difference between emotions and what “Many” calls interoception.
Because my mind… when alone with my self… largely thinks in images, sensations, emotions.
Pretty much interchangeably. And desperately overlappingly.
Like much of what I blog for you, these statements are not true for 💯% of autists…
Nor is this one: Frequently I only understand what I feel, or what motivates me… much later. Sometimes YEARS later…
When I compulsively “rehearse” conversations and events in great sensory detail… to try to catch any social mistakes I may have made, try to analyze micro-expressions of my friend to catch any signs of offense…. and the like.
After the fact.
Some autists refer to this as “rewinding (the video),” “reviewing,” “replaying,” or similar terms for this kind of incessant internal monologue.
So about 5 minutes later sitting in the hot lazy sun on our country porch, I realize…
I just lied to my wife.
My point…. And I do have one…
Objects are NOT just physical to me…
They are imbued with… I guess you’d say…
Magic… ⁉️
I have been collecting, organizing, arranging, re-arranging, cherishing objects…
For all my living memory.
And I’m pretty sure I remember my second Christmas at 1-and-half… and having scarlet fever even earlier…
Christmas ornaments. Dinosaur stamps. Stuffed dog. Mason jars. Shiny objects I pick up in the street…
I even have a special “object pouch”… sorta like Star Trek Voyager’s Chakotay’s medicine pouch…
Cuz objects preserve memories for me. Which doesn’t really cover it…
More than memory. Holding them, touching them, feeling them, gazing at them…
I more than remember…. I relive, re-experience… in nearly all its sensual glory… A good day… A moment of love… A new beginning…
Like an outward sign of an inner & spiritual grace.
And even now I’m still not getting to the heart of my relationship with objects…
They have a kind of life for me. A kind of awareness. Maybe feelings…
Magic. Especially living or once living things.
My wife’ll tell ya…
I cried when our classic 70s Cadillac got totaled by a drug dealer’s SUV doing highway speeds over a hill in a Bloomington neighborhood as I pulled away from a stop sign…
How can one not admire, respect, even feel awe for such a fragile object… with brittle enamel paint and ridiculously easy-to-crumple sheet metal…
Surviving…. Keeping… Its physical integrity…
Driving at highway speeds…. Subject to flying pebbles, weather, sun, and dodging the occasional drug-crazed driver…?
Except that last one.
And I can go into a rage when a neighbor cuts down a hundred-year old maple…. cuz it might fall… they think… on their freakin’ trailer… which was built to be moved…. hence, mobile home…
The courage. The sheer persistence… The style!
Of that car!
Of that tree!
There is no doubt I feel love for objects… Only slightly fainter than for humans, pets, animals…
My guitar.
My laptop.
It’s not mental illness… Trust me.
I do possess rational cognition. And magical thinking…
Maybe just not at the same time.
This is just how my autistic brain works…
Ya, know?
So, yeah. I felt something when Columbus went down.
But I dealt.
One last, last, very last point…
I’d be lying to you, gentle reader, if I claimed politics don’t matter to me.
So all the above being said, taking into account my “special feeling” for objects, my mild psychic pain at their destruction, AND all that…
For my Black step-grandchildren, their fathers, and those among my few lifetime friends who are POC (People of Color)…
I still say, “Screw the statues.”
#BlackLivesMatter.
Support #ActuallyAutistic artists, musicians, writers…
Like, Share, or Comment, so search engines share more autistic voices!
Originally published at http://autisticaf.me on August 23, 2020.
