On Why I No Longer Do Speaking Engagements

"Hello.  I'm Rabbi Gershom, and I'm autistic..."

This is how I often introduce myself to a group nowadays, because I find that being upfront about my autism helps people get beyond my personal quirks.  Those of you who dislike labels should try being me without any kind of explanation.  Believe me, owning the label is much better.

Back in 1992, when my first book, Beyond the Ashes: Cases of Reincarnation from the Holocaust came out, I did not yet have a diagnosis.  Asperger's Syndrome (now considered a form of autism) wasn't even on the radar yet.  I was aware of my lifelong struggle with clumsy social skills, but nothing could have prepared me for the humiliating experiences I had on the speaking circuit.  Once the book came out, everybody and anybody wanted to meet the author -- and were deeply disappointed that a jabbering nerd like me was the guy who wrote it.

Within the Jewish community, I had functioned reasonably well, since we tend to be intense debaters who sway a lot and wave our hands around when we talk.  During worship we pace, shout, rock to our own inner rhythms -- what autistic people now call "stimming."  I have often joked that if  an uninformed person walked into an Orthodox study group, he or she might mistake it for a support group for autistic adults.  Which is probably another reason why my own autism went undiagnosed for so long.  In Jewish culture, rocking and swaying are considered normal.

And it was in a Jewish context that the book was written, where I was seen as a Jewish teacher talking about Jewish kabbalah.  Most of the reincarnation interviews were done one-on-one, which I'm good at.  Some people sent me written stories of their past-life memories, too, or copies of their past-life regression tapes.  Plus there were many phone interviews, also one-on-one.  From this material and my own academic research, the book Beyond the Ashes was born.

But when the book came out in 1992, everything changed  People read books in their own inner voice.  They form an idea of what the author is like, based on their own feelings and impressions.  This image becomes a sort of idol that they expect the author to live up to.  When it comes to spirituality, the New Age image is one of a calm mellow, laid-back personality, a sort of guru sitting cross-legged on a pillow, chanting "Om."  Google "spirituality images" and you get this:

An image that I do not fit at all.  Not one photo in there of Orthodox Jews dancing, swaying, rocking back and forth in ecstasy.  Which is why I was mostly a one-gig speaker.  A guy who disappointed his audience and was rarely invited back.

At one workshop, a participant flat out told me that if he had known I was a "typical New York Jew," he would never have signed up.  (I am not from New York. And yes, I do see the antisemitism in this attitude, but that's a whole other story.)  At another workshop, my bluntness was seen as insensitivity.  In Germany, where my book had just been translated, my mannerisms were mistaken for nervousness.  As for the written feedback forms...  I could go on and on, but you get the point.

 There were times when I regretted writing Beyond the Ashes, this book that took over my life and typecast me so completely that nobody wanted to hear about anything else.  Yes, it helped many people, but it also left me tired and drained.  I came to understand why Leonard Nimoy wrote I Am Not Spock after the original Star Trek series ended.  I began to see myself as something separate from the "Rabbi Gershom" who wrote about Holocaust reincarnations.  He became a role I was playing -- not very healthy, to be sure.  I was disassociating from myself as author of the book.

The final straw came in the late 1990s, when I was castigated in front of the audience by a program organizer for not being "spiritual enough," and for going "off topic" on a question that didn't have to do with reincarnation per se, but which was relevant to explaining the Jewish worldview.   He actually said, "This is not what we hired you to talk about."  All they wanted to hear was Holocaust reincarnation stories, without much Jewish context. I came home from that gig emotionally drained and vowing never to do that again.  Dayenu!  Enough already!

The diagnosis changes everything...

It was during the 1990s, in the middle of all this chaos, at the age of 54, that I was diagnosed, first with ADHD, and later Asperger's (which I now believe can overlap each other.)  Suddenly a light went on in my head.  Things began falling into place.  I went online and read everything I could find on autism, joined numerous discussion groups and began putting my life back together.   Had I known more about my autism during those years on the speaking circuit, had I been able to give a name to the mannerisms that the audience found so uncomfortable, things might have gone differently.  Heck, if I had known about it in childhood, my whole life might have been different.  But that is, as they say, water under the bridge.

In the year 2000, as my millennium resolution, I pulled out of the spirituality workshop circuit altogether.  I had given 20+ years of my life to this
topic and it was time to move on.  There were now plenty of therapists and psychiatrists who were getting paid way more than me to do this Holocaust reincarnation stuff.  So let them have it. My book opened the door. Others walked through.  My role was over. And I was, quite frankly, tired of being typecast as “The Holocaust reincarnation rabbi.” I was tired of getting calls in the middle of the night from people who wanted free counseling and did not bother to check time zones. It was time to pass the torch to the next generation and begin a new chapter in my own life. So I did.

What is "spirituality" anyway? 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "spirituality as "The quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things."  There is nothing in that sentence about body language, eye contact, voice inflections -- all of which are, after all, the very "physical things" that spirituality is supposed to leave behind.  So why judge me for not fitting into the New Age stereotype?

Nevertheless, that's what happened.  It traumatized me to the point that I no longer want to do workshops and have pretty much become a recluse, living with my wife and my animals in northern Minnesota.  What I have to say, I communicate through my writing.  It was, after all, a book that originally started all this, and, if I may say so myself, I'm a darned good writer.  Let people read in their own inner voice, without the distraction of my autistic personality.  Maybe in that way, I can get something of my true spirituality across.

There are probably readers out there now thinking to themselves, "Well, he can't be much of a spiritual guide if he can't even handle a little criticism."  First of all, I never claimed to be some sort of guru.  And second of all, there is no reason I should have to put up with emotional abuse.  Constructive criticism of my work I can take, but all this personal rejection did very little for my self-esteem.  If anyone is being "unspiritual," it's those people who insist on projecting their own expectations on me.

Today, I find myself wondering how many other autistic people have been rejected because of New Age stereotypes about what it means to be spiritual. We are frequently misread as "having no empathy" or being "unable to love" because we don't look people in the eye or enjoy being spontaneously hugged.  Many of us are unable to sit still without fidgeting, which pretty much rules out Zen meditation.  I was also seen as "unsocial" at all those speaking events because I didn't hang around the hotel bar to chitchat afterward.  After the intensity of doing a speech and/or leading a workshop, I need solitude to recharge.  The last thing I need is to be surrounded by the audio-visual chaos of a party.

I  puzzled for years over why God would have chosen me to be the person to write Beyond the Ashes.   I finally came to the conclusion that God did not want this thing to turn into a cult.  So he chose an autistic nerd with zero charisma, a guy with a memory for details who could put it all together with a certain amount of emotional detachment, but not become a cult leader.  The Aspie tendency to hyper-focus on one topic at the exclusion of all other interests served me well in making Beyond the Ashes a useful book that remained in print for 18 years.

Not many people get to "write the book" on a topic.  I did exactly that, not only opening the door to talk about Holocaust reincarnations, but also, as so many people have told me, opening up Jewish spirituality.  At the time Beyond the Ashes first came out, there was very little available in English about Jewish reincarnation teachings. This made it a groundbreaking work in the spirituality field. The book has had a profound and positive effect on how people in the New Age and past-life therapy communities are now interpreting the “karma” of the Holocaust.  Today it is a classic.

Yes, I can see the irony in that.  "Autistic nerd writes major book on spirituality."  If I were a true New Ager, I would claim that I channeled it, that some other entity besides Yonassan Gershom is the true author.  But I know differently.  The book happened precisely because of my autism, which provided a perfect storm of just the right abilities at just the right time.  That is my genius.

New book tells inspiring story of Jake Barnett, autistic boy genius

As I have written before on this blog, I am an adult on the autism spectrum (Asperger's).  Last year, in a previous article, I looked at some of the social pressures we autistic people face, and suggested that parents, therapists, and employers should focus on what we can do, not what we can't.

A case in point is the true story of Jake Barnett in a new book out this month entitled The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett.   Not only is this an inspiring story of a mother's struggle with "experts" on behalf of her gifted autistic son, it is also a general formula for success.  Instead of struggling to get autistic children to give eye contact or play patty-cake, Barnett focuses on what they like to do and builds from that.

Jake Barnett is a genius, but if his mother had accepted the advice of the special ed people, his brilliant mind would have been lost to the world.  At age 2, she was told he would never learn to read or even tie his shoes -- in spite of his obsession with alphabet cards.  All the tests focused on things he was either unable to do or -- and this later proved to be the case -- too bored to do.  While his mind was studying light and shapes and geometric patterns -- things the teachers saw as mere useless distractions -- he had no interest in sitting in a circle with other children or playing with puppets, the usual kinds of expectations for toddlers.  And so he was mislabeled as hopeless.

Kristine Barnett refused to accept a "ceiling" for her son and decided to give him all the alphabet cards he wanted, as well as whatever other activities he found interesting, and work with him from there.  This was completely against all the professional advice -- even her husband Michael was skeptical at first -- but eventually it worked.  As long as Jake could focus on the things he loved -- astronomy, math, history, physics -- he was willing to work on the more mundane socialization skills. As he grew older, he did begin to communicate and socialize with other kids, but he was so far ahead of his age group in academics that by third grade he was dying of boredom and starting to regress back into his own world again.

The solution?  Get him into a special college program, and eventually into college itself.  At age 12, he became a paid researcher in quantum physics -- and solved an open ended problem nobody else had ever solved before.  In 2012 he was featured on 60 Minutes.

Now granted, not every autistic child is a genius.  My own IQ, as high as it is, pales in comparison to Jake Barnett.  But, as I read this story, I could not help comparing it with my own life. I saw some striking parallels, as well as many (sometimes sad) differences.  For one thing, I am 65 years old.  Back in the 1950s when I was in grade school, autism was not so well understood, and Asperger's wasn't even on the charts.  Because I had speech (I was talking at 9 months and could read a newspaper before I got to kindergarten), I was seen as just a bright problem kid who "does not work and play well with others."  But the signs were all there.

Like Jake and several other children in the book, I also retreated into myself between age two and three -- so much so, that I do not remember the names of any of my classmates, and only one teacher -- the one who locked me out in the hall when I had a meltdown.  By high school I was so bored (and so badly bullied) that I almost flunked out.  And I can remember none of my high school teachers or classmates either, nor did I bother to go to my graduation ceremony.  The only reason I got into college was because of my very high SAT scores.  Not until college did I begin to come out of my shell.

I also did not have such a kind, understanding mother as Jake does, either.  When Kristine Barnett talks about mothers of autistic children who "no longer even look at their child," she is describing my mother, may she rest in peace.  My mother had definite ideas of what she wanted her children to be, and I wasn't it.  My early obsession was with insects, which my mother found disgusting and tried to discourage.  Nice Jewish boys don't run around with butterfly nets.  By the time my sister was born, my mother had already given up on me.  She abandoned me emotionally and focused on her "normal" child instead.  An all-too-common story.  Today I wonder if we ever bonded at all.  My father used to call me "oblivious," and accused me of "not caring about anybody but myself."

So I ended up fumbling my way through life.  I sometimes wonder what I might have achieved if my family had nurtured my genius more, instead of lamenting that I never went to parties or the prom. (I did eventually find love and marry at age 33.  My wife and I are still together.)

I share my story, not to complain or badmouth my family, but to reinforce what Kristine Barnett wrote in her book: "...I believe that autistic kids hear their parents talking about patty-cake or asking for a hug, but they're just not interested in those things.  Have you ever been trapped at a party with someone talking about something you don't particularly care about -- sports maybe, or politics or classic cars?  Certainly people with autism are in our world.  They're just not thinking about the things we want them to think about."

I can relate to that.  Sports are so boring to me, I never bothered to learn the rules.  And fighting over a ball seems so utterly pointless.  I never have understood what all the excitement was about.  But show me a bug, and I can tell you all you ever wanted to know about it -- and then some.  The same is true of Jake's mathematics, which for him are not work, but a form of genuine fun.  (How many times have people told me that I "need to learn how to play"?  But I am playing, I just don't do it with balls and bats.  Academics are FUN to me!)

Jake long ago surpassed his mother's ability to understand his equations but, unlike my mother, she nurtured his genius and, at the same time, continued to be mom and surround him with love. She has what my mother did not: a philosophy that says every child is a unique gift of God and should not be crammed into a prefab mold.

Barnett's tells a wonderful story about a girl named Katy (p.148), who is severely autistic and does not speak, but loves to bake and decorate cakes.  Under Barnett's guidance, she got so good at it that she eventually found a job as a cake decorator.  A job that does not required much social interaction, where she can work alone in the back room to create her masterpieces.  Is this not better than wasting time trying to get her to give good eye contact and chat around the water cooler?

So I do hope that a lot of people read Jake's story and take it to heart.  This is not to say that we should never seek professional help.  But those professionals are not gods, they don't know everything, they make mistakes.  And maybe it is time for them to reevaluate their testing methods before we lose any more fine minds that are not willing to respond to patty-cake but who, like Jake, might be working on some revolutionary new idea.  After all, if (autistic) Bill Gates had not come up with the idea of a pre-recorded, loadable operating system (instead of programming each computer separately), you might not be reading this review online.  Think about that as we head, once again, into Autism Awareness Month.

See a slide show of Jake and read an interview with his mother

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UPDATE:  People keep asking me if Jake Barnett is Jewish, and that keeps showing up in the searches that got people to my blog.  He is not Jewish.  According to the book, his family are from a liberal branch of Mennonites.  His story is not here because I am Jewish.  It is here because I am autistic.

Celebrating Thoreau's 150th Yahrzeit



Henry David Thoreau
1817-1862

Today is the 150th anniversary of the death of American writer and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau (after whom this blog is named).  In Jewish tradition, the anniversary of a death is called the Yahrzeit, and it is traditional to honor the life of a person whose Yahrzeit you are observing.  So, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about why this blog is called "Notes from a Jewish Thoreau,"  and what effect the life of Thoreau has had on me.  (For my nature-loving readers, that should be obvious.  Unfortunately, it might not be so obvious to my Orthodox Jewish readers, who may or may not have read Thoreau in yeshiva.)

As I have written on this blog and elsewhere, I grew up as an outlier in the Jewish community.  As a [then undiagnosed] person on the autism spectrum, I was always a loner who preferred being in nature to being with people.   When, in high school (during the early 1960s), we read Thoreau's Walden as part of the curriculum, a whole new world opened up for me. Here was a rugged individualist much like myself, who "marched to a different drummer" and found joy in the beauty of the natural world. He also understood solitude. "What sort of space is that," Thoreau asked, "which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another." Well said!  Reading Thoreau made it OK to be different.


Walden Pond, Massachussetts,  in 2010
(Photo by Ekhabishek, courtesy of Wikimedia)

I embraced Thoreau's philosophy of voluntary simplicity (to this day I have little regard for society's status symbols), and longed to live in the woods as he had done. Part of that fantasy was fulfilled through hiking, campcraft and nature study.  Today, it is even more fulfilled by my wife and I living on a 15-acre hobby farm in Minnesota.   We have a lot more amenities than Thoreau did, but his message to "simplify, simplify, simplify!" still affects our lifestyle.

Appended to my copy of Walden was Thoreau's famous essay, "Civil Disobedience." That laid the groundwork for my involvement in the anti-war movement. In the fall of 1966, I went to college and jumped head first into political activism. The local YMCA had a basement coffeehouse, where I read my protest poetry, listened to local folksingers, and met interesting people from across the country. I missed out on Woodstock, but did ride a bus to Washington D.C., where I held hands and sang "give peace a chance" with a quarter of a million flower children. Those were idealistic times, when we all believed that a new age of peace and love was just around the corner. Although it has been a struggle sometimes to keep my idealism, I have never given up hope for a better world. To this day, I remain a peacemonger and a pacifist.

Thoreau was primarily a writer, not an activist per se, but that one night of protest he spent in jail -- and what he wrote about it -- eventually sparked a whole resistance movement that continues today. Single acts of heroism have a way of reverberating down through the years. Who knows what the ripple effect will be, and how many lives will eventually be touched, through one person's willingness to break ranks and heed the voice of conscience? And would you be willing to do it?

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December 30, 2014: I recently ran across this interesting article, Torah and Thoreau, by Joseph Bornstein, who describes it as his "enthralling discovery that Henry David Thoreau’s ideas have their roots in Jewish consciousness."  Thoreau was not Jewish, of course.  He was a Transcendentalist.  But Bornstein does provide a lot of parallels between Thoreau's life and philosophy and Jewish thought.  A good read.

Autism epidemic -- or a bunch of EQ normies in a panic?

A recent study by the CDC now indicates that 1 in 88 American children has autism -- a 20% increase in the past two years.   Some of this increase is no doubt due to better diagnosis.  The CDC study does note that autism seems to be more prevalent in U.S. states with better medical care, and that autism prevalence is also higher in areas where doctors are better at diagnosing autism in kids with relatively high intellectual ability.

But  I find myself wondering if there might also be another reason.   Is it only coincidence that the apparent rise in autism over the past couple decades parallels the social shift from valuing IQ to stressing EQ -- Emotional Quotient?  It's not what you know anymore, it's how well you can  function in a group.  So -- are high-functioning kids who prefer doing loner projects getting labeled as autistic now, because they do not fit the EQ team-oriented needs of the corporate social environment they are being groomed to fit into?

This is not the first time that changes in society's expectations have affected how we define what is "normal."  In a 1975 essay called "Thinking about Thinking," Isaac Asimov wrote:  "It used to be Latin that was the mark of intelligence, and now it is science. I am the beneficiary. I know no Latin except for what my flypaper mind has managed to pick up accidentally -- so without changing a single brain cell, I would be dumb in 1775 and terribly smart in 1975." The point being, that “intelligence” is often defined by what a culture values. 

Today's culture, it seems, values meaningless chit-chat and boring, drivel-filled texting over in-depth discussions (which you can't even post directly on Facebook or Twitter, you have to blog it somewhere else and then do a link.)   This EQ trend could be why the US education system is failing.  Last time I looked at a chart, we were 48th in science worldwide.  If we no longer value intellectual subjects, then of course our children won't bother studying them.

My own IQ is quite high by current testing standards. I said my first word at nine months of age, could read before I got to kindergarten, and by fifth grade was devouring college-level biology books. (My father was always deeply disappointed that I did not become a scientist.) I can think, analyze, do library research, and comprehend complex theories. By that measure, I'm a genius. 

But in recent years, with the rise of the EQ movement's focus on socializing rather than analyzing, I am rapidly losing my niche, because in addition to a high IQ, I also have Asperger's Syndrome.  Which means, among other things, that I give poor eye contact, don't socialize very well, prefer to work alone, and really hate team sports.  Every EQ self-test I've ever taken, I have flunked royally.  So, without changing a single brain cell, the EQ movement has rendered me a complete idiot. Which only goes to prove Asimov's point: intelligence and learning are relative concepts.

This is not to say I had no social problems when I was a kid.  Like a lot of Aspies, I was teased and bullied for being an "egghead," which was what people back then called a nerd.  But significantly, I had fewer problems related to my (then undiagnosed) autism when I lived on the East Coast than I do now living here in the land of "Minnesota Nice."  (I once got reprimanded by a Minnesota boss for banging my fist on the table -- once -- to make a point during a heated conference discussion.  Ironically, that same week, President Clinton did the same thing at the podium on national TV -- and nobody saw him as "threatening" for doing it.) 

Scientists are looking for genetic and environmental factors like chemicals and pollution as causes for autism, but once again I must ask: What about social expectations? Are autistic behaviors more acceptable in some cultures than others?  For example, I function very well in the Orthodox Jewish community, where things are highly structured and ritualized.  When I visit a Hasidic home, I know exactly what is expected of me at the Sabbath table, and if, after dinner, I bury my nose in a book instead of chatting, people praise that behavior as "always studying Torah."  In addition, eye contact is not as important among Hasidim, and between the sexes it is considered downright rude (as is also true in many Native American Indian communities.)

On the other end of the spectrum,  I can remember sitting across the table from a non-Jewish social worker who stared at me constantly, to the point that I began to feel as if we were two dogs squaring off for a fight.  I find myself wondering if phrases like "he wouldn't look me in the eye" have contributed to the negative stereotype of Jews as dishonest.  It certainly contributes to mis-reading autistic people.  If I had a dollar for every time I was asked, "Why do you always look at the ceiling?" I would be a millionaire. 
 
Don't get me wrong:  I'm not against giving kids help that they actually need.  I certainly could have used some coaching in how to read facial expressions and pick up on subtle nonverbal cues.  But what would be the purpose in forcing me to make eye contact when it makes me so uncomfortable?  Wouldn't it be better to simply accept that even though I'm not looking you directly in the eye, that doesn't mean I'm not paying attention?  If I prefer working alone, why not train me for a job where I can do that successfully, instead of insisting that I learn how to function on a committee?  In other words, why not focus on what I can do rather than what I can't?

Before society goes off on a crusade to make everybody fit the EQ mold, perhaps we should consider what Temple Grandin, the best-selling author and animal scientist who is also autistic, wrote in her book, Thinking in Pictures: “After all, the really social people did not invent the first stone spear. It was probably invented by an Aspie who chipped away at rocks while the other people socialized around the campfire. Without autism traits we might still be living in caves.”
 
We Aspies might not mix very well, but we can often be highly focused innovators. I would have been the guy chipping rocks.

Viewing my autism as a gift, not a curse

When I was a child back in the 1950s, neither ADHD nor Asperger's (both of which I have) were even on the radar.  Because I had good verbal and reading skills, nobody ever saw me as 'disabled' or 'special' -- just a problem child who "does not work or play well with others."  (How many times was THAT on my report card?)  I was, they often said, "too smart for my own good" -- probably because I was talking by nine months, reading by the time I went to kindergarten, and into college material by 5th grade.  My family nicknames were "Chatterbox" and "Professor." A neighbor once told my mother not to let me come over there anymore, because I "made her feel stupid."

On the other hand, I was (and still am) socially inept, because I don't read body language or facial expressions very well, and I often fail to pick up nonverbal cues.   Throughout grade school I was the butt of ridicule and bullying by my peers ("Why do you always look at the ceiling?" they jeered), so that by the time I reached high school, I had pretty much withdrawn from all activities and almost flunked out.  The only reason I got into college at all was because I had really high SAT scores.   Eventually I got tracked into being a rabbi because I am a good scholar but, alas, most American Jews don't really want scholars, they want "schmoozy" social directors.  And that is something I am unable to do very well.  So, I ended up as a freelance writer.

Given all of this, how could I possibly believe, as the title of this post suggests, that my autism is a gift?   As a child, I did not believe that.  Well into adulthood, I thought I was cursed.   I spent years of loneliness trying to figure out why I could not fit in anywhere.  But recently I have come to realize how being an Aspie gives me a unique and different perspective on the world, and that it has helped my writing immensely.   My ability to remember precise details, make fine distinctions among various categories of things, and see complex interconnections all give my writing a clear, fine precision.

"Big Oak 3"
by Yonassan Gershom
(An old growth oak on my land)

As many of my readers know, I literally "wrote the book" on the subject of Holocaust reincarnation cases (Beyond the Ashes, 1992), and I believe my autism made this possible.  I was able to be emotionally detached enough to sift through the material without being overwhelmed by the horror and sadness of the stories. 

I also  believe my odd personality prevented this from becoming a cult, heaven forbid.  Since I have zero charisma as a New Age guru, it was not likely that any groupies would blindly idolize me.   In fact, readers are often very disappointed to discover that the author of the book they love is a chattering Aspie nerd who does not fit their stereotype of "spiritual."  And that is for the best. 

 

Autism also influences my photography.  You have probably noticed that there are no people in my photos.  Frankly, I find pictures of people to be terminally boring.  The last publication I would ever buy is People magazine, and I have never once watched a reality show like Survivor or The Bachelor.  All babies look pretty much the same to me, and I mix up adult faces as well.   For example, I know, that William Shatner is Captain Kirk on classical Star Trek, but if I see Shatner in another role, I might not immediately recognize him.  I might not recognize you right away, either, if I see you out of your usual context (such as in the grocery instead of at work.)   Which does not make for very good personal relationships. 



"Calico Kitten"
by Yonassan Gershom

On the other hand, nature fascinates me, and my ability to hyperfocus on small details helps me see the world through a creative lens.  I have hundreds of photos of the sky and clouds, as well as landscapes, trees, flowers.  I also have a great rapport with animals, too, especially cats.  I guess you could say I'm a Cat Whisperer.  Even cats that people claim are impossible to hold or pet will come up to me, rubbing and purring.   I would not ever want to give that up in order to  be "cured" and become a Normie.

As Temple Grandin once said (and I am paraphrasing here), if the socialites had been running the world for the past few millennia, we would all be still just sitting around in caves, chatting and gossiping.   When you look at great inventors and writers, they were often oddballs who did not fit in, but they saw the world through different enough eyes to come up with original ideas. 

I'm convinced that Thomas Edison was an Aspie -- how else could he hyperfocus on a single idea so intensely that he tried a thousand ways to make a light bulb?  And Bill Gates, who was the butt of jokes for many years because of his personality, turned out to be an Aspie also.  Perhaps he was not the most sociable person on the planet, but he did invent the idea of a loadable operating system, thereby making modern computing possible.  Were it not for Aspies like Edison and Gates, you would not now be reading this blog.   Remember that next time you want to "cure" people like me.