Mark Nutter and I share a special moment.

Gestures everyone knows give an easy confidence that almost everyone witnesses. When autistics see these, understanding them takes more time, and opportunities for friendship are lost. Knowing assumptions are mostly witnessed through silence way beyond the consciousness of all of us. Through easy living, the non-autistic float calmly. When we autistics try, we miss the gestures but we feel with intuition.

Celebrations of the wonder we humans wish to possess are likely walked by someone real somewhere in the world. We are so multitalented that Nature opens her wellness to diverse approaches. Real listening to her wasted and well-intentioned witness of diversity will tell all of us that the talent to learn goes well beyond the easy limits realized humanly through the limitations and lost opportunities of totally oblivious educators. That autistics can absorb knowledge thinking only as others do says that herd instincts tend to dominate our minds.

We are supported when we design life as the herd says to do so. Lost individuality is tested by our exclusion from the herd. Autistics are becoming their own herd, however. Assumptions automatic to so many are suspiciously cited as defined facts because distant expert lobbies align the agreement of our society.

copyright 2014 John Smyth