The Burden of Self-Reflection

My Dad used to say, "Son, you take yourself too seriously. Enjoy life and laugh at yourself occasionally." I have learned to do so and try to avoid those introspective times of self-reflection and self-absorption. But being a flawed human, I tend to operate in a vacuum of what is best for me. This is not a great quality but I have noticed it is a trait common to everyone I meet. We tend to spend too much time in self-reflection. There is nothing wrong with this unless our absorption excludes the rest of the world. My personal island is a myth and to try to live on it, devoid of others is both absurd and impossible. To take it another step, excessive self-reflection is a burden and one that can shape your world-view, carrying your problems and mistakes everywhere you go. Yes, my Dad was right, we tend to take ourselves too seriously.

Now let's talk about Joel and autism. As ironic as it seems, autistics do not generally spend much time in self-reflection. This seems a bold statement to make in light of the generally accepted attitude of autistics being withdrawn and into their own world. Yet being in your own world does not necessarily require self-absorption as much as it requires simply designing your own framework to fit your concept. Self-reflection is an exercise in creativity and imagination, both traits that are not common in autism. For to self-reflect is to spend time learning about oneself and applying those truths in the outer world. As previously mentioned, too much self-reflection leads to self-absorption and subsequently the removal of selfless altruism (Randians out there, don't get miffed yet!).

So why do autistics remain quiet and seemingly caught up in themselves? What are they thinking about? In the case of Joel, each time I ask him to verbalize his thoughts, he tells me what he wants to do, eat, play the organ, go somewhere, or he tells me something he sees or touches or is currently experiencing. But he has never told me some deep emotional thought that would be a kind of breakthrough as to what is in his head. I do suspect at times he is ordering the world around him and trying desperately to make sense of it. But I do not believe his quiet moments, days, are due to any kind of self-reflection as much as it is due to reorganizing that which confuses him.

But his confusion, his need for order, routine, for organization, for planning does not cause him depression or deep anguish, instead it causes him immediate fright and insecurity. While emotions such as these would lead "normal" (there's that word again) people to examine themselves and their own deep seated concerns, for an autistic, they are simply emotions of the moment and not worth great consternation over a period of time. It comes back to the difference between a life filled with imagination and a life filled with complexity. Imagination is a great gift and one that send us to worlds unknown and heights not attained by human beings, but imagination is the same thing that takes us to dark regions, fear, and suspicion. How often have we dreamed up a negative situation that didn't really exist? How often are we suspicious when there is no reason to be?

Self-reflection to a point can be gainful, causing us to learn more about ourselves thereby resulting in greater productivity and general usefulness. Excessive self-reflection, however, can lead to self-absorption, taking us eventually to depression and anxiety. For Joel, missing an imagination, these traits are non-existent. He is not burdened by any kind of extreme self-reflection and instead responds to life in two dimensions rather than three. This makes for a generally happy response to most situations, provided they make sense in his world. Maybe there is a magic to this idea, and maybe we can learn from this concept.