Lack of Talent/Pervasive interests and self-doubt

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I've been reading stories about aspie's with intense fixations, and who are very adept at some form of science or math.

I feel sort of invalidated, because I don't see myself in them.

I write an awful lot, and ruminate on characters and world building. Writing makes life tolerable. But I wouldn't call this unusually fixated. It's a hobby. I have other HIGHLY specific things/areas I enjoy, but again, it's a hobby. I'm not an expert, I just enjoy these things. They are things I come back to, they don't define my life. I don't wake up thinking about them.

I'm not an unusually talented person. There is nothing in particular that I excel at.

But these two things seem to be at the core of every aspie story ever.

There are other areas that I relate to wholeheartedly, but I guess I feel a little weird that I'm not an expert in something or above average.

Am I being overdramatic, yay or nay?

The media, and by extension culture, has a habit of showing two different autistic 'characters', the autistic-savant who's supremely talented at a special interest and a dullard idiot who is useless to everyone around them. Just like NT's there's a bell curve between those two extremes and you're probably someplace in the middle of that curve, as are the vast majority of us. There's nothing wrong with your special interests being just hobbies, that they bring you satisfaction is all that you should be worried about.

I don't have any talents, just a knack for memorizing a lot of useless information.

Same here. I once saw a coffee mug at my old job that said "I Have No Special Talents, I Am Only Passionately Curious" and I strongly related to it. My only talent is obsessing over TV shows and their actors.

I don't think you're being over-dramatic, I can relate. I have those feelings too where I get upset because I'm not really exceptionally good at anything. I often feel like everybody has their "thing" except me.

It's great that you have things you enjoy. I'm sure you're a fantastic writer

"I Have No Special Talents, I Am Only Passionately Curious" is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein, I hope you're as able as I was to see the irony in that.

So true. The simplistic, binary media portrayals used to reinforce myths are very harmful: so-called "low functioning" people are identified by "defects" and their talents are ignored. The opposite misrepresentation (often) happens to the "high functioning" - their talents are identified and their challenges are ignored. In both cases, the media gets it wrong.

Could you expand on that as I don't see how that is true or even an unbiased statement given the press coverage of these individuals (short list) who all overtly demonstrate "defects" during their press coverage while being recognized for their achievements. I didn't see any Hollywood magic special effects hiding their disability or any glossing over the fact they have autism. In fact most reports I have seen about people with autism highlight that they have struggles, but found a way to overcome them to do something positive for themselves or others.

Stephen Wiltshire
Dani Bowman
Ann Kagarise
Michael Korins
Anthony Ianni
Grant Manier
Amy Gravino
Peter Cestaro
Kerry Magro
Jeremy Sicile-Kira
Erin Clemens

I find it more disheartening and utterly bias to see these posts about the "fictitious" person with classic stereotypical Asperger traits being a figment of media and neurotypicals imaginations or worse. I also find it utterly insincere to say that the media is to blame for people (including the ones on WP) misunderstandings and misinformation. It is not the media's responsibility to educate on all the details, it is the medias responsibility to present (not teach) ideas, facts, and entertain. If someone's enlightenment stops at a 30 second clip then they're responsible for the ensuing results not the media. To think otherwise only proves a persons inability for critical thought and their need to be spoon fed knowledge.

I would say - ask someone else(someone nice, not someone constantly nagging about you "doing nothing") to tell if you are actually talented or not because you might just be hard on yourself.
I am pretty sure I don't have any "special" talent or interest either but my mom, aunt and grandma think otherwise - in their opinion I have "a talent" for stuff that require visual+logical thinking, such as putting Ikea furniture together and I am "obsessed" with thunderstorms and anime(thunderstorms are already outdated but they still think I am into it).

From my experience "pervasive interests" is not what you see in yourself but what others see in you compared to whats the norm.

And yet, ask the normal person on the street about a person with autism and they'll say, "you mean like Rainman?" It's not that those two extremes don't exist, it's that they're the majority representation of autism in the media. The modern media isn't about accuracy or factual representation, it's about selling a story, no different than Stephen King, and trying to sell a story about average people is the surest way to go broke. That's the incentive for representing autism at it's two far extremes. Also your quip at the end has a bit of naivete: the vast majority of humans do have an inability for critical thought and want their knowledge spoon fed to them, we wouldn't have schools if humans were natural curious and passionate about critical thought and knowledge-- there'd be no need for them, because humans would be self-starters on that front.

It wasn't a quip; a quip is a witty often funny remark. It was statement as to how I perceived those who view media as the start and end of information.

Nor do I see where your argument for media producing entertainment differs from my statement about what media is for.

As a final note. I would rather be lectured on people's inability for critical thought from anyone who isn't broadly painting a narrative that suits their needs.

First, you're making an assumption that my 'narrative' is about my needs, I'm Joe Friday, just the facts ma'am-- whether I like them or not. Second you're defending an industry who's entire modus operandi is 'broadly painting a narrative' by arguing against someone doing the same, that's just absurd.

I wish I could put stuff together which I buy from IKEA. It's a very useful talent. You can furnish a whole home very quickly that way. I am very poor with mechanical things; my wife lets me know that all the time.

I have some pervasive, yet pretty useless, interests. I choose to follow these, rather than read up on mortgage trends or whatever. This is why I'm still a clerk. This is why I'll never get rich.

I requested and stated facts if you want to see it as defending I can't stop you. I asked to be shown how media is responsible for the misgivings surrounding autism singularly and by media I was referring to news outlets. Movies wouldn't count in my book since you yourself said they are for entertainment and that is their purpose. Unless they are documentaries of course.

So I am asking you (though I didn't initially) expand upon how the media is solely to blame.

Simple fact is you can't. There are multitudes of reasons people hold beliefs on any one given subject. Media plays a very small role in it. Some other things that play roles in a person's beliefs are experiences, emotional states, ability to process information, willingness to listen, upbringing, etc.. So if you can explain away all of that and point the finger at media as the sole problem, I would be happy to listen.

Please stop being defensive, I actually want to have a conversation and understand how it is you can claim the media is to blame without any doubt. If you can't I hope you will clear the floor for someone who can or even more respectable and dignified (in my view) just say you don't know.

Easy: where do you get your information to form your opinion? Where do your peers get their information? At it's raw source it's generally coming from the media. If the media has no influence on people's beliefs how do you explain the sudden rise of women's rights in Africa over the last 50 years, or the current pro-Russian sentiment in the U.S.? Those ideas aren't native to those locations, they're transmitted somehow, and the most logical scenario when you factor in the rapid spread of those ideas is the media. Sure person A can have that belief and travel to another country and talk to person B, and spread that idea, but that's an excruciatingly slow process compared to one news station's ability to transmit an idea to literally millions of people at the same time. Unless you're talking directly to the source of information there's a very high likely hood that information originated from the media or the information was influenced by the media. The pen is mightier than the sword, mainly because the sword can only focus it's edge on one thing at a time, the pen can reach millions at the same time.

And I wasn't referring to movies, or music, or arts, I'm talking the 'news'-- it's nothing more than entertainment, if it doesn't have a clickbait title and a controversial thesis it's passed over for more entertaining stories. Current news is no more than post-modern sensationalism. Sure, they can be accurate once in a while, but that's not their sole goal anymore-- selling advertisements is.

I get my information to form my opinion(s) from books, personal experiences (such as talking to others who may have more experience, participating, etc.), critical thinking, and checking and reevaluating what I believe to be true, then gathering more information to start the process over again until I can feel confident in what I believe is fair and accounts for as many possibilities as I can find. I have very few "peers" (in the sense of who I would consider on equal footing) and the ones I do get their information and form opinions the very same or similar way. Media may introduce an idea, however they don't control the opinions I form about it.

Thank you for taking the time to explain, however I am done. Have a good day.

I am not good in math or science, and am not gifted in any way. I have no special interests, except reading and daydream universes. Once I learned to read I was hooked on that, but I don't have just one favorite topic. I like to read things in a number of different categories, as I am interested in a lot of different things, and in both fiction, and nonfiction, and some biographies, too. Really, reading and my daydream universes are the only "special" interests I can lay claim to.