My Autistic Mode (part III)
(continued from Part II)
... Neurotypicals do not struggle with consistency because they lack logic or conviction. They struggle because their minds were never designed to sustain logic in isolation. Their cognition is relational—shaped, reinforced, and calibrated in response to others.
It is like a high-performance vehicle, built for precision, but with a second steering wheel installed—one that belongs to others: public opinion, tradition, social frameworks, the pull of group belonging. At first, they may steer steadily on their own, confident in their direction. But if enough people in the passenger seats lean a certain way, the second wheel begins to turn. It takes effort to resist, effort to hold course when the weight of the room pulls toward adjustment. Some manage it for longer than others—those who are naturally independent, those who surround themselves with like-minded peers who reflect their thoughts back to them. But even the most unwavering minds, without reinforcement, begin to drift.
It is the quiet pull of social mirroring, chipping away at certainty—not through evidence, but through sheer presence. Thought begins to feel less stable when it is not reflected back, when there is no nod of recognition, no resonance in the room. A person might need to see their ideas in another’s eyes, hear them echoed back, feel them land. Without that, the ground beneath them feels uncertain. This is why standard and unconscious ways of knowing feel fragile—not because they lack depth, but because they are conditional. A logic that requires a witness.
My own cognition does not work this way. My thoughts do not require a nod from the person beside me to keep moving in the same direction. If I have reasoned something out and it holds—if it aligns within my own experience, within reality as I understand it—then it holds. Social disagreement might annoy me, frustrate and sadden me, but it does not unseat my knowing. If something is true, it is true whether I am alone in it or not.
This is why, at best, I am idiosyncratic. At worst, maybe just weird—too insistent, too detached from the current of shared belief. But I have never known how to make truth a collective agreement. For me, it either coheres, or it does not. And if it coheres for me and only me, then I am in the terrible bind I often find myself in, of conscious erasure for the sake of social connection and harmony, or standing alone—as I often am.
This is not a choice neurotypicals often have to make. Their cognition moves differently, structured not around internal coherence alone, but through shared reinforcement. A thought does not settle in isolation—it finds its shape through reflection, recognition, and response. It is not just about what makes sense, but about what is upheld.
They do not ask me, 'How can you be sure you’re right?' because that is not how their reasoning moves. Instead, their questioning carries a different premise—one in which certainty is something arrived at together. If what I propose does not echo the surrounding narrative, the response is not necessarily an evaluation of its logic, but a quiet unease, as though something unreflected cannot be fully real.
For me, coherence does not depend on consensus. But for most, standing alone in a thought is not a position to be occupied for long—it is a suspension, a space waiting to be resolved by recognition. The challenge is not in proving the thought, but in existing in a space where no proof is required.
For me, it is different. I do not look outward for confirmation. I look for coherence. If my reasoning and my experience align, then the lights stay on, even if I am the only one in the room.
One thing I’ve come to see clearly is this: Autistic cognition isn’t shaped by the winds of social approval. It’s a candle sheltered inside a lantern, steady and bright. Our thinking does not require the oxygen of affirmation to keep its flame alive.
Whereas neurotypical cognition, for all its brilliance, is like a candle in the open—sustained by that same oxygen, but just as vulnerable to the movement of its winds. My autistic mode, once engaged, is self-sustaining and self-perpetuating, oblivious to approval.
There’s a profound grounded clarity in that, a kind of unwavering quality that I’ve come to deeply appreciate. I can be wrong, I can revise my thoughts—but the revision comes from new input or reconsideration, not from mere social pressure.
That clarity stands on its own—it isn’t conditional on a show of hands or a supportive audience; it moves unchanged, unshaken by their presence. When we know something to be true, it is truly ours—anchored in our own understanding, not carried by the tide of group consensus.
I think about this difference often. It’s not a boast or a condemnation, but an observation of two different ways of being. One way finds its compass externally, checking and rechecking against the social North Star; the other carries the compass within, trusting its steady pointing even when the sky is cloudy. Neither way is “wrong” in a moral sense—each has its purposes and its beauty. But I know which way I trust. I see it in my life, in my home, and in the contrast with the world outside. And I’ve come to cherish that quiet sturdiness of my autistic mind.
It’s a relief and a joy to let my thoughts be what they are, unmoved by the crowd, and to see my children able to do the same. That, to me, is the quiet power of my autistic mode: it stands on its own. It doesn’t need applause. It simply is, and that is enough.
... Neurotypicals do not struggle with consistency because they lack logic or conviction. They struggle because their minds were never designed to sustain logic in isolation. Their cognition is relational—shaped, reinforced, and calibrated in response to others.
It is like a high-performance vehicle, built for precision, but with a second steering wheel installed—one that belongs to others: public opinion, tradition, social frameworks, the pull of group belonging. At first, they may steer steadily on their own, confident in their direction. But if enough people in the passenger seats lean a certain way, the second wheel begins to turn. It takes effort to resist, effort to hold course when the weight of the room pulls toward adjustment. Some manage it for longer than others—those who are naturally independent, those who surround themselves with like-minded peers who reflect their thoughts back to them. But even the most unwavering minds, without reinforcement, begin to drift.
It is the quiet pull of social mirroring, chipping away at certainty—not through evidence, but through sheer presence. Thought begins to feel less stable when it is not reflected back, when there is no nod of recognition, no resonance in the room. A person might need to see their ideas in another’s eyes, hear them echoed back, feel them land. Without that, the ground beneath them feels uncertain. This is why standard and unconscious ways of knowing feel fragile—not because they lack depth, but because they are conditional. A logic that requires a witness.
My own cognition does not work this way. My thoughts do not require a nod from the person beside me to keep moving in the same direction. If I have reasoned something out and it holds—if it aligns within my own experience, within reality as I understand it—then it holds. Social disagreement might annoy me, frustrate and sadden me, but it does not unseat my knowing. If something is true, it is true whether I am alone in it or not.
This is why, at best, I am idiosyncratic. At worst, maybe just weird—too insistent, too detached from the current of shared belief. But I have never known how to make truth a collective agreement. For me, it either coheres, or it does not. And if it coheres for me and only me, then I am in the terrible bind I often find myself in, of conscious erasure for the sake of social connection and harmony, or standing alone—as I often am.
This is not a choice neurotypicals often have to make. Their cognition moves differently, structured not around internal coherence alone, but through shared reinforcement. A thought does not settle in isolation—it finds its shape through reflection, recognition, and response. It is not just about what makes sense, but about what is upheld.
They do not ask me, 'How can you be sure you’re right?' because that is not how their reasoning moves. Instead, their questioning carries a different premise—one in which certainty is something arrived at together. If what I propose does not echo the surrounding narrative, the response is not necessarily an evaluation of its logic, but a quiet unease, as though something unreflected cannot be fully real.
For me, coherence does not depend on consensus. But for most, standing alone in a thought is not a position to be occupied for long—it is a suspension, a space waiting to be resolved by recognition. The challenge is not in proving the thought, but in existing in a space where no proof is required.
For me, it is different. I do not look outward for confirmation. I look for coherence. If my reasoning and my experience align, then the lights stay on, even if I am the only one in the room.
One thing I’ve come to see clearly is this: Autistic cognition isn’t shaped by the winds of social approval. It’s a candle sheltered inside a lantern, steady and bright. Our thinking does not require the oxygen of affirmation to keep its flame alive.
Whereas neurotypical cognition, for all its brilliance, is like a candle in the open—sustained by that same oxygen, but just as vulnerable to the movement of its winds. My autistic mode, once engaged, is self-sustaining and self-perpetuating, oblivious to approval.
There’s a profound grounded clarity in that, a kind of unwavering quality that I’ve come to deeply appreciate. I can be wrong, I can revise my thoughts—but the revision comes from new input or reconsideration, not from mere social pressure.
That clarity stands on its own—it isn’t conditional on a show of hands or a supportive audience; it moves unchanged, unshaken by their presence. When we know something to be true, it is truly ours—anchored in our own understanding, not carried by the tide of group consensus.
I think about this difference often. It’s not a boast or a condemnation, but an observation of two different ways of being. One way finds its compass externally, checking and rechecking against the social North Star; the other carries the compass within, trusting its steady pointing even when the sky is cloudy. Neither way is “wrong” in a moral sense—each has its purposes and its beauty. But I know which way I trust. I see it in my life, in my home, and in the contrast with the world outside. And I’ve come to cherish that quiet sturdiness of my autistic mind.
It’s a relief and a joy to let my thoughts be what they are, unmoved by the crowd, and to see my children able to do the same. That, to me, is the quiet power of my autistic mode: it stands on its own. It doesn’t need applause. It simply is, and that is enough.
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