Whether or Not You Believe that no two snowflakes are alike,
we can agree that nature cultivates diversity—and yes, occasionally to extremes. Especially in humans, who are just as different and noticeably more complex than snowflakes. In a culture that demands all the answers, we analyze every aspect of humankind. But I wonder, in this world of ruthless scrutiny, aren’t we all growing weary of being categorized and often defined by our innate differences?
Whether neurotypical or more exceptionally neuro-configured, each of us experiences life quite differently from the next, and yet at our essence, we are each no different, not even from strangers on an opposite side of the earth.
Beyond survival, the desire to know love and to contribute in our way to brightening the world are universal aspirations. To keep things interesting, we come in assorted shapes, colors, and sizes. Some of us have quick tempers, some heightened intellect, others impaired understanding, an exaggerated need for attention, or perhaps great compassion. Myriad traits can define us—if we allow them.
Indeed, much of life is a battle for control. Many among us will struggle with difficult situations that can redirect lives and often ransack hopes and resources. Challenging physical or mental health issues, changing circumstances, and crushing experiences eventually touch all our lives, but with extraordinarily varying results. We are audaciously resilient creatures.
Always, Always Choose Again features a neurodiverse love story. In learning more about Asperger’s and the autism spectrum, I’ve read many times that, if you’ve met one Aspergerian, you’ve met one Aspergerian. How true.
Said to make up about one percent of the world’s population, people with Asperger’s seem to experience some similar issues, but to wide-ranging degrees. John Elder Robison’s first book is the bestseller, Look Me in the Eye, a memoir of his adventurous life and an Asperger’s diagnosis around the age of forty.
Robison is often quoted as having said, “To me, neurodiversity is the idea that neurological differences like autism and ADHD are the result of normal, natural variation in the human genome. This represents a new and fundamentally different way of looking at conditions that were traditionally pathologized; it’s a viewpoint that is not universally accepted, although it is increasingly supported by science.”
Who could or should define it better? Normal, natural variation. To oversimplify again in terms of weather, it could be said that we humans are predisposed to being “mostly sunny,” with some who are “a bit stormy,” and that infrequent but major extremes will continue to occur in our neurodiverse world—as happens on the autism spectrum. We are, after all, only human. And some, simply extraordinary.
Always, Always Choose Again is available now in e-book, hardcover, and paperback.