We may be suited for the arts

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Although many of us have very logical brains that doesn't mean we're necessarily suited to careers in information technology. Fine arts, music, creative writing and the performing arts (perhaps to a lesser extent than the former three) attract the weird and the wonderful.

I fear too many of us neglect our emotions while becoming slaves to them. We want friendship, companionship, respect and so on and so forth. Yet too many of us only pursue logic and forget that in art we can turn the emotional into the logical. A painting puts emotion in logical perspective.

Painter Vincent van Gogh has been retroactively diagnosed with Asperger's. So too has scatoligical satirist Jonathan Swift. Although Einstein was a physicist he also played the electric violin.

Composer Eric Satie may well have been ADD-ADHD. He wrote many short compositions because he disliked too much development in a musical piece. His Autistic brain I think lent him an artistic genius: many classical music haters would be surprised to listen to many of his short pieces, how catchy and simply elegant they are.

On the other hand, recently deceased pianist Glenn Gould who obsessively perfected the playing of Bach's music enhanced the original works by adding his own humming and singing - something most people couldn't have imagined, let alone performed. So in art difference is valued, it can enhance rather than embarrass.

In the fields of art, people are always expanding. Conventional wisdom, common sense, etiquette - these can all be taken or left. It's not an office - there's no formal hierarchy. At times that can lead to a confusing situation for an Autistic person - how do we know what the rules are? And yet if we persist to traverse this avenue I think we will find love or companionship somehow, even if it's a strange kind.

It's also worth noting that many of us "think outside the box". The box is formal educational certificates and IQ tests. It's possible many of us simply can't pursue a subject we're intelligent enough to understand unless we're interested - I think most people on the Autistic spectrum are very selective about how we spend our time. But ignorance of some subjects can lead to greater exploration of subjects other people would have less time for. And that's why we could sometimes make great artistic people.

Although to be honest that same argument applies to the sciences too - mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy et cetera. I just wonder whether too many of us never explore art and our possible contribution to it out of fear that it's full of emotionally aware and socially competent people. Perhaps it usually is and yet it's undeniable that there've been so many freaks in the worlds of art over history documented to have somehow made friends and lovers and affairs through their pursuance of art.

For example Vincent van Gogh was an unbearable man. If he hadn't pursued painting he'd have been even more unbearable. He was so fractious and self-destructive that without that outlet he would have simply annoyed people in any other profession and probably would never have managed to sustain any kind of conventional employment.

Just some thoughts.

I tend to agree, I often pour my emotions into painting... and as Donna Willimas says poetry seems more of a natural language to her, some think like that... I also feel I can express myself better when writing..

"so many freaks in the worlds of art over history documented " I would rather say so many interestingly different people!

I agree with thinking outside the box and feel its some think especially those on the autism spectrum are good at if allow ourselves...

I am also dyslexic like many others, so I think in pictures and therefore words to me are often a chaotic jumble!

I LOVE WRITING! (And art and flute)

Van Gogh has also been posthumously diagnosed with Manic-Depression, Depression, Epilepsy, neurosyphilis, borderline personality disorder, lead poisoning, ergot poisoning, acute intermittent porphyria, brain tumor, glaucoma, magnesium deficiency, inner ear disorder, and poisoning by digitalis, among, probably, other things.

I didn't read your whole post, i just wanted to point out that people love to hypothesize about Van Gogh. The truth is we don't know what he had or didn't have, and from the evidence left behind it is possible to fit any number of conditions.

I personally am suited for nothing other than the arts.....and even then, I am not very good at them....but it is where all of my focus lies....
My (vey AS-ish) mom is the same way.....The scientific/technical/logical AS-ish people in my family are on my dad's side, and i didn't get any of that stuff....

I can definitely see this being true. I've always been a very creative person who loves to experiment with all different types of art. I've done art my whole life; I didn't even consider a type of college other than an art school. We also tend to percieve detail more easily, so why not? Embrace your artistic skills!

I feel more suited for the liberal arts. I am definitely not geared for science.

i think we are more geared towards the arts...because in art you often have to break rules and do something different or unsual...[i know i'm an art major]...and since we have already broken the rules as how we should be in an NT world...i can see that it is only fit...
and besides i have always expressed myself better in art than i ever have in conversation or word.

I studied science and I wish Ihad studied arts looking back, though I dont really regret the experience as such.. I didnt really know myself at 18 and I think I would have just done silly things with my 20's anyway, even if I had studied art or something better for me, my concentration span was awful back then and I dont think I would have applied myself.

I don't know, there have been plenty of artists that were socialite posers. From what I've seen of the artsy crowd, the typical member is vastly more social than the typical scientist or the typical NT for that matter, and it's a very conformist crowd from what I've seen (in the reverse sheep kind of way, the sort that will light a cigarette as soon as they see a no smoking sign).
I do have artistic interests, I read, I draw and paint, if I had talent I might try and do it full time and quit science, but I can't stand the artsy crowd (in other words, I like art but not artists). Incidentally, the stereotypes of scientists (the mad scientist and the absent-minded superethical good guy) are also pretty much false.

Has anyone watched 'Mephisto'? That's probably a lot more representative of artists than Van Gogh.

I've always been more creative than logical. Writing has always come naturally to me whereas I can't even solve a 50 piece jigsaw.

I draw (designs, such as my avatar & also mazes) & write (just the nonfiction short essays of the sort I post as comments online), but am intolerant of the "art scene" (or any "scene", for that matter).

Can't handle the "pretensions" of thinking/talking about art, can't take the judgments (of "tastemakers") seriously-art remains relative (in the eye of beholder) to me-so the notion of "this is absolutely good but this is absolutely bad" is something with which I cannot go along. Perhaps contradictory to that, though, I admit that I'm also unable to cope with criticism (bad reviews)-I take it far too personally & catstrophically. Actually, can barely handle good reactions to my work, either-that makes me uncomfortable as well. Tough bind I'm in.

Have talent but not the compulsion/confidence to spread my works across the media landscape-am too shy of attention-want my pretty pictures seen but it's not worth having people notice me !

Enjoy reading & thinking about certain scientific areas (sociology, neurology, psychology) though know I'll never "do" anything (ambition or career-wise) with that knowledge other than keep working on understanding life in general.