We’re living in a world where we’re all witnessing the same symphony, with all of its nuances and variations and development of themes and variations of timbre and tone and iterations of rhythm and rhyming ends of lines,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and some of us are only hearing the pitch and timbre and tone and rhythm range of the violins,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and some of us are tuned into different specific frequency ranges, and timbral ranges, and rhythm changes, and tonal shifts and spectral bumps and thumps and squeaks and squawks and beeps and thunks,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and some of us are hearing the full spectrum of sound, and the spaces between the sounds (the spaces between are not just beautiful\u2013they contain the beauty) and timbres and pitches and rhythms and iterations of rhythms,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and when we gather, after the symphony, and describe our experiences, some of us are being told that the nuances we heard don’t exist, and that we’re weird for hearing them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine, if you can imagine, (or at least make friends with someone who imagines, if you can’t imagine), being told that hearing basses and oboes and piccolos and triangles and tympani and glockenspiels and bassoons and trumpets and trombones is weird (to be fair, glockenspiels is a weird word, if English is your only language and you can’t hear the music in it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That’s what people “on the spectrum” are up against. We’re weird for hearing the whole symphony, or a specific part of the symphonic fabric, and not just the violins, and trying to describe our wonderful spectral experiences to our peers, when we gather, after witnessing the symphony. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And sometimes we just give up. Or selectively give up. Because trying and trying is trying on our ability to describe, so we may appear to have a disability. I’ll tell you: it’s not a disability to witness the symphony. It’s a disability to get our experience across to those who are acculturated to violins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Something weird’s going on, indeed\u2013I’ll give you that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine, if you can imagine (or make friends with someone who imagines if you can’t imagine) a world where our experience of the symphony is better together, when we combine our described experiences, rather than excluding ones that are different from our own by calling them weird or saying they don’t exist at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or maybe one wants to live in a world of violins\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a person who plays both bass and piccolo, I shudder to think of it. It sounds like a violin world, indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"