Listen

“That’s weird and scary, so I’m not going to touch that.”
“That’s weird and scary, so I’m not going to find out what it is.”

How many of us have thought like this in certain situations, whether it be facing an unidentified insect or a mysterious object?

The same applies for our instinctive response in facing a person with autism. Humans tend to retreat from the people who they presumably deem weird and scary.

Recently, I went to an orientation for a charitable organization that provides assistance to people with physical and mental disabilities. I was mind-blown. The lesson I received touched my heart deeply and I’m here to do the same to you guys.

When talking about people with autism, it can be summed up in one word: miscommunication. Why? Because their brain is wired differently from ours. You come up and say hi; they walk away. You try to start a conversation; they stare endlessly at the floor. You try to concentrate, but they keep tapping their feet or knocking on the table. We can all agree: synchronizing is hard. However, that doesn’t mean that it is impossible to understand their behavior and, more importantly, the people themselves.

Amelia Amanda Baggs, an American autism activist, sheds light onto our self-centered ignorance. She moves the world with this documentary of herself and her personal blog. She explains in our normal language the meaning of the peculiar behaviors – that they are the mechanisms the people with autism use to communicate with the world around them. These behaviors are their way of understanding their surroundings: they feel all the events happening around them with exaggerated sensibility. Animated and unanimated objects speak to them at an intensified level. The view they see is magnified to the extreme.

It is not weird. It is different.

Just as every single individual on this planet.

This is their language.

The language is too eccentric? Hard to understand?

Well, don’t we say the same thing when we hear a foreign language such as Thai or Mien? How do we respond when a person speaking an unknown language asks for help? Well, at the very least, I would say, we will try and figure out the message by context clues. And the way to notice those is to really listen to the message.

Let me ask you this question: How do you listen?

Do you hear the sound with your ears?

Does the sound come through your ears and go straight to your brain?

Not really.

Listening is trying to understand the speaker’s message, so it actually requires ears to detect sound, eyes to observe gesture, brain to utilize top-down processing, and the heart to open up and offer with sincerity. Let’s look at the people more closely; wonder at the way they take in the world and be amazed, because with this hyper-perception, they notice so much more than we do.

They are wired wrong? Tell me the correct layout.

They look different? Tell me which part – the color of their hair, the number of eyes, their height, or their clothes?

They have a handicap? They’re unfortunate? Oh now you’re dead wrong.

Albert Einstein, scientist

Temple Gradin, designer of the slaughterhouse

Tony Deblois, blind American musician

 Dylan Scott Pierce, painter

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composer

Jessica-Jane Applegate, Paralympic swimmer

James Hobley, British dancer and 2011 Britain's Got Talent finalist

Thristan Mendoza, Filipino marimba prodigy

James Henry Pullen, British carpenter

and many more.

Let’s have a show of hands of how many of us can do one of the achievements mentioned.

They are beautiful beings gifted with a special mission.

We are not the ones who will teach them. They are the ones who will teach us.

Well, the lesson at the orientation didn’t do much as reiterating how to listen, but it taught me how to annihilate the burdening and condescending attitude that I held toward people with autism. It reminded me that my only mission is to simply become their friends, and that is the most successful channel that will link all human beings together.

Email me if you have questions :)