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5:12am March 15, 2013

➸ my two cents (or more): I think I found the epitome of the total inverse of my cognitive style.

twocentsormore:

Or like if my cognitive style was matter, in the usual sense of the word, this would be the antimatter to it.

“I am coming to think that language is in charge of everything. I am coming to think that there is no reality outside language. It doesn’t matter what it is, really, as long as we know…

I have a book self-published by an autistic man that I think goes as far opposite of my cognitive style I’ve ever seen in my life. Words are everything to him.

To the point that at a point when he considered himself “cured” (or something like that) of autism, it was because he had learned to experience the world beyond words.

It was an interesting but difficult experience reading his books. Partly because of the language factor. Partly because they were in parts written like an advertisement for his idea of recovery from autism. (Which was all about things like discovering human connections and a world beyond words.)

Needless to say such a recovery wouldn’t help me any. Given that I was born outside words, found them really difficult, and have always lived in a world where words were this weird peripheral thing I had a hard time understanding.

He did drawings of how he saw the world back then that were astounding in their capacity to rattle my brain – they were composed entirely of words. They felt like the few times I’ve been trapped in word overload – foreign, painful, awful.

I’ll try to see if I can find any of his writing or drawings to show you.