In other words, to what extent are NTs simply a different expression of the same organic life force that we are, the animals to our plants, no better or worse? A thought for the Christmas tree.
Like plants, which rely on sun/soil/water to stay alive, we subsist on something omnipresent yet difficult for NTs/animals to synthesize, namely information.
With info, we produce discoveries, knowledge work, creations that nourish, shelter, heal, and energize the way plants do when harvested or consumed, but animals are rewarded more for "working" for the results because they are more flexible and have muscles to use more efficiently. We are perceived as "at bottom of the food chain" or food pyramid that mirrors the medical model of disability or social hierarchy, despite the dependence on us for so much, making neurodiversity an agroecology-like way of rethinking our relations with one another. Soil is just as important as charismatic megafauna like elephants or whales, the analogue of the story is, if not more so.
NTs/animals struggle to understand what we do and where they fit into the web with us, so they keep looking for ways to replace reliance on us with something shinier, tougher, supposedly more reliable. For animals including homo sapiens that think themselves above the plant kingdom, this is minerals or fossil fuels, metal and glass and concrete and oil and plastic. There can be legitimately helpful applications found in this, and we (autistics and plants alike) contribute to their shape in many ways, but just as when the crux of our wisdom is ignored, there is always a catch, whether it's pollution or simple hubris. After all the blood and treasure is spent, a plastic bag is a fragile as a paper one, and a glittering tower of steel and reinforced cement can be transformed into a more poisonous version of a burnt acre of forest by a couple dozen people in planes made of the same materials.
Harmony among humans and between them and nature will only be achieved when neurotypicals see us the way the shaman (not coincidentally autistic in nature in many ways, highlighting the affinity) sees the plant, and our survival as a species will only be achieved when the wisdom of the plant is returned to the animal humans have become.
I have not consumed any plants coming up with this, but it would have been cooler if I did.
25 Dec 2019, 3:25 pm
