Autism from inside-out?

The Relational mind!

During last months, I did a lot of reading and thinking about autism spectrum disorders, and that is because I think that the mental problems my son Fab experiences are based on such an autism spectrum disorder.
I then also discovered that I have autistic characteristics myself, which 'explains' many of the problems I always had in jobs and relations.

So I must be able to understand (at least my kind of) autism from inside-out, and I think I can.
For me, my world of feelings always was the only real world, also when I was a child or a student. I never was attached to the world of words and ideas in my mind.
For me, my mind is just an instrument, a very handy and useful instrument, like a map of the area is a very useful instrument.
For me, everything and everybody first of all is sphere, safe or unsafe, nice or ugly, right or wrong et cetera. When I talk to you, I am first of all aware of your 'sphere'. And I never listen to the text of songs, only to the music.
All my memories are memories of spheres.
So I am a man of feeling. Nevertheless, other people often called me rational. But that is because of the fact that, when I use my mind, I do it in a rational way.

My son Fab too is only living in his world of feelings. He must learn to use his mind, as an instrument.

The world of feelings by the way also is the only world that can reveal us real truth, which also is a main subject of this Relational View. Think about your shoes or your bike. You already can understand these things from a distance, so in your mind; you then see your foot-form in the shoe-form, your whole body-form in the bike-form.
But real understanding is walking on your shoes and riding on your bike, feeling the fitting of forms. And the better the shoe then fits, the more truly it is a shoe. You will enjoy these nicely fitting shoes then, and then you enjoy truth.

So, mainly or only living in the world of feelings (the only world that reveals us real truth), is that a main characteristic of the autist?
The question then is who must be reformed, the autist or the 'normal' Westerner?
Both I think. My son Fab must learn to use his mind, as an instrument. Western society must learn that the world of feelings is the only real world, while the mind is just an instrument.
Schools have an important task here, by teaching our children what understanding is, and that always is seeing fitting forms. Think of the bike again. When you understand the bike, you simply see that forms fit to other forms.
You do not need to know any name of any part then. And what is true for the bike, is true for the whole world. Learning all these names of things is confusing for the autist, I think.

So according to me, the normal Western mind also must change, by seeing the difference between knowing and understanding. Knowing is something of (the memory of) the mind, which contains all kinds of information about all kinds of things. Understanding however is an act of seeing, sensing, feeling.

Finally this: Western society has a lot of knowledge, but little understanding. Understanding is a feeling, but feeling does not really count in the West.

Jan Helderman, 9-12-2007