Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong anywhere? Do you have a ‘sacred space’ where you do feel like you have membership?
For many of us, we have our family. Whether or not we truly feel comfortable in that space, there is a membership based on genetics or time spent together.
It is a difficult thing to simultaneously exist as separate and together.
We are individuals. Our skin is a boundary separating us from each other.
Yet we are also connected to each other in a very obligate way.
Here I want to point out that neurodivergence provides an excellent model or example to understand this seeming dichotomy.
One of my central tenets is that we are biological organisms defined by natural selection. Our genetic composition combines with interactions with our world and each other to help us change through time. We evolve. Our success through evolution, or our fitness, defines our value. We made it!
However, layered on top of that fundamental scenario is the very human insistence on conformity and normalcy. In the face of continuous natural change we resist. I call this the Evolution Paradox.
Similarly, our success along this evolutionary path is in expressing our diversity. Our uniqueness is ‘meant to be’ and flying our freak flags is critical to this phenomenon. I call this the Uniqueness Imperative.
Together, these ideas summarize my platform. That human problems arise from the dissonance between our nature and our arrogance. For some reason, we think we are better than evolution. We resist the very forces that create and perpetuate us. We don’t want to change, yet change is the very foundation of our humanity.
That neurodivergence — or any type of diversity — exists is brilliant. Diversity is the key to our success. In a universe that is always changing, multi-generational, mortal beings must change with it. Or go extinct.
Pretending that neurodivergent people are somehow unimportant, ‘less-than’, or have no value is insolent. For whatever reason, humans have shifted from recognizing and embracing diversity, to trying to minimize it at all costs.
Just look around. Choose any conflict.
Anxiety? A result of trying to be someone you are not. Fitting in is stressful.
War? I want you to be like me. You aren’t. Let’s fight.
Inequality? You are different from me. I must abolish you.
It may be oversimplifying, but I believe most of our problems come down to the dissonance that arises from resisting our nature. Of trying to conform in a world that values non-conformity.
And I get it. Conformity is protective. Showing others your ‘true self’ is scary. Masking, or blending in to social groups, is self preservation. And we’ve done this for so long, maybe thousands of years, that we have forgotten how to be ourselves. To just be.
The lack of safety and fear of being cast out of the village has led us to try and be alike. And this is damaging our fitness, in the Darwinian sense.
I argue here, and throughout my writing and podcasting, that we have to stop this. Somehow we have to find the strength to be ourselves. And to embrace each other. And to be ourselves in a world that seems to want us to be each other.
It’s time to shift the power from being normal, average, or conforming to being authentic. The time for human arrogance is over. The stakes are too high. The persistence of our species is literally at risk.
Diversity is the way.
Podcast audio:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/530563/14405176
YouTube video: