"Born on a Blue Day"

I just finished the book "Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant" which is a biography about and written by Daniel Tammet. I was originally drawn to the book because I find savant-ism to be absolutely fascinating, and I was also interested by the fact that the author has Aspergers syndrome and has learned to be successful and independent in the world. I had very high expectations for the book, and those expectations were actually surpassed.


One thing that I wasn't expecting at all (but absolutely loved) was the love story in the middle. It was a nice change of pace to come across a gay love story in a book when I wasn't expecting it, and when it wasn't the main "point" of the story. Completely seperate from Daniels sexuality, I also loved the storyline because I thought it was very refreshing and interesting to hear someone so overly logical talk about love. I often question if I will ever really fall in love, or if I even want to, because it just seems so silly and illogical. I guess the book helped me realize that not every couple that says they're in love is just two willy-nilly, overly-emotional, and illogical idiots making dumb decisions and then feeling handcuffed by them. (Cynical? No way!)


The weirdest moment of the book for me came in the last two pages. Up to that point I had gone through the entire book feeling like in many ways this guy was validating how I see the world, and feeling like I "got" what he was saying. All of the sudden in the last two pages he states that he's a Christian. This completely threw me off. Here is a guy who I honestly believe is brilliant, is obviously incredibly logical, and all of the sudden he states that he is a Christian. No offense to any Christians reading this, but I have come to my beliefs (I'm an Atheist) because I think that's the smart and logical conclusion. I have so much respect for this guys intellect, I actually doubted my thoughts on religion for about 30 seconds... which is by far the longest I've doubted my position in all of my adult life. However, my faith in Atheism was restored once I realized that Daniel is looking for an answer to questions that concrete logic and science [currently] can't truly give, and that his Aspergers-fueled desire for order and rituals probably attracted him to Christianity.
(Did I seriously just use the phrase "Faith in Atheism" in a way that made sense? Awesome.)


I very much felt connected to Daniel when he was talking described the way he learned to get around in the world despite his Aspergers. He basically studied the social "rules" that most people know instinctively and learned to apply them. I do think a large part of why I felt connected to him is because I grew up with Luke, but I also think some of that connection was related to the way I think, too. For example, I honestly feel like watching TV shows and analyzing how and why characters act the way they do and really "studying" them has made me more in-tune and comfortable socially.

However, I don't have Aspergers syndrome. I know this because I got sick of being paranoid about it and strait up asked my therapist if she thought I did. Not only did she say "no", she seemed pretty surprised that I was worried about it. I definitely trust her opinion, so I do recognize that the thought was primarily paranoia.

I also think reading the book, especially Daniels description of his childhood, helped me to sort out some of the messed up views I had about Aspergers when I was younger.
When I was a kid I didn't believe Aspergers was a real thing. I thought it was something my parents made up because they liked Luke more than me, and wanted to let him get away with things. I realize now that I thought this because many of the things that defined his disorder were things I fought hard to control on a daily basis, and I was terrified that if I didn't keep worrying about every social situation, I would wind up unable to deal with them and get labeled "different" too. At the same time I was really jealous and pissed off that it seemed like Luke had been given a free pass on issues that were still a struggle for me. Basically, we had enough in common that I failed to recognize the differences that made things that were in my control [but still a struggle] completely out of his control. I thought that he was just being lazy.

For example, people with Aspergers tend to get really passionate about one thing at a time. Lukes big passion when he was really young was trains. People with Aspergers will talk and talk about their favorite subject without realizing the other person isn't interested. I am also incredibly obsessive, and when I am passionate about something I have to make a conscious effort to not just ramble on about it the way someone with Aspergers would (I often fail, as evidenced by this blog entry). So I would spend my entire day trying to control how much I talked, and then I would come home and Luke would talk my ear off about trains. He would never get the hint to shut up so eventually I would snap and say something mean, and my parents would get mad because he "couldn't help it". It definitely seemed like a double standard. As an adult, these aspergers-ish thoughts make me understand and get along with my brother better. But as a kid, they left me annoyed by and resentful of him.


While Daniels description of Aspergers was interesting and helpful for me to read, I am still more fascinated by his savant-ism than anything else. His synesthesia means that to him words and numbers have extra properties such as color and emotion. He basically sees the linguistic and mathematical world with more variables than we do, and it actually works. He was able to learn Icelandic (one of the hardest languages to learn) in a matter of only around a week, and he memorized and recited over 2,000 digits of pi by memorizing the 'numerical landscape' in his head. He speaks over 11 languages and has even made his own. I wish I could ask this guy what language he thinks in (this is a question I ask all of my bilingual friends, as the answer fascinates me). If he actually thinks in his own language, that's crazy fascinating and awesome. The fact that language can prevent me from expressing what I actually feel (based on a limited vocabulary) has always bugged me. I guess if I thought in my own personal (but logical) language, I could create new words whenever necessary. That would be awesome.
I think Daniel is a great example of how thinking outside of the perceived reality can lead to amazing results.