Utility

To quote a line from one of the best episodes of my most beloved Star Trek series, "One of the most important things in a person's life is to feel useful." Such utility has been a phantom I've been chasing my entire life and this wild goose chase is something up upon which I only recently gave. The quest to become a useful human being is a trial by fire for many autistics. Those who succeed are rewarded with a productive adult life and become capable of independent living. For those who fail, however, wandering about attempting to be useful in the lives of those about whom they care is their neverending struggle. My own quest has failed, despite waging it long and hard. So I wander my world plying my core skills of writing and baking and pastry arts, as well as financial generosity, as my way of compensating for my general lack of utility as best I can. It isn't good enough and it never will be, although what little success I have sustains me with the tiny taste of feeling useful I get from it.

There are very different reasons that my core skills do not suffice to make me useful. Baking and pastry arts, to be done professionally, requires working quickly and multitasking, both of which I am incapable. Writing is more of a matter of being born in the wrong era and having talent in the wrong areas. Novelists are still somewhat viable in the modern world, although distribution is largely changing models from the bookstore to the e-reader. Non-fiction writers, primarily meaning journalists and columnists here, are considerably less viable in the modern era. Very few opportunities are available and what few are present tend to be unpaid. A toxic idea has taken hold that artists, especially writers, ought not to expect pay for their work and the public also expects their work for free. This idea has done incalculable damage to the job market for writers. While I have my doubts that a given publication's staff could endure my company sufficiently for me to succeed, I am confident that I could perform the job well.

Generosity is the real lifeblood of what sustains me in the aftermath of failing in my quest to become useful. Someone else's life becoming better by my action is the most powerful way for me to feel useful, but it is not without its risks. I know from long experience that many people, however sincere their need, will not hesitate to take advantage of the naïveté I come by honestly via autism. So I've had to learn to be careful, but I must stay the course because the benefits outweigh the risks. As I know that I am a hindrance in most respects, I generally try and leave other people to their lives and keep to myself. Even with friends, I try and help when I can and interact primarily when invited to do so. When it comes to others, they have long since made themselves useful and I must respect that. They aren't like me. All I'm up to is marking time as I pass through a mostly useless life that I predominantly observe rather than live. So it is their lives and their happiness that matter to me. Useless though I generally am, I can sometimes manage small exceptions. These small exceptions represent what little comfort I may eke out for myself as I walk a long and lonely road.

-Frank