Zoom Autism Magazine Issue 3 Spring 2015 | Page 16
AUTHOR SNAPSHOT
Acceptance
By David Finch
T
The smartest thing I’ve read recently was
a Facebook post from my friend John
Elder Robison. In it, John observes an
essential difference in how autism is perceived
in America and India, respectively. Specifically
noted is the culture of acceptance in India, which
carries entirely different implications from America’s general tendency to assign blame for things
we deem unacceptable. This has real consequences in the way we engage with people with
autism. By attaching blame to something, we
redefine it as a problem, and the word “problem”
has very few positive connotations. When we
accept, we are able to see things and people for
what they are, how they are, and who they are,
and only then can we love them purely.
Acceptance is a life-changing behavior to master,
and I say this as someone who has yet to master
it. When traffic comes to a standstill on the interstate, I’m the person smashing his head against
the driver’s-side window of his comfortable car
and crying out, “You gotta be kidding me!” This,
while my favorite music plays on the expensive
and perfectly-functioning sound system I completely take for granted.
We are inclined to resist the circumstances in our
lives—“I can’t BELIEVE this elevator takes so
long,” or “Why does it have to be so cold in February?!”—and in so doing, we set ourselves up
for pain and suffering. And we resist everything.
According to Good Morning America, not even
our eyebrows are safe. Big eyebrows, they reported, are en vogue; if you have them, you’re stylish,
and if not, you really need to consider eyebrow
extensions.
“Hey, why did you and Vanessa break
things off?”
16
Zoom Autism Through Many Lenses
“Dude, I just couldn’t talk her into getting
those eyebrow extensions.”
“Regular eyebrows, huh? You can’t be
with someone like that.”
“Nope. Total deal breaker.”
Rather than going about our lives without judgment, we foist our insane expectations upon the
universe, th