Aspergers not a disability or disease?

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To quote a Gary Numan tune: 'I'd love to be like me if I could feel like you'.
This is a good discussion, and it illustrates that no one is the same, whether your personal traits have been categorized into a syndrome or not. There isn't a mold. This is a band of the larger, all-embracing human spectrum that's being scrutinized because its supposed members stand out.
Some of us are different. Just like Einstein, Edison, Lao Tzu, Jesus...It's all relative, depending on what we're being compared with.
The idea that the 'others' are better or right doesn't hold under analysis.
The myth analogy is a good one. You are your own story. Look into Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, James Hillman. As with any epic mythic tale, only the hero can win the treasure and bring it back.

That's fine. Let's see... C.S. Lewis combined his knowledge of language and writing to become a major author. (Tolkien used his skills in the history of language the same way). Did you know Sir Isaac Newton (yes, the gravity guy) was also a concert pianist?

I'm not saying that you'll out-sell J. K. Rowling or Mozart - well, this week, anyway - but the skills you have and the knowledge you have can be combined in powerful ways. The above average intelligence is "normal" for aspies, so I do consider that accurate within the areas such tests look at. Because it's normal. it seems to be measuring something consistently, but what that something is, I am no so certain.

I lived with my mother until I was 27. My first ever date spent four or five months getting me to move out. Not just down the street, but across the ocean to the United States. Shortly after, I got my first ever job - with NASA. Oh, and until then, my sole real friend was the family dog. I won't comment on the molecule donors called parents.

I see a strong potential for strengths in the things you enjoy. They can be combined and, together with your intelligence, blossom into something wonderful. That's what happened with me and the people I've mentioned and no doubt many on this board. Very few people have both the ability to appreciate and create art. That is rare. It may not seem useful, but (cue Mission: Impossible theme) your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make it work for you. You can.

I don't believe in destiny, but I do believe in making use of the tools available. You have some superb tools there to work with, tools that can be used in unique combinations to explore whole realms of the creative world that have never been ventured into before, if that's what you want to do. Or refine some existing creative field by drawing on knowledge that exists but hasn't really been looked at in that way before.

Prefer something with a better potential for money? Do you know how much they pay technical writers?? All they want is a person who is skilled in their language, who can write and who can draw. You've got all three. In US terms, that's $40,000 a year minimum. Sometimes a lot more.

Want something scientific? Renaissance master artists developed and used techniques and paints that nobody has been able to identify or duplicate. As with all of the top people of that time, these people were skilled in philosophy, music and usually some chemistry. If the chemistry was important, the problem would have been solved by now. It hasn't. What has generally not been tried is to engineer the exact same mental conditions - the full Renaissance mind - or something close to it, to see if the mystery is not one of technology but perspective. Your own perspective is 9/10ths already there and you may well see many things about the methods of the time that are invisible and impenetrable to modern, specialized minds.

It may be that, for you, these are not gifts, opportunities that you can explore, etc. In which case my theory is incorrect. This part is important to me. It is very important for me to accept when one of my theories is wrong, because it can be too easy for me at times to only look at when my theories turn out to be right.

Let me know what you think - whether there might be something to it, or you give the idea a thumbs-down.

The 'others' are obviously doing something right because they have a lot more than I do. Certainly they have more friends, date a lot more (or at all, really), live productive lives without having to live with their parents as adults, and so on.

But they still might not be particularly happy.

I find my problems to be my skills, just on the wrong planet. I master subjects through focus and persistance, and ignore everything else. My problem is I want to know. About, is not enough, I want answers to all my questions.

The world's reaction is I am gone, I am, but return with things that most do not want to know. The world gets by on a partial skill set. I am driven to learn more than I need to do anything. Going to the edge of knowledge, and looking out, is my favorite passtime. Most of the world just as strongly seeks the center of knowledge, where they feel comfortable.

Most try for a safe and secure life, a sure thing, they like the consistant and socially acceptable. A hundred years ago I might have been an explorer, going to places unknown. The world is known, but knowledge is expanding.

I read all of the patents in a class, a field of knowledge, marked, defined, and learn the work that went before. Many useful things came from the subject, and learning all that went before, I see it knowing of methods and materials that the prior inventors did not. It gives me ideas of what could be, of where we might be going, and some ideas I can not disprove, nor can the Patent Office.

Inventors are a subset of AS. They are about one out of five thousand, and the ones I have met are like me. Focus, persistance, excessive learning, are the common skills of the group.

The fool, who persists in his folly, soon becomes wise. It is an old saying, we have been around.

Only a bit over a hundred years ago, the people called NT here, spent their time plowing with a horse or mule. 99% of people were small farmers. The 1% who were bookish, given to learning, taught themselves to read, were sold into an apprenticeship, then they focused on learning one skill, becoming productive, for seven years. Then they could chose to work for other masters, for another seven years, then they had to create a Master Piece, to be judged by all of the leading Masters of the craft, that showed a complete understanding of the trade, and added to the development of the work. Then they were made a Master.

This small group of misfits developed all art and technology. Everyone else plowed, planted, harvested, and did it again next year. They developed a social order of group work, and depended on maintaining social connections with their neighbors.

The misfits developed the machines that ended the farming life, that had stayed unchanged for thousands of years, it brought the farm population into cities for factory jobs. They did not come as apprentices to learn, they were factory hands, a meat machine, a strong back, weak mind, doing the same repetitive machine operator jobs till they died. They no longer learned the ways of plants and animals, of the seasons, but came when the whistle blew. All they have of the old ways are religion, sports, and they cling to them.

They have no security, no farm, no people they will live and die with. All they can aspire to is a new car, a big house, good clothes, and living in debt servitude till they die. Some parts of the new era were good, people live longer, in good health. Some was tramatic, a loss of a way of life where they fit in.

The misfits are now in Redmond, Round Rock, Silicon Valley, making what they have obsolete. One person, with one thought, can make many thousands suddenly useless. When new ways come, old plants close, and without a network of friends, finding another job is hard.

Their stress, their ways, which we have a hard time with, were caused by us. We are still causing problems. Doctor Lab Pet will find a way to release the bond that holds water together. Suddenly there will be endless fuel, and most stocks will become worthless overnight. All people and companies that hold their capital in stocks will be instantly bankrupt.

We are gifted, but have no way of seeing the results of our actions. We are out to produce Ice 9. A chain reaction that released the bonds of water would burn the planet. The inventors of the Hydrogen Bomb considered it a possible result, starting a reaction in the oceans, there was only one way to tell, so they tested it, it came up heads, so we are still here.

They may not have been happy all the time, but they got to be happy some of the time, and that is certainly more than what I've got.