What Do You Think the Higher Purpose of Autism Is?

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I want to make music and I feel like MINE purpose is to help people in tough times like Kid Cudi (if you know who that is) but on a bigger level. You can call it being over confident but ever since I was in elementary school, I can feel in my soul that my destiny is to make music that will make a impact on the world.

Speaking for myself, nothing inside me, intuitive or intellectual, drives me towards a feeling that there's any higher purpose behind autism. If I were more prone to wishful thinking, it might be otherwise. It's not that I have no imagination or have anything particularly dull about me, or that my head always rules my heart. Thus, I find your remarks rather odd, but as John Lennon said, "Whatever gets you through the night is allright."

A problem with that assessment from Grandin is that so many of us suffer from executive dysfunction.

When it comes to the shaman aspect, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that verious cultures throughout history have considered the autistic members of their society as holy or scared or mystical etc.

Dispite my lack of ability to perform in so many areas, I have a great aunt who's into the whole psychic paranormal thing, who sees me that way. That I'm an "Indigo Child" and so on.

Next time I see you online, I'll call you 'Indigo Child'

Joking aside, there is one well known 'psychic' in my neck of the woods who I suspect of being autistic. Based on his expression, his story of his childhood and the way his family treats him. He's supposed to have this uncanny ability to 'see' everything about a person.

I doubt most autistic people are like that, though.

There's no higher purpose or disadvantage. It just is.

TD I am merely putting forward a view that Einstein held dear. Do you find him odd too? I also have no desire to be governed by wishful thinking. My whole life is devoted to seeing things as they are, not as they appear or wish them to be.

With re to vocational calling, I am a teacher of the Alexander Technique and Writer. All my writing draws on my experience of being in the autism spectrum as well as my passion for Science and Spirituality, particularly Advaita Vedanta.

Last edited by quaker on 23 Oct 2017, 2:36 am, edited 1 time in total.

The problem with Grandin’s statement is that it stereotypes NT’s. There are extremely productive NT’s and introverted NT’s and NT’s who dislike small talk and introverted productive NT’s that do not engage in much small talk.

The purpose of autism in the society is to learn and understand that these people are gifted too in their own unique ways. They deserve to be accepted and treated well just like the way you wanted to be treated by others.

Excellent point.

Ha ha. Reminds me of the time a dozen carloads of mycologists from the University arrived at a forest service camp one Friday night and discovered a motley crew of professional mushroom pickers who had been there a week, waiting for them to pop. The newcomers felt sorry for them, now having to share any bounty so widely. The next day, the students were coming in with handfulls, and the pros had to make two trips for their backpacks.

"Higher Purpose" evolves even without a "Higher Power." In any system where order emerges from chaos, you get clumping or flowing together. The Higher Purpose is the process of building a big, stable trend. History will have to agree, at least for a while, around there.

Autism is just one of many variations thrown out by our genetic system, and given our birthrate, Ma Nature does not seem to mind producing 50% scrap. It takes another rare chance to combine AS with an interface that works for NTs, but when that happens, it is an essential catalyst to technical progress.

It takes a fairly large population to have this happen enough - isolated peoples tend to lose even very valuable skills rather than develop new ones. The current population explosion will certainly need a new technology if it is to survive - perhaps we can invent it.

ASDs have a long history of being leaders in society. I believe that leadership itself is God-ordained. We are the ones with the unrelenting focus with drive and determination (and ego, unfortunately) to make a real difference in our own lives and the lives of others. But this comes at a VERY high price to ourselves for the many reasons we've all talked about in these forums.

People like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo DaVinci, Nikola Tesla, and perhaps even Achilles himself are now all suspected, but never proven of course, to be Autistic in some form or another. Those are just a small fraction of ASDs that have managed to rise above their inherent disabilities to achieve real greatness for humanity but it's a shaky ground we all walk. They're but a small fraction of success stories.

99% of us can't get past the lack of emotional control.

The lion's share of Autistics like us usually become consumed with all of the potentially disabling factors that this condition has wrought upon us all. Emotional control is the real deciding factor isn't it? If you can't remain stable long enough to complete any given task then real accomplishment becomes impossible. Emotional control is something I woefully lack in great abundance I'm afraid. An abusive and uncaring childhood was another major drawback for me.

And what if I didn't have those negative aspects? What if I received the proper diagnosis early on instead of in my 40s to allow this festering wound known as Asperger's Syndrome to go unchallenged? How far in society could I have gone? Could I have been the next Bill Gates with my computer programming special interest? Or the next tech. media mogul with my other special interests of technology and writing?

No telling now, I can only dream. But ASD can be a game changer if we can control it in a positive way like a few great humans have. It's kind of like trying to tame a purebred Arabian horse, awesome if you can but disastrous if you can't.

Sorry that last post of mine ignored what you said. There had been a lot of new posts since my last visit, which I should have caught up on before speaking myself, but as usual my time was limited and I felt I had to get my words out while the matter I dealt with was reasonably fresh.

So, to try to grasp the right end of the stick, my autistic skills of perfectionism, hyperfocus etc. netted me a science career earning the modal wage, with a status that was generally on a par with my peers. Most of my success there was concentrated in my earlier years, before I got too old to use the resilience of youth to shore me up against my autistic problems, and before the UK drifted towards the right politically, but I kept my head above water and got out before the system completely burned me out. Not that I ever defined myself by my job, that was mainly a necessary evil to keep the larder stocked, though I had immense fun playing with all those hi-tech toys and rubbing shoulders with brainy scientists who used their amazing powers of critical thinking to get results that put the average bog-standard brain to shame in many ways. My chosen purposes for being on this planet were / are to survive, to have fun, to be comfortable, to be an important part of a good community or two, which for me has to include at its centre a good relationship.

Socially, after puberty I wasn't doing so well for some time, but I became obsessional about playing music to a high standard, which became an excellent doorway to friendships and collaborative music projects, and my Aspie nature dovetailed wonderfully with the outlook of many of the anarchists and hippies I met in that way, and for a year or two I was as socially active and popular as any NT. Things went downhill somewhat after that, but the music obsession always rescued me from social oblivion, and these days my social diary is adequate, thanks largely to the high regard my fellow musicians have for the musical skills I've acquired from long and nerdy practising. Relationships were a big problem from the start. No doubt my undiagnosed autistic traits took their toll on my success there, not the least of which being my broken partner selection filter - I was struggling to keep relationships going with incompatible partners. But I never gave up on the game, and by applying perfectionism and strong focus to my performance, I began to make wiser decisions until I've at last ended up with a great relationship with a lady who has autistic traits herself. I like to think I've used my independence from the "hive mind" of the NT world to develop a philosophy of relationships that's in some important ways a cut above the standards of the mainstream.

Our role is to be misunderstood, marginalized, and be thought of as "spey---shalllll" (ie. special).
To be bullied.

To be mocked on new TV shows.

That is such a great analogy!! !