Among other topics, I have been bombarded with all sorts of new (mostly fun) neurodiversity content these days. Have you noticed that in your feeds as well?
As you can imagine, having covered both neurodiversity and groupthink in my reporting, I have some thoughts about all this.
One of the reasons I wanted to write a second book was to encourage people, especially neurodivergent people, to keep the long-game in mind: that if different viewpoints ultimately become accepted and integrated (which seems like the ultimate aim), then the labels wouldn’t really matter anymore down the road, long-term.
That is, I wanted to help the deeply sensitive, insightful, gifted souls I have come across throughout my life shed the confining boxes and categories. As with any new territory, in the beginning of discovery, the terms, labels, and vocabulary are exciting and brilliant gateways to understanding. But once you’ve arrived there…what comes next?
I find myself in a state of limbo where there’s this huge growing neurodivergent scene across the online landscape (dare I say it’s now….even…mainstream) and then wanting to….kind of….shepherd folks across the river into no-man’s land….a free and open label-less place…. (In the new book I refer to us as what I call “identity orphans.”)
Drifters from the future…..
So! Fast forward.
What I’ve been excited to dive into, and hear from you about during these forward-moving times……..are your thoughts on the state of the world.
So you’re neurodivergent! Or gifted! Or sensitive! Or complex!
Taking that lens………What do you think about the Middle East? What do you think about AI? What do you think about identity politics? What do you think about the new NYC mayoral candidate? What do you think about ideological clashes between traditional Islamic and Western democratic thought?
What do you think of this highly complex and nuanced and honest and provocative and potentially controversial tweet about men and women and identity and the state of masculinity? (Seriously, read the whole thing — it’s not going to resonate with all of you as it’s a single subjective perspective but it is an interesting example of the kind of raw honesty we have lost in the groupthink landscape).
I don’t actually like to take these topics on in essay format. I am a conversationalist, and I think in book-length, so I wrote a second book. I wanted to call it NUANCE. We needed to keep “mind” in there so we went with Trust Your Mind as a kind of aspirational teaser….how do you get to a place of truly trusting your own thoughts? How do you develop the critical thinking tools to doubt and debate yourself and proceed confidently as you strive to trust your own judgments?
Because if you say you’re neurodivergent or differently-wired…..and yet you jump on any social media hashtag bandwagon……I feel like I’m missing something. I want to know *your* opinions and perspectives. I want to know who you are, away from the crowd. I don’t want talking points.
Who are you? What do you believe? Are you scared? Did that tweet stir something primal? How do you stay honest to your bones?
at least these days...we orphan outsiders, more understood....79 yrs ago?....not so much!