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Dear_one
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05 Jul 2017, 4:03 am

I was talking to my counsellor recently, who has urged me to give up on "black and white thinking" from time to time. I explained that to me, the process feels like being lost in a city, and trying to find my way. If an avenue of hope leads to a "dead end" sign, I just turn around. I surmised that where I saw an impossibility, she would assume there must be at least a foot path to follow to get through to her goal. She really liked that analogy.
Now, finding that path requires a much finer-grained knowledge of people than I enjoy, and I suspect that is endemic in our community. When I read "A field guide to Earthlings" by Ian Ford, I was shocked at how one-dimensional the people in his story examples were. This suggests that we should really try to arrange a trade, with one close associate handling our people problems in exchange for material or technical assistance. I've managed that a few times, and they were my only productive periods. By contrast, when I work on logical structures, I'm amazed at how obscure they seem to most others.



IstominFan
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05 Jul 2017, 9:13 am

I feel that while my life and my opportunities have vastly expanded over the years, I still can't master that understanding that would help me take my skills to the next highest level.



fifasy
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07 Jul 2017, 12:17 pm

Yes, black and white thinking is seemingly impossible to switch off.

In a more enlightened world I think each Aspie would be provided with a personal advocate/communication assistant.

The barriers caused by getting social situations mixed up are formidable.



Dear_one
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07 Jul 2017, 1:08 pm

I can maintain a question as unresolved for a long time, but I guess I always forget about Heisenberg, and expect a resolution exists.
Maybe we should do more promotion for aspies around business schools. Tell those Steve Jobs types to go find a Woz. Rollwagen found Cray, and made both their fortunes, too. I'm not sure about Rolls and Royce, but you get the idea. The general field of how to help us cope with, rather than waste our efforts trying to overcome differences needs a lot more emphasis, IMHO. Ma Nature is not into homogenity, and she's no dummy, and we are a social species, with everyone tending toward being a specialist in something symbiotic.



fifasy
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08 Jul 2017, 1:17 am

Dear_one wrote:
I can maintain a question as unresolved for a long time, but I guess I always forget about Heisenberg, and expect a resolution exists.
Maybe we should do more promotion for aspies around business schools. Tell those Steve Jobs types to go find a Woz. Rollwagen found Cray, and made both their fortunes, too. I'm not sure about Rolls and Royce, but you get the idea. The general field of how to help us cope with, rather than waste our efforts trying to overcome differences needs a lot more emphasis, IMHO. Ma Nature is not into homogenity, and she's no dummy, and we are a social species, with everyone tending toward being a specialist in something symbiotic.


I'm in agreement with the thrust of what you're saying. I'm sure having an aspie business partner for many people would be a dream come true, if only they could see it. Having that obsessive input that most people couldn't provide would really give the partnership an edge.



the_phoenix
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09 Jul 2017, 12:39 am

IstominFan wrote:
I feel that while my life and my opportunities have vastly expanded over the years, I still can't master that understanding that would help me take my skills to the next highest level.


Yep.
I've learned to paint well enough to win an award at an art gallery,
but that said ...
when my art instructor tried teaching me how to put wire on the back of a painting to hang it up,
I nearly had a meltdown.

I would love to learn how to mat and frame my own paintings and photos,
but don't have the fine motor skills and hand/eye coordination to do it easily.
Wish I could learn,
it would sure save me tons of money.

That, plus I would love to learn packaging,
how to make the right size cardboard boxes
to ship paintings and large photos in.
That's a struggle for me too.



F84.9
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09 Jul 2017, 5:25 am

Dear_one,

If I understand you're essentially saying that we should cooperate more.
I also see that it really is pointless for each person to try find their own unique solution for problems, as that's an enormous waste of energy; it'd be better if somehow we as species could "factor out" this burden out of the equation of every person who is going through unnecessary struggle.
I think this goes beyond just people with AS.
For example the book that you mentioned is in a sense 1 person (author) 'providing' for many (readers), and I think that (assuming I correctly interpreted your messages) it is not much different from your suggestion that one should be "handling our people problems in exchange for material or technical assistance"; what's more, the author is not a psychologist nor a NT, yet he's able to provide value to "factor out" some confusion, and it's not just 1 person helping 1 person, but 1 person helping multiple persons.
It's just some thoughts.

I'm really writing because when you said "finding that path requires a much finer-grained knowledge of people than I enjoy, and I suspect that is endemic in our community", this reminded me of some of my own thoughts that I had.
I really feel you,.. Sometimes for me it feels that having seen so much predictability and patterns in people's behaviour that it can either lead to frustration but sometimes even compassion. Personally I feel that the more knowledge there comes, it can either lead to compassion & solution seeking, or to frustration & resignation. Or maybe something in between (since you talked about black&white thinking).
Sorry I went off on a tangent. I'm not sure if everything I said in this last paragraph is true, my thoughts are still not fully solidified about all matters and I hope it wasn't too burdenous to listen to some of my "inner stuff"; actually my hope is that my words would find resonance in the reader's ear, and if not, it was of therapeutic value for me to do some self-expression on the forums :).

Best wishes