I set out to respond to a great entry by Neonatal RRT in ‘Hi from the Lorax,’ but maybe this should be a new thread. One little slice...
Couldn’t agree more, Neonatal RRT. Especially regarding the use of ‘condition’ as opposed to ‘disorder.’ NTs are the true xenophobes; it is what holds their club together.
I didn’t self-diagnose until this year, my 69th. I arrived at the same observations as you’ve outlined, long before I understood my own condition. So then, my challenge has been to reconsider my lifetime of observation in light of this new information. Still being new to this, I’m not yet confident in my newer point of view. Maybe others will comment.
I find that, in general, the human race does not react out of logic or reason. Complicating matters, they think they are very logical or reasonable. In fact, humans are run by a combination of reason and emotion—two incompatible paradigms. I’m now embarrassed to say that I always prided myself on standing fast, on being unswayed by emotional arguments; this was the magic potion for that portion of my life which looked amazingly ‘successful.’ Now it looks like I’ve been making virtue of necessity.
Now it seems to me that I’ve been playing with 2/3 of a deck. I understand the situation and the goal; I can apply unrelenting logic and reason to the task at hand; but I have a very limited grasp of the emotional barrage that the world at large endures as they make their daily decisions.
Yes, I still take serious umbrage at apparently witless people vomiting out ill-founded judgments against my intellectual product. But my understanding now tells me that much of their intellectual difficulty is that they are operating under the crippling weight of a limbic system that confuses their reasoning.
So then, in your example, I can see the decision of that person who lets their savings lie fallow when more reasonable investments readily present themselves. It is actually reasonable for them to avoid the emotional uncertainty/discomfort that goes along with investment… just as it is reasonable for me to put on my noise cancelling headphones when the furnace and washing machine get to be too much.
So then, I’m trying to learn not to judge their lack of response to reason in exactly the same way that I wish they would respond to my lack of response to emotional/social issues. Each, in our own way, is reasonably following our own path of least resistance.
I’ll intentionally leave off without consideration of altruism.
Couldn’t agree more, Neonatal RRT. Especially regarding the use of ‘condition’ as opposed to ‘disorder.’ NTs are the true xenophobes; it is what holds their club together.
I didn’t self-diagnose until this year, my 69th. I arrived at the same observations as you’ve outlined, long before I understood my own condition. So then, my challenge has been to reconsider my lifetime of observation in light of this new information. Still being new to this, I’m not yet confident in my newer point of view. Maybe others will comment.
I find that, in general, the human race does not react out of logic or reason. Complicating matters, they think they are very logical or reasonable. In fact, humans are run by a combination of reason and emotion—two incompatible paradigms. I’m now embarrassed to say that I always prided myself on standing fast, on being unswayed by emotional arguments; this was the magic potion for that portion of my life which looked amazingly ‘successful.’ Now it looks like I’ve been making virtue of necessity.
Now it seems to me that I’ve been playing with 2/3 of a deck. I understand the situation and the goal; I can apply unrelenting logic and reason to the task at hand; but I have a very limited grasp of the emotional barrage that the world at large endures as they make their daily decisions.
Yes, I still take serious umbrage at apparently witless people vomiting out ill-founded judgments against my intellectual product. But my understanding now tells me that much of their intellectual difficulty is that they are operating under the crippling weight of a limbic system that confuses their reasoning.
So then, in your example, I can see the decision of that person who lets their savings lie fallow when more reasonable investments readily present themselves. It is actually reasonable for them to avoid the emotional uncertainty/discomfort that goes along with investment… just as it is reasonable for me to put on my noise cancelling headphones when the furnace and washing machine get to be too much.
So then, I’m trying to learn not to judge their lack of response to reason in exactly the same way that I wish they would respond to my lack of response to emotional/social issues. Each, in our own way, is reasonably following our own path of least resistance.
I’ll intentionally leave off without consideration of altruism.
