FMX wrote:
2wheels4ever wrote:
Interesting read, thanks. While I wouldn't agree with the comparison between aspies and hobos I think the sign language is a relevant example and a good precedent. Hobos would notice them, others would not. Yes, some "non-hobos" became aware of the hobo signs and faked them for their own amusement, but it sounds like it was still very useful overall.
The reason I don't like the aspie/hobo comparison is emimeni's concern: perpetuating our own reputation as outcasts. Now, maybe some of us do feel like outcasts, but I don't think it would be helpful for the symbol to imply that - and it doesn't have to. Ideally, all it would mean is "
I think I'm an aspie and I'm OK with some people knowing this, at least other aspies".
I drew the hobo comparison from the almost entirely adult single male population (sound familiar?) that were driven economically as well as socially to roam from place to place. As far as being outcasts, I wouldn't speculate that any of us or them voluntarily choose to be shunned, however I refuse to be someone's "pet" at the same time, as flying the puzzle-piece flag would represent to me.
The status quo says that for me to be allowed to join in their reindeer games I have to deny or hide very carefully that when I hear certain sounds it's as if someone walked up to me and began pounding on my head with a hammer or that I can't magically tell what someone expects me to do or say (even though I'm supposed to) and that when people speak to me, their words might
be idle but I hear them as truth, as just a few examples. God forbid I slip up and cover my ears in public. So, I should just loop my life back to 2002 when I started trying to own the right toys, talk the right talk, do the right drugs, drink the right cocktails, etc., trying to eliminate and reinvent endlessly to get the exact same results of rejection every time, that no acute hyperskill I possess was enough to override?
Society can have its positives, but should we have to comply with all of its demands with no guaranteed fair rate of return? The surest way to please nobody is to please everybody. I'm not saying the public has to "km@" but it's about time they started doing some of the bending for a change.
If someone would have explained life on the spectrum to me when I was 18 and clued me in that there were others that shared this I would have been in a better position to help myself and others without becoming heartbroken in the process.
_________________
Let's go on out and take a moped ride, and all your friends will thing your brain is fried, but you can't live your life too dirty, 'cause in the the end you're born to go 30