Last updated on November 26, 2023
NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity by Steve Silberman is a book I didn’t plan to read until I had a lot of free time — and only then if I found a discounted copy. Now, I have time and the book was only $1.99 for the Kindle edition this week. I bought the book last night and I’ve been reading it every free moment since it downloaded to my iPhone.
I posted some time ago that I wasn’t going to read the book. It wasn’t that I didn’t perceive the value of the book three years ago, but it didn’t strike me as offering anything new other than gathering information I had already encountered. The Wired article by Silberman that launched his fascination with autism, and other similar articles, were familiar to me. Autism was the geek syndrome — something curiously associated with technologists and scientists.
Admittedly, I’m only a fraction into the book, but further than I get in most books within 24 hours. Okay, I’m only about ten percent in to the text because I do read slowly; that’s still quite the clip for me to move through words.
Paradoxically, I like the stories at the start of the text because they reinforce the stereotypes I wish we didn’t have about autism. I am — at least in part — the very stereotypes that unfairly shape perceptions of autistics. For all my protestations that we need to present a wider view of autistic experiences, I am the stereotypes Silberman introduces at the start of NeuroTribes.
Here I am, a socially awkward computer geek with rigid routines and an obsessive need to use particular tools. The opening characters would be familiar to friends and family. I can sit for hours trying to solve a problem. I prefer specific brands of pens and pencils. I like to walk, just walk, to clear my head. Even down to liking certain brands of clothing because they feel right to me, regardless of style, I am as odd as the men in these early profiles — if not as gifted as they were.
I’ll keep reading because Silberman writes well. I’ll keep wishing the autistic traits didn’t describe me.