by Steve Owens
Exposition: subject and countersubject in the form of a chorale fantasy
I have very low cognitive empathy[1]. Put crudely, it doesn’t occur to me to give a shit what you think. That doesn't make me some sort of a monster, but rather I have a behavioral default, a neurological headwind that I am constantly pushing against. If I get tired, or I drop my guard, I screw up, and its embarrassment city. And that's a good thing because it means my affective empathy is entirely normal. In short, when I cause you distress, it causes me distress. I may not fully understand why in the moment, which only intensifies the experience. But if I was the opposite, high cognitive empathy and low affective empathy, I would be a psychopath. I'll pass on that, thank you.
Contrapunctus I: the subject and countersubject
Contrapunctus II: the subject in inversion
Contrapunctus III: the subject in retrograde
My full recognition of my neuro-differences hit me hard at a high-level leadership training for principals, including several diagnostics, such as a 360 evaluation. The data showed that I had a bad communications deficit with my staff. Believe it or not there's an algorithm for that! My self-analysis showed me that I was spending plenty of time on the task of communicating, but I was doing that almost exclusively with respect to families and community. So, I reversed the polarity. I crowd sourced the family and community engagement to the staff, and I focused my communication energy on staff. This principally took the form of an extensive Friday memo that contained predictable features that people found useful for understanding the direction of the school, as well as my expectations. The anecdotal evidence indicated to me that people appreciated the shift. Like at Vermont-NEA with the minutes, I developed a definite manner and cadence for the work. I always assembled the document after school on Friday. My wife complained of how late I got home. But I was obstinate and produced that memo before going home. Partly, I wanted my weekends to be for self and family to the extent possible, but more important (and strange) I discovered I could not complete the memo at any but the designated time. I had to be very rigid about this because I discovered that if I failed to follow this aspect of the algorithm, I would get total writer's block and be unable to produce a memo later for that week.Contrapunctus IV: the subject in retrograde inversion
As a teacher (I was a music teacher), I developed clusters of algorithms for the conduct of developmentally appropriate classes. You might think given my lack of cognitive empathy, I would gravitate towards a "sage on the stage" role. But this is the default for people who lack skill and confidence. In my last ten years of teaching, I developed the capacity to deploy my intellect on the structure of the lesson, creating a framework within which the children could grow. My goal was to stand around doing nothing (but monitoring) while the kids did 100% of the work. Given that all my life I've puzzled about the behavior and intentions of others, it was a type of positive niche construction, because in education we start from the premise that children’s' minds are fundamentally different than adult minds. I could do that analysis. It worked for me. And given that my affective empathy is fine, it gave me an avenue to express my affection for the children. But I got there through intellect, not intuition.Stretto: all four iterations of the subject piled upon each other
I recently discovered I could very intentionally mix and match behavioral algorithms to produce a favorable result in a novel situation. It’s sort of like the using the chemistry set I had when I was a kid. To illustrate, I am going to quote from an interaction I had on the Mensa Aspergers Special Interest Group forum. One of the members prompted me: "I can interact with one other person, two at the most, or I can speak to a group where there is the psychological barrier of a dais, or something like that. My favorite kind of audience is trapped in a box with rigid rules in place so there can be no interruptions — to-wit, a jury. But the kind of small group that convenes at parties or around a table is impossible." And I responded in part: You bet - that's how I could make being an administrator work.- Being something of a music theory savant, I leveraged my analytic abilities to acquire a deep understanding of what was "under the hood" of these various choral works. I then used this analysis to backfill the various gestures needed for this interpretive dance called conducting. Positive niche construction.
- I was the leader, so it was socially acceptable for my thoughts to have primacy. This masks my cognitive empathy deficits.
- I created a blog, drawing on the experience of my Friday memo. The Tuesday reflections let me review key points and backfill with words anything that was left wanting due to my underdeveloped baton technique.
- Creation of practice tracks was part of the analytical process and moved the work of learning the parts out of the rehearsal space, allowing sufficient time to address the overall sound and interpretation.
- The rehearsal plan drew on my work as a master teacher and conveyed a sense of purpose and organization. I don’t think volunteers like having their time wasted.
- I performed these tasks on the days appointed, with fidelity.
- I used data from the blog analytics to verify anecdotal data (i.e., people saying nice things, which is not always a reliable source of information), and to assist me with planning. By seeing what people viewed, I could adjust both instruction, and the materials on the blog.
- I was as nice to people as I could be, within my peculiar limitations. My joke about myself is that "I clean up well."
Coda: future directions
I'm at a point in my life where I'm reflecting where I've come, how I've gotten there, and what I might need to do have a couple more good decades. One thing I'm grappling with is how to finish my life as a good autistic person, rather than as a mediocre neurotypical. The things I am speaking of here are largely things I developed in my fifties. When I was younger, I really struggled. I hated myself, I hated my incapacity to connect successfully with others to where I was suicidal on multiple occasions, once to the point where my psychiatrist called my wife and was on the verge of hospitalizing me. I do not own firearms for my own safety - if I did, I would be a statistic.These moments when I peered into the abyss were the most frightening moments of my life; I spent years blocking the memories. At the end of my Friday memos, I always placed the following sentence: "Later does not mean never." A developmental delay is just that - a delay. Einstein attributed the delay he experienced in giving up his child-like thinking to his capacity to see the universe through new eyes, so delays are not always bad. For my part, I just needed to survive long enough without killing myself to start figuring a few things out. I've figured out how to do teacher, boss, subordinate, colleague, facilitator, state officer, administrator, conductor, and trainer. I've even been a mentee a couple of times, which is sort of astonishing to consider. I hope I have done a tolerable job of husband, father, grandfather, neighbor... never really did son too well. It's too late for that. There are two roles that I have never mastered and for which I need algorithms: student and friend. I am the world's worst student, which is strange given that I am an educator. But with my low cognitive empathy, I was arrogant, and incapable of making space for even very well-intentioned teachers. In many situations, my inability to recognize this, and create compensating behavioral algorithms (because I wasn't ready) created a kind of neurological glass ceiling, especially with respect to my musical endeavors.
I've also given up on politics and public policy, because while I have a pathological fascination with the details of policy, I lack a similar fascination with people, and you need both pieces to make it work. That ship may have sailed too. But friend - I'm curious about that one and wondering what algorithms I might discover to make that work. It's not that I lack friends, meaning people that seem to like me and that I socialize with from time to time. But objectively, I think there is evidence that there is some qualitatively different type of friendship, perhaps described by the Greek word agape, that entails some sort of intimacy that I have not had the tools to develop or sustain. As Stephen Crane wrote: There was set before me a mighty hill And long days I climbed through regions of snow When I had before me the summit view It seemed that my labor had been to see Gardens... Lying at impossible distances.
[1] http://mysocialbrain.org/iri_info.org.html My scores show 58% on the personal distress sub score, but 9% on empathy overall, including fantasy – I’ve never been able to visualize characters in fiction. I remember struggling with this when I was kid – I knew it but didn’t understand the significance.