On Aspie Super Powers

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I'm very inclined to believe everyone is an expert about something. But I have read many Aspies have "super powers" that allow them to have such an incredible amount of interest on a topic that they become experts very early. Of course that also happens to NTs, but I know there's a difference.

So, let's see what are your obsessions (or areas of strong and deep interest). I myself have many, all somehow related to the detailed comprehension of the human mind, behaviour and communication.

I've seen some awesome artists around here.

Post here your current (perhaps your permanent or long-term) superpower. Areas of interest, skills. It can even be "I'm a beast at chess".

A few that come to mind ...

1) Have had my artwork exhibited in galleries, museums, a solo show,
sell it online ... photography mostly, am now getting into painting.

2) Languages, from Spanish to Klingon ... have taught introductory Spanish, and hosted Klingon language panels at science fiction conventions.

3) Piano ... can play by ear ... and especially like Handel's harpsichord suite in G major, have composed one song of my own.

So how do you plan to use your talents relating to the study of the human mind, behavior, and communication Dreadful Dante?

I don't have any aspie superpowers. Probably because I'm not much of an aspie to begin with. Unless being super average at everything and "creative" counts as a superpower. I've never achieved anything that proves being "creative" is a superpower.

My teachers were always appalled by my lack of imagination. I certainly do not have any "super powers".

The first thing that comes to mind is something that's happened a couple times recently.

See, I play a lot of Magic: The Gathering. I don't consider it a special interest, but since it's an easy avenue for social interaction I get pretty into it and devote a fair amount of time to it. A few people have asked me during or after games how long I've been playing...

"About a year-and-a-half."

"Wait... really?"

"Yeah, since February of last year."

"Damn, I never would have guessed. You're really good at this."

So I do think there's a chance I've picked up a highly complex, skill-intensive game much faster than would be expected; and that my ASD made that scenario much more likely.

Super power is a metaphor for any well developed skill or deep interest in something. Everyone has it, some just haven't become aware of it.

It's definitely not an Asperger's things, but the socially appropriate behaviour might make us search gratification through many other ways, like learning knew things. That's called "Sublimation" (term from psychoanalysis) and it's definitely a feature everyone has.

Jake,

Of course I'm saying a healthy level of self-awareness. The level that allows you to know yourself, recognize your flaws, point where you need to improve them and do it.

About The Gathering:
I've never played card games but once, it was a long time ago and I still haven't seen those again ever since.

As I said, usually the inappropriate social behaviour makes us search for gratification through something else, this something else is what I'm calling a super power. If you haven't found yours, that's completely fine. We all do and some just haven't realised.

Your super power is what you're passionate about.

Peacefully,
Dante.

Most of my "Superpowers" are either a contradictory aspie-wise trait kind, or something too vague that either may or may not tie or compliment with Aspergers at all.


Aspie related superpower? I don't know how to answer it, but I'm certainly taking advantage hyper-focus and hypersensitivity. I'm aware both can be a weakness, but since I don't get overwhelmed by either... I'm also taking advantage of asociality and my misleading innate body languages. And importantly, taking full usage of my visual-spatial aptitude...


Or maybe, JUST maybe... Sublimation itself might have been my obsession, implicitly speaking.

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I had savant memory abilities which served me quite well at times. Perhaps the most notable was a university year long paper which I enrolled in - outside of my areas of particular interest and one I saw as an easy addition to the number of papers needed to complete the degree I was studying for. After attending the first lecture which completely bored me, I bypassed the rest of the course completely (which you could do in those days - attended no more lectures, no tutorials and did no coursework assignments because at the end of the year, they took whichever mark was highest, ie either your score on the final end of year exam or the aggregate of your course work).

The night before the exam I read the assigned textbooks from cover to cover all night and reproduced the knowledge in the exam with enough exactitude to get an A+.

I passed a very advanced and very difficult psychophysics exam because of a strange ability to see and hear pages of the textbook - which included calculus to a level I didn't really comprehend - in my mind. It was as though someone was holding the textbook open in front of me. I was the only candidate to pass that exam at all (there were 11 others) and was offered a job teaching it (which I declined).

Research suggests that 10% of Asperger Syndrome people have some form of savant ability. My savant memory has attentuated with age, I still have a good memory though it is now in the ordinary range of good memory.

I had some savant ability in music and maths also though to nowhere the same pronounced extent.

I don't have any savant abilities.

I don't have any computer abilities.

LOL...you do okay.

If you able to disseminate ideas over the Internet, then you have enough abilities.

It would be better, of course, if you could diagnose and remedy computer problems.

I can only do something equivalent to screwing in a screw or bandaging a wound.

I can visualize in my head logic systems and the result of any change in their states.

The hard part is convincing others what conditions will cause a logic system to crash.

Haha enjoy this mix of special interests that could earn you the joy of listening to a three-hour infodump lecture from yours truly.

Football roster building and offense/defense scheme and play design (NFL not what Americans call soccer)

Lists

Political rhetoric (I've worked as a national columnist on economics)

the US Senate or Presidencies (Need a pub trivia pair? Wife wants to play lol)

Marijuana (I have a legal medical card and it helps keep my moods and life between the buoys most days.

Guaranteed minimum income systems and how they work

Video games with all the cheat codes on

Neurodiversity rights!

Not the whole list but, I do love one last one:
I can visualize systems as color-coded, 3D shape-and-line models in my brain. Can get up to 8 dimensions going visually; working on developing the 9th one. Shooting for a dozen, in case string theory is proved right.