“Be true to who you are. Be a first rate Aspie, not a second rate neurotypical.”
Tony Attwood
This is good advice, but difficult to follow. Indeed, this quote is less advice than a moral imperative in the form of encouragement. It takes courage and strength of character to be true to who you are, not least when ‘normal society’ and its workings seem so opposed to your designs and your ways of doing things. Seeking help from others is a treacherous business, for the reason that, in the main, those others will be participating members and representatives of ‘normal society.’ The advice of such people will therefore tend long the lines of the changes you need to make in order to adapt to and fit social expectations and demands, rather than the changes required of society and its insititutions and practices to enable all its members to play their part as who they are. In fine, rather than being allowed, still less enabled, to be yourself, you will be pressurised into being like others. You will, of course, fall short. In setting the threshold low, you will fail to become who you are in an attempt to be something you are not – and fail even at that. Do not be accommodated! Know yourself, your abilities, and your abilities and endeavour at all times to seek their creative expression.
Seek help but be careful of ‘advice’ that induces you to lower your expectations and accommodate yourself to ‘reality’ and its limited possibilities. You are better than that. And you know better. Trust your judgement and resist the pressure that others will put upon you to ‘be like others.’ Yielding to that pressure is the cause of mental and physical harm. Be yourself!
I was watching Eric Idle being interviewed by Sky News host Erin Molan (16 October 2022). She asked Eric what advice would he give to people. You have to find out what’s really important about life. You have to come to terms with your own death. So make your decisions based on the fact that you don’t have forever. And don’t put up with rubbish ‘in any form,’ in a marriage, a relationship, at work, anywhere. (Idle used a stronger word than ‘rubbish.’) ‘Don’t put up with it! There are other things to do.’ Absolutely. ‘Spoken like a true existentialist,’ as my old Director of Studies said to me.
Some of the biggest problems I have had in life have come from being swayed too much by the ‘advice’ of others, giving in to the pressure of those who claimed to know better and have my best interests at heart. Those people didn’t know better and so, even if some of them did have my best interests at heart, misled me, wasted my time and energy, caused me pain and misery, and to no productive end. The fact is that people form their judgements and make their assessments about you based on their own experience and understanding, arising from their own place in the world, their own jobs and functions. They want you to fit their needs. Instead of seeking help through such intermediaries, you need to go direct. Don’t take any nonsense from others.
“Become who you are. Do what only you can do. Be the master and sculptor of yourself.” (Nietzsche).
For Nietzsche, the Will to Power is not about dominating others but is about expressing power rather than possessing it.
Become a fulfilled and authentic being instead of a superficial follower of social trends and conventions. Drive out existential anxiety by becoming who you are and living your life according to your abilities and interests!
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
Note
I’ll start by noting that some people object to the terms ‘Aspie’and ‘Asperger’s.’ I did used to refer to Asperger’s but do so no longer. It doesn’t worry me that people would identify as Aspies. It doesn’t worry me that people reject the term. What does worry me is that a controversy over nomenclature may shift attention from more important issues.
