Curing Autism Potentially Means No More Greta Thunbergs

I really hope scientists don't discover a 'cure' for autism. I feel like many of the guys I support enable me to reconnect to precisely how one goes about obtaining meaning from life. From their total lack of concern at having their actions judged by onlookers, to expressing their joys and sorrows in their fullest, without anything held back - this neurodevelopmental condition I'm continuing to learn is helping me keep in sights what it is that connects all humans on the most fundamental level. How we must all find or nurture a meaning for our lives which feels like it fits perfectly. One that we wear permanently like clothing. A second skin.

I love Greta's direct and sobering prose. She has found her meaning, and swathes of the world's populace is resonating in agreement with what she has found. Her autism has afforded her the everlasting ability to never become dissuaded from needing to reach her goal. The daily streams of social debris, the small-talk, the gossip, the rumours and malicious speculations, the personal attacks and outright garbage the majority of us are forced to wade through each day, trying our hardest to not become emotionally deflated by - these trivialities are like water that thankfully mostly run off Greta's back. Power's oppressive will is unable to steer her life course. The futile efforts by the patriarchy to smother her have only caused the world to learn of its enfeebled impotence. Her 'disability' has found itself appearing more and more like a super ability at this moment of time in our technologically developed civilization.

Her haters are right to fear her, as she poses an existential threat to the system itself. A system whose powers to persuade and convince people to accept problems intentionally and cynically created for them, so that they may buy its impoverished solutions - a system whose ability to steer her wants and needs has been in vain. A person like that is indeed dangerous to the system. They feel like a calling.

Getting Rid Of Weeds Gave Me A Fresh Perspective On My Religion

I'm a support worker who works with people with autism. One of my clients, Fred (not his real name), has an allotment he loves spending time at, tending to the vegetables and flowers there and making sure the place is always a neat and presentable place to work in.

It was a lovely sunny day down at the allotment, and Fred took out with some pride his weed burner with which he intended to scorch the undesirable plants growing between the cracks of the paved flooring. I hadn't seen a weed burner until I started helping out at the allotment, and really it's just a long metal tube similar in form to a litter picking grabber, but with a can of butane attached to the handle, making it a flame thrower one can use in a residential setting. My fellow support worker with me at the time commented that together with the backpack I had on, I looked like a budget Ghostbuster.

As Fred began scorching the weed-filled crevices to enhance the aesthetic of his plot, my colleague, who initially was gazing with interest at the way the intense blue flame would make the edges of the weeds glow bright orange before they morphed into charcoal, suddenly became extremely anxious at the sight of some insects that had been living in the cracks clambering up to the surface and dispersing in panic. Ants, small spiders and woodlice all came rushing out looking for a place of refuge while the ladybirds wisely made emergency take-offs and took to the skies. My colleague, who I've since come to learn is a deeply empathetic person in all manner of respects, urged Fred to turn his weed burner off at once so she could take those insects closest to the flame away to a place of safety. Fred abided, and soon the insects had been gathered up and transferred to a nearby flower bed. After a short time, insects stopped emerging from the cracks that had received a taste of the burner's menace, and so Fred resumed his task again.

The acuteness of my colleague's emotional response, and her efforts to rescue these insects before they became ash caused me put myself in their shoes for a while and consider the experience the unfortunate ones on the front line who had perished in the blaze had just been through.

One moment you're chilling in a nice cosy little nook on a summer's day, undisturbed by the universe, enjoying shelter from predators among the rogue blades of grass and dandelion leaves around you, maybe even snacking on a greenfly or two or just lounging on bean bags made of soil, and then, without warning, you look up to see a huge body from the heavens appear, casting a shadow upon your world before a fire of biblical proportions rains down upon your neighborhood.

Imagining myself as one of those insects left me with a renewed perspective of religion reflecting later that evening, the religion I was brought up to believe at least. I wondered how the insects might have responded if they had been brought up as atheists or as Catholics, like I was.

In the final brief moments before realising they were about to die in the raging fire engulfing them, the atheist insects could be forgiven for assuming that this furnace from above they were powerless to stop, was simply a cold hard reality of life - that what was happening was a random and indiscriminate chance event which unfortunately for them just happened to be happening now. A natural disaster.

"Such is life!", exclaimed the woodlouse to the ant.

"Oh woe is us! Nature is inherently cruel in its indifference towards our lot, and we are simply unlucky fodder at the mercy of its whims!", lamented the spider to the earthworm; who hadn't heard a thing the spider had said as earthworms are stone deaf.

Similarly, the Catholic insects, not knowing why they were suddenly being torched, could also be forgiven for assuming that there was a reason why this blaze that seemed heaven sent wished to annihilate them. They might conclude, without any solid evidence of course, that there was a specific reason why this was happening right now, that the inferno was in fact an act of God who had cause to take aim at them personally, a cause they'd probably appreciate a bit longer than a few seconds to work out. These insects had royally pissed off God somehow, and God couldn't be bothered to tell them what it was they had done. What a rotter!

"The powers up above want to destroy our way of life!", cried the ladybird with an air of authority rarely displayed before.

"Yes! This is no random happening. It is the intention of God to punish us for living the way that we do. This has happened to me before, but I was lucky to escape with only a charred wing. God hates those insects who choose to live in the cracks! He considers us lowlifes! This is no natural disaster I tell you! It is the work of a higher power! ", shrieked the greenfly in sheer desperation, while also maintaining a safe distance away from the ladybird, just in case.

And the Catholic insects would be pretty spot on in their assessment to a large extent. The inferno they were powerless to control wasn't a random event at all. There was a definite reason why it was taking place. And many more paving cracks would be left charred that day. The Catholic insects should also be forgiven for a second time - for envisaging an all-powerful, all-seeing God who wields complete dominion over their world, going potty behind the celestial controls because nothing winds him up more than insects communing among dandelions in narrow openings.

You can't really expect a woodlouse or an ant, no matter how smart they are, to deduce that a person with a learning disability in a wheelchair, brandishing a weed burner only because their lack of mobility limits the degree to which they can participate in manual tasks, and whose aim is to simply to make their allotment prettier, is the reason for their suffering. It was never Fred's intention to knowingly destroy the habitat of another culture and claim it was necessary in order to serve a higher purpose - that of beauty. He would be truly mortified to find himself thinking in this way.

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Greta Thunberg - Perhaps it will befall the person with autism to do what is necessary to save us all

It strikes me as significant the fact that today's youth climate change strike taking place in over 100 countries was conceived and driven forward to this point by a person with autism. It's significant that it took a person with a so-called disability to display the necessary level of single-mindedness to act for the benefit of all, which I'm hoping serves to empower others to have the courage to act upon their own deep convictions despite perhaps feeling they are the only ones willing to do so.

Over the past 15 months that I've been working with adults with severe autism, many of their traits I've come to see as evolutionary strengths I've wanted to instill in myself - one of which being the importance of always remaining faithful to what really matters most - ignoring the distraction of the chitter-chatter and inconsequential small talk of others and pursuing that which leads to a feeling of true contentedness.

Every single person with autism has been uniquely configured, and so it's almost impossible to make any generalisations about what makes them tick, but from the 8 residents I've been fortunate to work with, every single one simply has no interest in comparing themselves to others. Every single one of them has no issue expressing how they feel at any moment in time regardless of how it may appear to onlookers. And in the increasingly ambiguous and confusing reality we inexorably create for ourselves, it's been massively stabilising to find myself each day in an environment surrounded by people whose actions and intentions I can believe 100% - because when you live in a sea of uncertainties that tosses you around mercilessly, you need an anchor to help keep you steadfast throughout it all.

Asperger's Syndrome and the Importance of Expressing Oneself Honestly

I had a really interesting conversation with a group of people who have Asperger's syndrome about whether or not they found it easier to express themselves online. Several of the comments caused me to think about how many of the obstacles they face mirror those of people who don't have Asperger's, but the ways in which both groups handled these obstacles differed.

When you communicate in writing, you basically are posting something which contains past, present and future. As people with ASD tend to gravitate towards others with similar interests to their own, if they're reading a post which is long and they get to a boring bit they can easily skip to the next interesting part. A bit like taking a remote control out and pressing the fast forward button at someone rambling on about their passion for drainpipe design in real life

One person recalled that they were always the only person in class that would put up their hand if they knew the answer. To them it seemed like "everyone else was too scared to contribute anything to the discussion". Often in lectures at Uni, I watch the lecturer ask basic questions to check whether the students are up to speed on the essential elements of a subject and be met by a hundred blank faces staring back at them.

Often in the real world people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) will struggle to respond immediately or need a bit more time to respond so they can gather their thoughts. Being online means that they can take as much time as they need to say precisely what they want to say.

Things got really interesting when on the topic of expressing yourself honestly a person wrote "Without the social programming, I don't think we are as aware of societal pressures. Being partially mind-blind also helps with not knowing or caring as much about what people think.

It's kind of like how humans aren't embarrassed or hyper-aware of themselves around their pets. When there is nothing in your brain that "connects" you to a certain species you feel free to do as you please (not in a bad way). It's like how you can still care what your pet thinks, but also not care. You certainly don't care if your pet thinks you look fat or if he questions your career choice. That's what it's like to have ASD, for me at least."

Another person said "I am the opposite of mind speaking because I don't get exhausted, I just get mad at myself and feel like a coward for not speaking up and I feel dishonest. I also refuse to have opinions about things I care nothing about and I don't have opinions on lots of things so people won't really get an honest answer out of me because I don't care. I don't care what you have on or what you have on your head so I won't really have an opinion about it if nothing is on my mind about it. You just catch me off guard if you ask "What do you think of my hat/outfit?" and my automatic answer is "I don't know.""

Other people were more direct: "I say what I want when I want to. I'm a good person so if I step on someone's toes I assume they will give me the courtesy to explain myself. If not, fuck em."

The most intriguing response for me was by someone who almost saw their Asperger's as a gift, bestowed upon them in order to help them thrive in the new world that is rapidly being created around us:

"I know I am fairly alone in this camp but, not only do I not believe that ASD is any kind of error or aberration to the progress or evolution of human-beings, but I also believe it is occurring for many reasons to point us towards greater advancement.

Regardless of how easy or difficult it is for someone to accept their own nature, transcend a lot of the outdated social norms or ways of thinking and being, I believe those with ASD have specifically chosen to be born in a way where any deviation from authenticity will be acutely felt. They will not be able to lie to themselves or others about who they are, what they think, feel or want.. without experiencing tremendous awareness of this falsity, and it is in this awareness, this driving force to honor themselves, that a lot of anxiety, depression and suffering is born.

Point being, neurotypical and neurodivergent people can both suffer from the sometimes crushing presence of external expectations and standards, but the neurodivergent are coming forward in large number, as a large conscious energy, to move beyond it, to complete a paradigm shift."