{"id":676,"date":"2016-03-04T18:54:58","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T18:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/?p=676"},"modified":"2016-03-04T18:54:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T18:54:58","slug":"daily-cosmonaut-15-privilege-disability-intentions-resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/daily-cosmonaut-15-privilege-disability-intentions-resolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily Cosmonaut #15: Privilege, Disability, Intentions, & Resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night I did an interview about <\/span>Good Trouble: Building a Successful Life & Business with Asperger\u2019s<\/span><\/i><\/a> for <\/span>New Noise <\/span><\/i>Magazine<\/span><\/a> that ran about 75 minutes. We talked about the motivations for Microcosm and quite a bit about how Asperger\u2019s affected my life and compared stories about other people that we know with Asperger\u2019s and how it affects them.<\/span><\/p>\n\"intention\"\n

It struck upon a thought that I\u2019ve had for a while. As a person with Asperger\u2019s I\u2019ve often found myself upsetting people for reasons that I couldn\u2019t understand. But the more that I learn about the incredible complexity of emotional communication, the more I realize how contextual it is. <\/span>The average person has no idea what it’s like to navigate the world with a disability but <\/span>even after I explain that what someone perceives as rudeness or insensitivity is a result of Asperger\u2019s Syndrome rather than my own callousness, their feelings are still hurt. Their feelings are also real and valid. They don\u2019t simply go away once someone can intellectually understand what caused them. I\u2019ve learned the hard won lessons that more often than not, other people want to feel heard rather than to resolve whatever transgression has happened between us. <\/span>
\nAnd similarly, I\u2019ve watched hundreds of people slowly learn the lesson that they can hurt someone\u2019s feelings even if their intentions were good. Our intentions don\u2019t change the harm that we can cause to other people. And given that my empathy is product of my intellect rather than a natural process transferred from the mirror neurons in my brain, this confuses me. But at least knowing this stuff helps tremendously as life moves on not to harm other people.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I did an interview about Good Trouble: Building a Successful Life & Business with Asperger\u2019s for New Noise Magazine that ran about 75 minutes. We talked about the motivations for Microcosm and quite a bit about how Asperger\u2019s affected my life and compared stories about other people that we know with Asperger\u2019s and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogifesto"],"my_excerpt":"Last night I did an interview about <\/span>Good Trouble: Building a Successful Life & Business with Asperger\u2019s<\/span><\/i><\/a> for <\/span>New Noise <\/span><\/i>Magazine<\/span><\/a> that ran about 75 minutes. We talked about the motivations for Microcosm and quite a bit about how Asperger\u2019s affected my life and compared stories about other people that we know with Asperger\u2019s and how it affects them.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\"intention\"\r\n\r\nIt struck upon a thought that I\u2019ve had for a while. As a person with Asperger\u2019s I\u2019ve often found myself upsetting people for reasons that I couldn\u2019t understand. But the more that I learn about the incredible complexity of emotional communication, the more I realize how contextual it is. <\/span>The average person has no idea what it's like to navigate the world with a disability but <\/span>even after I explain that what someone perceives as rudeness or insensitivity is a result of Asperger\u2019s Syndrome rather than my own callousness, their feelings are still hurt. Their feelings are also real and valid. They don\u2019t simply go away once someone can intellectually understand what caused them. I\u2019ve learned the hard won lessons that more often than not, other people want to feel heard rather than to resolve whatever transgression has happened between us. <\/span>\r\nAnd similarly, I\u2019ve watched hundreds of people slowly learn the lesson that they can hurt someone\u2019s feelings even if their intentions were good. Our intentions don\u2019t change the harm that we can cause to other people. And given that my empathy is product of my intellect rather than a natural process transferred from the mirror neurons in my brain, this confuses me. But at least knowing this stuff helps tremendously as life moves on not to harm other people.<\/span>","my_excerpt_rendered":"

Last night I did an interview about <\/span>Good Trouble: Building a Successful Life & Business with Asperger\u2019s<\/span><\/i><\/a> for <\/span>New Noise <\/span><\/i>Magazine<\/span><\/a> that ran about 75 minutes. We talked about the motivations for Microcosm and quite a bit about how Asperger\u2019s affected my life and compared stories about other people that we know with Asperger\u2019s and how it affects them.<\/span><\/p>\n\"intention\"\n

It struck upon a thought that I\u2019ve had for a while. As a person with Asperger\u2019s I\u2019ve often found myself upsetting people for reasons that I couldn\u2019t understand. But the more that I learn about the incredible complexity of emotional communication, the more I realize how contextual it is. <\/span>The average person has no idea what it’s like to navigate the world with a disability but <\/span>even after I explain that what someone perceives as rudeness or insensitivity is a result of Asperger\u2019s Syndrome rather than my own callousness, their feelings are still hurt. Their feelings are also real and valid. They don\u2019t simply go away once someone can intellectually understand what caused them. I\u2019ve learned the hard won lessons that more often than not, other people want to feel heard rather than to resolve whatever transgression has happened between us. <\/span>
\nAnd similarly, I\u2019ve watched hundreds of people slowly learn the lesson that they can hurt someone\u2019s feelings even if their intentions were good. Our intentions don\u2019t change the harm that we can cause to other people. And given that my empathy is product of my intellect rather than a natural process transferred from the mirror neurons in my brain, this confuses me. But at least knowing this stuff helps tremendously as life moves on not to harm other people.<\/span><\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":678,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microcosmpublishing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}