Playing By the Rules Part II: The Brick Wall

Don’t forget to look me up on Instagram, Parler, Minds and Twitter under “RealAutismSpeak” if you want to follow my daily exploits, for more than what I’m able to put out here–for the time–on this blog! Hope to see you there!

If the first part of this topic seemed a bit confusing and vague to you, I do want to apologize; as stated in that entry, I was working on it with a splitting headache, and was trying to do research on the topic as I was writing it, then wound up combining a little bit of everything at once, and in the process…I don’t entirely think the points I was trying to make were as clear as I wanted to make them. I won’t lie, the last week and a half or so have been insanely busy and stressful….and yesterday/earlier today, I finally got more rest that I so badly needed, so hopefully I’m starting to get caught back up, and can explain a bit more thoroughly in this entry what I was trying to get to…and close it out by leading into another piece designed to build on a theme I’ve already started. As usual, I’m getting ahead of myself though, so let’s dive in, shall we?

Let me first begin by clarifying what I was trying to emphasize in the previous entry: I see both Maximilien Robespierre and Ayn Rand believing that society wanted something, and that while they both wanted to do what they could to help society achieve it, due to the Autistic misinterpretation of social guidelines and “mixed signals”–yet with their own sense of resilience and results-orientation–they both wound up going down very immoral paths (and I honestly believe, unintentionally) to achieve that goal, which wound up sinking them in the end. I will explain more about what I believe lead to that “unintentional” path, shortly…..but I basically wanted to finish elaborating on my point about “doing what they thought was wanted”, and how it relates to folks on the spectrum, in general:

Like I said in the last piece, when we’re told–for an assignment–to “design a house like this”, that’s what we’re gonna do, cause that’s what you told us to do. It’s gonna be designed “like that”….and then we’ll get passed over for the “out of the box” thinker, because he/she was totally original in his/her design, but you didn’t specify originality or anything like that; you said “design it like this”. Oh, you want the most amazing house design you could possibly imagine, that would put the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright to shame? Let us at it! But you have to specify that; our brains aren’t designed to read that that’s what you want, as is we’re simply going by what you requested. Sure, at 38 years old, I’m gonna ask a million and one questions, and give you what I think is worthy, even if it’s not “specifically” how you stated it….and you’ll probably love it; again, that’s at 38….you know, after years and years of developing a sense of self-awareness of myself and the world around me, and picking up on patterns (which I will be discussing soon); that 8-year old kid on the spectrum? Probably not gonna read into that, at that age, without the proper nurturing (which he/she likely isn’t getting, anyway). Again, when I was at that family reunion, I had no idea what the hell my family was doing with that ball; to me, there’s always an objective in mind, and I simply saw chaos, and wanted to fix it…that’s how my mind works, and what my personality is like: results-orientation; chess-playing, if you will.

Ok, so hopefully I’ve explained that well enough now (and if not, feel free to ask in the comments, or on the platforms you follow me on, Reddit chat or whatever, and I’ll try to elaborate further) that I can spring-board from there into why I think the pursuits of both Robespierre and Ayn Rand ended with a major “crash” both on the psychological level, and of their societal reputations (not to mention, in the case of Robespierre, legally, in the worst ways possible). Let me begin by telling you that, usually whenever I have a blog idea on my mind, I always find myself thinking about it at work to the point where I may be singing songs I see in relation to the subject material. For instance, when I did the piece on “functioning” levels of Autism, I couldn’t stop singing Devo’s “Jocko Homo”, as stated in that piece. Well, for this entry, I couldn’t stop thinking about/singing the score to Les Miserables, going so far as to discuss with a buddy of mine in the community something that I’ve been thinking about for the past year and a half that I’m gonna explain here:

I am a very strong believer in self-accountability; I’ll often hear people say “this or that person ruined me”, or “this person is the reason I’m like this”, or something else. To which I believe “why were you associating with that person to begin with?”, and yes….I’m gonna be delving into that in that “mythical” piece planned for this Fall. I personally believe that said bad person or people in one’s life (chosen by you, by the way; not the ones you may have due to being related, or something) are there because they’re a reflection of us; i.e. they represent our insecurities, and the inner demons that we’re still meant to slay, to reach our ultimate redemption and capability. They teach us things about ourselves along our path, and that is the reason they were put there to begin with; I’ve even dabbled a bit in it in this piece, here. For those who may not know, the two main characters of Les Miserables–protagonist Jean Valjean, and his antagonist Javer–are actually both inspired by one Frenchman at two separate times in his life. What almost brings me to tears now–and in a good way–is a certain part of the story that I never fully understood, until recently: there is a point in the story where Valjean confronts Javer for the very last time, in his journey for redemption…and Javer takes his own life, the idea from my understanding being that, in his path for redemption, he has surpassed the need for Javer’s existence anymore. He’s finally too good of a man for Javer’s existence, and of course the story concludes with Valjean passing away, having found his ultimate redemption from his troubled life, having successfully slain his inner-demons.

For two other more contemporary examples of this point, I like to watch a certain political cartoon series on Youtube, which I usually find very creative and witty in its presentation; one of the most recent installments, however, I actually found to be extremely vicious and stereotypically demeaning toward its ideologic other, and was not in any way quiet about my disapproval. There’s also a prominent political figurehead I follow on Twitter and Instagram, and he recently posted a video of himself on one of the news shows, offering his perspective, claiming he totally “owned” them; I sure as hell didn’t see that; I saw him crashing under his own weight. He was viewing the other talking heads as his “enemies”, whereas his short-comings were clearly what took him out; in fact it’s very similar to what I discussed here, and will be elaborating further on in “the piece this Fall”.

So you may be wondering what the hell I’m trying to get at here, and how this involves Robespierre and Ayn Rand…and why I keep even bringing these two up at all, over this; why I’m spending so much time discussing this? Well, first off I’m trying to articulate further that–while I do understand both figures made really bad decisions in the end that “took them out” in the public eye, in terms of reputation, and of course leading to their own moral declines, I don’t believe it was intentionally out of malice, and that these two probably shouldn’t be looked upon in such a terrible light, even if (especially with Robespierre) due to the actions they took, I can understand why many still would view them that way. Second of all, I want to put it out there so that it doesn’t happen to other folks on the spectrum, either, and also to articulate why I don’t think it’s happened to me (thus far, anyway).

“Ok ok Russell, ya keep yapping and telling us these two people were so great you’d suck them off, and everything; get to the damn point, already! Why did they fuck up so badly, in your eyes?!!!!!” Very, very simple, dear readers: they didn’t know they were Autistic, and yes….That. Changes. Everything.

Take the example of what Ayn Rand said to the audience member on Donahue: “yes I totally understand this, and so can you; so can everybody!” Wrong! Ayn Rand and Robespierre were on a completely different plane of mental comprehension than their contemporaries, being on the spectrum, and the results in question–in my opinion–very easily reflected that. I’ve mentioned before about “nope-ing” out of the Objectivist community online, after seeing the civil war they delved into over petty arguments and dick-measuring; the reason I was there to begin with was because my Dad was actually a very devoted follower of Ayn Rand, and her philosophy; again, I do like a lot of what she says, but….I do see contradictions. Well, the reason she had these contradictions, and never successfully sorted them out–in the end their pretty much “consuming” her–was because she didn’t have anyone on her level of comprehension to help her sort thru them, and on top of it, she thought she was on the same level as everyone else, so as a result, wouldn’t have even bothered to consider there was something that wasn’t fully adding up. For instance, I see people get into dick-measuring arguments over regurgitated narrative on social media all the time, and if I didn’t know what I’ve already come to understand about myself, I might likely engage a lot more often, and get myself dragged down into the muck too, rather than diving deeper into all the questions, and other considerations I’ve otherwise developed instead, from all the research I’ve done.

As a great example in my own case, I’ve never mentioned this before, but hey…..after a week and a half of crushing levels of stress, I might as well perch myself up and brag a little bit: when I was 28 years old, I was invited to join the Freemasons. I did go meet up with the man who invited me, so got to check out the Masonic Temple; both severe time constraints, and requirements about swearing allegiance on a religious text pushed me to respectfully decline, as difficult as it was to have to do that (although I still have that business card to this day; I carry it around with me everywhere, it means so much to me). Think about that though: 28 years old; hell, I’d only really started coming to terms with and understanding being Autistic, and what that entailed, about 2 1/2 years before that. Essentially, by that point, I was already asking 50,000 questions, and looking at different perspectives than anyone else, and having conflicts of interest over simply “accepting what was offered”.

Ayn Rand and Robespierre didn’t think to do that….because they wouldn’t have thought to do that, not realizing how different their minds really worked, compared to everyone else’s. It really comes down to viewing life from that different premise of understanding; when you realize pretty much no one else thinks the way you do, then you also realize no one is likely to come to the exact same conclusions you’re going to (or even why)….and may in most cases be far more off-base from your intention than you may realize, and if you don’t think to put some level of space in between, upon knowing this, you could wind up getting involved in territory leading to your downfall. Sure, Ayn Rand’s followers–and Robespierre’s contemporaries–could offer interesting insights on their perspectives, and whatnot, and I won’t even pretend for a moment they couldn’t…..but not being on that level, it won’t be understood to the degree that Ayn Rand and Robespierre were capable of doing it….but again, as they didn’t know said contemporaries weren’t on that level, they would never have realized they weren’t being challenged enough to take the superior road, and instead…it wound up taking them out, instead. When you’re surrounded by people who are not on your level, and you don’t know that they’re not on your level, in thinking you’re still getting a good exchange of ideas–when I can assure you that you most certainly are not (at least not what you genuinely need for stronger epiphanies and understandings), you wind up remaining at a certain “mental” level, and for folks on the spectrum, where the comprehension of our minds is…pretty much everything (which I will be diving into, shortly), it’s pretty much the equivalent of slamming into a brick wall, head-first; inner-demons never slain, just self-destruction that in many cases could’ve been completely avoided.

Now…by this point, you may be thinking “geez Russell, you talk down a lot to people not on the spectrum; you think we’re stupid or something? Goddamn are you condescending!” Well, I never denied being arrogant and condescending; I very much am, and I own that. However, no…..both the Autistic and non-Autistic brain are both very important to society, and both service the needs of society on their own terms. I confess I realize I always sound like I’m saying “we’re smarter than you, nana nana na na!!!!!!!!!” , so next time, we’re gonna discuss those differences; what the Autistic mind does that the non-Autistic mind doesn’t, and why both are so useful–and in many ways to each other–when utilized to full efficiency 🙂