Narrative Experiment

*This article is going to be me narrating a day in my life in high school. For memory's sake, we're going to go with senior year, meaning 1998-1999. Some of you might gain insight from this. If not, then it's still going to be interesting for me. I'll be writing in the style of Rorschach from Watchmen. If that means something to you, then you'll know what I mean. Otherwise, never mind.*

Eyes blearily open. Dreamworld of superpowers and loyal friends shatters at the sound of Garfield alarm clock. New day is upon me. Usual routine now commences. Mother has prepared whatever breakfast she thinks is healthy this week. Her disgust with my weight is reliably evident, but it gets lost in the sea of her grievances with me. Breakfast ends and shower begins. Mirror gives me insight into what everyone else will tired of seeing today. Fogs up, and a thin veil is a momentary mercy. Get dressed to song Footloose. Hope it helps morale. Maybe a little, but temporarily and not much. Not like when I was a little kid caught up in the energy and the optimism of it. No real place for energy and optimism anymore. Still, certain minimal levels of cheer necessary to function.

Leave for school earlier than normal kid, like usual. Getting there early means entering building peacefully. Less likely to get spat on. Has become issue lately. On way play The Touch from Transformers: The Movie to try and increase morale. Failing that, Instruments of Destruction will come on next and I'll imagine the glorious burning ruins of my enemies. Catharsis will follow. Almost enough to take my mind off of house where girl I have crush on used to live. Almost enough to make me think of something else. Anything else but what I have been cheated out of because of who I am. Hatred for who I am seethes through me for a moment, going above normal levels before the music distracts my focus and I wait to see if that hill the Firebird always dies on will delay me a moment today. It doesn't.

High School comes into sight and memories flood into me. Looks light a brighter happier place than the thuggish cesspool that was the Junior High. Newer and shinier doesn't mean better though. Just a newer better decorated hellhole. Upon pulling in, I park in a distant spot favored by no one, preparing to avoid interaction with classmates after school. Spot positions me well to use a less favored side entrance. If I'm early and lucky enough there won't be guys waiting to spit on me there today. No need to go to locker once inside. Too tempting for bullies to mess with it. Once had vaseline coated all over the inside. Carry everything, all the books and supplies, on my back. Can be watched that way. Can be kept safe.

Attempt to proceed directly to class without incident. Restroom stop maybe. Can only hope to hide inside classroom for first class. Hide from hostiles. Nonhostiles out in the hall too. No trouble from them. No eye contact. No acknowledgment. Hostiles will antagonize at slightest provocation. Passing them in hall all the justification needed. Taunts unsophisticated, but relentless. Picking on shortcomings long since acknowledged by everyone. Futility of their sadistic game enrages me. Maybe I fight back with words they don't understand. Hasn't mattered for for over a decade. Damn sure doesn't now.

First class begins. English. Good at it. Frustrated endlessly with the lack of enthusiasm from my classmates. Will say something at least once to earn a strange look from some of them. Rarely will know what I said. Classmates will usually say or do something to get in trouble with the teacher. Bores me and wastes my time. Futility in their behavior apparent. Inexplicably irrational as they were the first day at St. John's.

Second class begins. Accounting. Bad at it, but have accounting professor aunt tutoring me. Tend to do better in class than most of my classmates. Have eccentric habit of using expensive fountain pen to do accounting homework. Have dumber than usual classmates. Strange. Accounting shouldn't attract them. Preparing for careers in white collar crime perhaps. Do not end up dwelling on it.

Third class begins. Study Hall. Usually bring book to this or talk to coach who teaches the class. Classmates have conversations in this class that make the ones classmates have in other classes of the day seem like Tarintino dialogue. Bored mostly.

Fourth class begins. Business Management. Seems I'm ahead of the curve on this class just from reading Dilbert books. Classmates seem to have more well-rounded intelligence levels. Enjoy the different conversational texture. On entrepreneurship team in FBLA via this class. More social with classmates out of necessity. Not nearly as painful as doing so would've been a few years ago. Making progress perhaps? Whose progress? Yours? Theirs? The teacher's? Who is to know?

Lunch begins: Choice to be made. Lean up against wall. Eat bag lunch in underpopulated area. Avoid hostiles and avoid making nonhostiles uncomfortable that way. Or sit at table and irritate and alienate all present with personality. Depends on patience. Depends how how merciful I'm feeling. Mostly lean against the wall. Don't go where I'm not wanted. Besides lunch is weird. On Atkins. Cold meatloaf, pork rinds, and sugar free jello cup. Enough to gross out anyone. No social capital anyway. Could have charbroiled live puppy for lunch. Wouldn't matter. Outcast. Understand that rule. All too well. Far too long.

Fifth class begins. Second Study Hall. Same thing. Instead Let's assume pep rally happens today. Wearing all black. Dressed specifically that way for today. Greatest tormenters are athletes. Only hatred for them. No spirit. No love. No joy. Only contempt reserved for greatest enemies. Teachers and coaches expect it by now. Tell me to have school spirit. That it's important to support school. Not supporting anything. School showed me worst of human nature. Gave me terrible education. Among worst in country. Yet seeking praise. For their sins. Rot in hell. Go to pep rally though. Filing in along with the rest of them. Wear Terminator shades, black turtleneck, black dress pants, and shiny black shoes. Black sweater too if it's cold. Never cheer. Never stand. Never clap. Only during the pledge of allegiance and the Star Spangled Banner. Loyalty to my country I have. None to my school. None to my betrayer. None to my tormenter. None to the destroyer of all that is good in life. Am assaulted as I sit motionless locked in unbroken deadeyed stare with the coaches. Assaulted verbally. Assaulted physically. Breaking me, they think. Not even getting close. As they resort to violence and intimidation to try and enforce conformity, I feed off their energy. No real point. If had one, wouldn't have to resort to violence and intimidation. Might as well beat me to death. Scream until I'm deafened. Won't budge. Would've been just fine reading a book quietly while the damned thing went on. Had to push me. Had to invite a wet blanket to your party. Fine. Wet blanket desired. Wet blanket provided. Am immovable object. Pep rallies not unstoppable force. Will be proud to dying day. Never broke.

6th class begins: Journalism. In offshoot class from main journalism class. Just four of us in the library. Coming up with stories. Mostly write movie reviews and whatever else teacher asks me to write. Lots of goofing off in this class. Classmates are not really popular kids either. Get treated better than normal. Consider them all nonhostiles. Consider majoring in journalism in college. Good experience. Went to Halloween Dance as Michael Meyers from Halloween. Got treated better than normal because no one knew it was me for a while. Got to be in journalism group photo. Journalism class highlight of day.

7th class begins: Business Law. Learn a lot in this class. Feels like college course. Have had a few of those by now. Great feeling to learn so much. Especially regarding banking business. Classmates equally dedicated to learning means hostiles and nonhostiles largely irrelevant. Everyone on learning. Good.

School ends: Mission is escape. Likely holding in considerable bowel movement due to unwillingness to use school's restrooms for that purpose. Mad dash for car. Should be largely abandoned around it if all goes well. Experience rush of adrenaline upon exiting school. Sure today will be the day one of the teams kicks my ass. For the pep rally business. For not liking sports in general. Just because I'm Frank. Just because they know I wouldn't hit back. Just because they could get away with it. Attack doesn't come, and I race home to superior restroom facility. Watch TV and do homework when arrive home. Maybe go out to see movie by myself later. Tomorrow will do the same thing. Lonely life. Barely feel human. Wondered what it would be like to be one of these people since time out of memory. Always outside of them. Sadness overwhelms. Where did it begin? Their cruelty? My weirdness? Chicken? Egg? Doesn't matter. Nothing changes. Nothing ever changes. Head hits pillow. Dreams follow. Superpowers. Loyal friends. A time and place where dreams survive.

-Frank

Comic-Con 2009

*This is an account of my trip to Comic-Con in 2009 with my friend Drew. I wrote it shortly after the trip and this is the first time it's available to a general audience.*

It is said that, upon one's death bed, one does not regret the things one did, but the things one didn't do. So it is in this sense that I do not regret going to Comic-Con. I learned a lot of things about cons, myself, and the wider United States outside of the Ozarks. Was it fun learning these things? Well, that's another question, isn't it?

Airline travel can be the worst part of a trip, and has been so for me on some occasions. Not this time though. Sure, I got locked into using first class tickets by my credit card's rewards program, meaning round trip for Drew and me cost nearly 2,000 dollars, and booking a hotel was a painful goatfuck of a process that meant I paid nearly another 2,000 dollars for Drew and myself to stay five days in the luxurious US Grant Hotel, but that's all money issues. While the trip overall set me back five grand, the actual process of getting there and staying in the hotel was quite pleasant. I got what I paid for, even if I only paid for it because I was in over my head.

When we arrived at Preview Night, it was easy to be awestruck. So very many people were milling about in so very many costumes. Someone at the cigar shop I frequent asked me if I would see any girls dressed up as Wonder Woman. I could not count on two hands how many of that exact character I saw. After proceeding through all the lines to get registered, Drew and I walked around the place to get a sense of what we were in for. We finally sat down along a wall outside a large room I would come to realize later was called Ballroom 20 and was where much of the big deal stuff was to be located. Naively as all fuck, I made my schedule up. Every day but Sunday, I had planned eight different events. Reality was about to smack me in the face like a wrench in the Dodgeball movie.

Drew and I discovered a nice little Irish pub on the route to the convention center. It would become our most frequently dined at location, though I must say I preferred their standard fare to their breakfast fare. My first scheduled event was a panel on the new The Hobbit movies and I failed to get in. That was a bit disappointing, but I knew that might happen thanks to some guides to Comic-Con I'd read online before the trip. So I just moseyed on over to another panel on a new concept called Motion Comics, which was well worth it, followed by a panel on Superman which was fine, but nothing to write home about. So I left to go to Ballroom 20 where a panel on strong women in genre fare was about to begin. Looking for a decent open seat, I spotted one on the end of one row finally. Very slowly, I moseyed on over to the seat and cautiously sat down, all the while looking for body language or facial expressions that might warn me it was someone else's seat. Having not gotten any reaction from anyone, I settled in...for about a nanosecond. Before I knew it, a very large and hairy man was physically lifting me up out of the seat and throwing me on the ground, accompanied, bizarrely, by the phrase, "Please get out of my seat." After getting up and dusting myself off, I slinked away to a much inferior seat towards the back that I was sure no one would fight me for. After this, I intentionally sought terrible seats in every room I was in to avoid similar confrontations. Any concept of geeks comprising a brotherhood or an egalitarian loose society even were washed away pretty thoroughly by this encounter.

Foolishly, I went to the bathroom after the strong women panel. Burn Notice was next in the same room, and was highly popular, and I failed to get a bathroom pass, which basically would've allowed me easy guaranteed reentry. So I wait in two large lines to get in, don't ask me why there were two, and failed to reenter both times. One con worker told me I couldn't get in and so I finally gave up and said I would leave. Then he told me I couldn't go back the way I'd came, the only way out. So I asked if he wanted me to stand there. He said I couldn't do that because I would be in people's way. So I wondered if he wanted me to stab myself and keel over dead, since that was about the only option he'd left me with, but I did the mature thing and just turned to leave, at which point he grabbed my shoulder and tried to arrest my departure. Annoyed, I wrestled free of him and ran off.

At this point, I was having flashbacks to my childhood in Harrison, Arkansas and much of my enthusiasm and awe was depleted. So I did what I always did when people were mean to me as a kid. I left them alone and freed them of my presence. For about the next five hours, I just sat on a bench in the convention center, missing everything I'd planned for the rest of that day. Every now and again, someone would sit down next to me, sometimes with helpful advice, more often just speaking with their own small group in some sort of anime pidgen.

The next day, I tried to get into Ballroom 20 for something again. They told me the correct entrance was a different one than I was at. When I arrived at the entrance indicated, they told me the original entrance was the correct one. Not wanting to get involved in a game of con worker incompetence pong, I finally gave up on Ballroom 20 completely and edited my schedule to no longer feature it at all, which basically meant that I would be going to fewer events with people in them I wanted to see less. I also had to give up on certain events taking place in a particular hallway where the lines had no beginning and no ending, just because I could not figure out how to get in line without being accused of cutting by someone. A general theme of being in constant conflict and competition with fellow geeks was emerging and it was pissing me off. Some old friends came onto Drew and mine's radar and I got to visit with them some, so that was good.

Saturday, I had basically figured out the rules for getting around what I would and would not be able to get into. Standing in line for two hours in the hot sun for Kevin Smith did the trick, but this day I was really more interested in going to a panel that was a combination of a preview for the videogame Batman: Gotham Knight and a showing of Watchmen: The Director's Cut with live commentary from Zack Snyder. Mostly, I was excited about this panel because Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy were doing the voices in the video game and were there. Nobody will ever be The Joker and Batman to quite the degree these two are. Kudos to Drew for giving up his bathroom pass to this event so I was able to go.

Sunday was a day I mainly dedicated to my shopping. The exhibition floor with all the booths was an environment I had only tentatively ventured into before. Really, I had two goals. At least physically see my favorite webcomic authors, if not chat with them, and buy me a bunch of XL t-shirts of my various favorite things in fandom. While I was not able to chat with Jerry and Mike from Penny-Arcade or R.K. Milholland from Something Positive, I was able to see them. Aeire was there as well, and it was also cool to see her in person, even if I don't follow Punch N' Pie the way I do the others or did Queen of Wands. Meeting Shinga of Head Trip or O of Commissioned would've been cool, but impossible to accomplish via Comic-Con. If I ever feel the need to do so, I can go to A-Kon and Conneticon respectively. Merchandise wise, I was able to pick up a couple of Penny-Arcade shirts, because Drew and I came up to the booth when they were taking a break, so it was easy access. Something Positive had a pretty constant line and it was one of those that I couldn't figure out where the end was. Throwing money over the head whoever was standing in front of Randy and yelling "XL Choo-Choo Shirt Please You Glorious Bastard!" not seeming a graceful option, I just promised myself I'd buy stuff off the website later. Otherwise, I got a variety of t-shirts featuring He-Man, Batman, Green Lantern, Link, and a Punisher cap that I have decided is my official DM hat.

So that's the basics of what going to Comic-Con was life for me. While I don't regret going, I think I couldn't put up with another large con. There's way too much fighting and competing with geeks that goes on for my taste. Visioncon in Springfield is still on the table, as it is small and I'd probably just game with people at it rather than try and do any of the main con stuff. If I do get talked into it again at some point, I want a guide who's willing to stay with me more often than not to go along. Drew had very good reasons why we needed to not be together most of the time, but my natural weaknesses manifested themselves in ways that should be obvious after you've read this note. Every geek has to do it once in their life just so they know what it's like. Once was enough for me. Pushing my comfort zone is probably something that's not going to happen again for a long, long, time.

-Frank

Abortion & Bankruptcy

Social conservatism got the GOP to where it is today, that is largely out of power, bereft of a meaningful future, and generally viewed as ignorant theocratic misogynistic douchebags. A political party that holds to an ethos of pre-enlightenment morality, collectivist notions of civil liberties, and callousness regarding human suffering cannot prevail in the world of tomorrow. There is, however, nuance in the field of abortion. While I support abortion being legal, I find some fundamental problems with how it is popularly viewed. To that end, I have come up with a useful analogy, which I will explain presently.

A few centuries ago, those with debts they could not pay ended up in debtor's prison. This was eventually concluded to be unjust, around the time of the American Revolution, if I recall the class I learned about this during. So the modern world still has bankruptcy. This does not mean that bankruptcy is not to be avoided by all means, that it is not a terrible highly personal event in the lives of those who seek it, or that it cannot be abused, the latter occurrence of which can and has meant regulation of it where appropriate. Similarly, when abortion was illegal, coat hangers and back alley abortionists did their damage, while those who got caught faced criminal correction. So Roe V. Wade's conclusion about medical privacy, while sound in its own right regarding medical privacy, did not actually address abortion per se. Therefore, it must be meaningfully addressed but can only be done so partially by legislation. Regulation of abortion is okay, just as regulation of bankruptcy is okay, and just as regulation of firearms is okay, despite a Constitutional Amendment. Whether Constitutional Amendment or Supreme Court decision, these freedoms are subject to appropriate regulation. What constitutes appropriate regulation, whether that be partial birth abortion or student loan exemption from bankruptcy, is always necessarily open to vigorous debate.

The final thing I think needs to change in the thought about abortion is that it must be thought of as bankruptcy. There is a certain shame and stigma about taking bankruptcy. It's not very strong or anything in law, but it is rather recognized as indicating one has screwed up. Some who enter bankruptcy cannot avoid it, and anything without consent would be analogous in abortion. In these cases there ought not be shame or stigma. Modern birth control technology means the vast majority of abortions need not have occurred. Within the grasp of modern civilization is the ability to eliminate the need for abortion almost entirely, yet we do not see this. We do not see this because one side is concerned with discouraging what they perceive as a moral evil and the other doesn't see abortion as a problem to begin with. However, morality has little to do with it and it is a problem. Let's view it as a problem to be solved and do so with contraception, education, and greater access to both for as many people, especially women, as possible. When complete control of their own reproduction is within the reach of every individual, both sides can down the signs, end the tiresome arguments, and recognize the beauty of every child being wanted and women everywhere, finally, being free of the demands of nature and government.

-Frank

A Very Expensive Lesson

When one learns the limits one's handicap places upon oneself, that's one hell of a thing to learn. Learning about it by starting and failing at a business is quite the dark night of the soul. We didn't always know what to call my autism but everyone always knew something was off about me and wondered, nervously, just how deep the rabbit hole of problems this seeming fact would cause for me. Long before I got my official diagnosis at the age of 27, I knew there would be three major questions about what I could achieve in my life. Could I have friends? This seemed doubtful until college, but hasn't been a problem since then. Would it be possible for me to have romantic love and a family of my own. The track record here is largely a train wreck, but my current dating situation seems to offer some hopeful signs. Is it possible for me to hold down a job of some description and become financially independent? Much blood, sweat, and tears have gone into a meaningful attempt to answer this question and I think I have reached a sadly definitive answer of, "no." Maybe in another article, past or future, you'll get something like a detailed account of what exactly about my autism makes me unemployable, but I'm not concerned about that now. All I want to focus on here is the experience of having to make that final acceptance of my unemployability.

I don't know if you can imagine it or not, what it is to be a 33-year-old man who's completely incapable of earning a living. For me, it's mostly a mental experience. Not being and not wishing to claim to be one of the truly unfortunate autistics out there with no resources or support system, I will say that I live very comfortably and will likely be able to do so the rest of my life. We all know there are autistics like me, not to mention far lower-functioning ones as well, without support systems or resources. If I were in their shoes, I don't know that I'd survive it. Either I'd die of the elements or by my own hand. No one tells you you're unemployable as an autistic, unless you're low-functioning enough that there is simply no other conclusion to be reached. This is a conclusion you come to on your own from many years of pounding your head up against a brick wall. You fail over and over again for various reasons and you keep moving to careers that seem to avoid the problems you encountered in the past. Finally though, you've tried everything you could think of and still failed. So many levels of failure are present in a person who is unemployable that the shame is simply overpowering. Imagine looking back on every question you've ever gotten about what you want be when you grow up and answering, "nothing." Make no mistake, when you can't work, that's exactly what you are and you know it in your bones.

There will never come a time in my life when I am self-sufficient. I will always need to rely on resources I inherited, the income of a spouse, or the government dole. However, I am here and may as well make the best of things, which is why I write this blog and at least try to do something useful and worthwhile with my time and talents. Though I suppose I can see no other way that I could've learned that I was completely unemployable than start my company and prove to myself that I could not work for anyone, not even myself, because I simply am too disabled to run a business, I still wish I hadn't done it. Failing at owning the company was a very expensive lesson, and one that will rumble through the remaining time I've left. That lesson teaches me to keep my dreams very small and my ambition nonexistent. Maybe I dream that this blog or my other writing could make some money, but only in the sense that I dream of getting a hot oil massage from Kirsten Dunst. Certainly, I dream of having a wife and family, along with all the joy and wonderful complexity that brings to life. When it comes to dreaming of a career and the freedom that financial independence from that career though? No. Thus ends the professional ambitions of Frank Coffman Bailey. Here endeth the lesson.

-Frank

Ten Points Of Contention

I am often told of the merits of an intellectual and moderate faith. It's an old canard and, since I keep encountering it via people who have quite a bit of education to back up their claims, it merits thought. Said thought has led me to conclude that there are certain elements that must be present for me to consider a religion moderate. As an autistic, clarity is something I need the way a vampire needs blood, so, in order to do my best to clarify matters, I shall lay out ground rules. Everyone from the author of the pentateuch to David Letterman has known lists sound more impressive when they are rendered in increments of ten. So, that in mind, here are then things that must not be present in your religion for me to consider it moderate. For stylistic reasons, I'll be listing them in a pseudo King James syntax.

1. Thou shalt not believe followers of any religion other than your own (or no religion at all) are going to be punished for it after death.

2. Thou shalt not believe that the only way to have morals and ethics is through your religion.

3. Thou shalt not believe that any other faith constitutes worship of Lucifer or similar demonic forces in disguise.

4. Thou shalt not believe martyrdom or indulgence of any kind are automatic paths to a blissful afterlife.

5. Thou shalt not believe in conversion either by the sword or any other form of coercion.

6. Thou shalt not believe in demonic possession or that demonic beings can live in inanimate objects such as roleplaying games, heavy metal albums, or entire buildings. 

7. Thou shalt not believe in special legal privileges for your religion unavailable to other religions or secular people.

8. Thou shalt not believe your religious law supersedes secular law.

9. Thou shalt not believe in faith healing to the extent of foregoing medical treatment, especially in the case of one's children.

10. Thou shalt not believe blood sacrifice, human mutilation, or other violence are indispensable elements of your religion. 

Keep in mind, I'm not necessarily calling things on this list evil, although I think some absolutely are. They just make one a religious fundamentalist or extremist.

-Frank

College Is In Its Twilight

Some of my favorite time of my adult life was college and I consider the experience to be a grand one full of noble intention. So it's hard for me to admit that college as we know it is probably on its way out. It was originally only for the elite, but it made no small amount of sense that, as the world became more complicated, a more complicated education was going to be required by more of the people than ever before. There was a time when that was enough and parents across the country figured that a college education was necessary to good career prospects. What we're seeing now in universities and colleges across the country is simply a riding of the inertia of that mindset. None of this should come as any surprise. How hard does your average B.A. recipient work and how much money do they, or their benefactors, spend in order for them to arrive at the end of the four-year journey, only to be told that their degree does not matter in the slightest? About the best you can see, and that graduates these days hear, is something along the lines of, "Well, it's a baseline everybody has to have," or, "You'll be ever MORE screwed without it." Being a baseline everybody is required to have won't save college forever because, eventually, enough generations will have realized how worthless their own degrees were to stop being biased towards people with them. If you've got a young person with a degree, a few summer internships, and lots of participation in extracurricular activities versus a high school graduate of the same age who's been waiting tables and working temp jobs since high school, the college graduate is going to win most of the time right now. Sooner than most think, the only difference most employers will see between these two is the high school graduate has less debt, has a more proven work ethic, and has gained a greater variety of applicable skills.

Part of the reason college has hung on for so long is that it's a clear path of what you're supposed to do when you grow up. Going to college was presented to me in the same spirit that, "Learn to use to potty," or, "Learn to drive a car," were at earlier ages. This wasn't a polite suggestion, but an inevitability to which I was to get used. It was comforting for me, in a strange way, because I knew that, as long as I went to and graduated college right after high school, I was doing what I was supposed to be doing when I was supposed to be doing it. The reality is considerably less comforting. Perhaps, in my own case, I really was where I was supposed to be doing what I was supposed to be doing because my talent is writing, for which I needed training, and I am autistic, for which I badly needed time to mature and adjust to adult life. However, the general idea of college right out of high school constituting doing the right thing at the right time is nothing like a sure thing. Maybe it is, but maybe a tremendous amount of money is being wasted while years of potential job history are being cast as either spotty or nonexistent. College is always going to get the kids who are born academics or actually need some sort of special training, but that isn't what the university system we see today is built on. It's built on just about everyone who can manage it somehow or another going to college because that's just what you're supposed to do. If only the academics and the knowledge-specific professionals go to college, it'll be a very different university system than the one we all know.

I suppose I'm both biased and unbiased, in a certain sense, writing this article. For me, college was very socially useful, absolutely essential actually, but utterly useless to me in terms of career. However, that is mitigated by the fact that I have autism and ultimately have proven to be unemployable in general. So a lot of what I'm basing this on comes from friends and classmates and what I've been watching them go through. It is impossible to be a recent (okay 11 years ago) graduate and not be aware of the maddening nature of the world into which we seem to find ourselves. Other than friends who required some very specific training for their career, nobody is considered valuable in the workforce based upon things they learned in college. Their student debt crushes them with greater force than the surprising casualness with which people inform them that their degrees are useless. In the course of eight failed careers, I have filled out many job applications, I have sat in many job interviews, and I have been informed quite extensively about what my weaknesses are. What 100% of the employers from whom I have ever sought work want is experience. College is almost looked at as time wasted that could've been spent on gaining experience. The disparity between what college is thought to, and claims, to offer and what graduates experience when they leave makes it hard for them not to think of themselves as people who have just been conned. What needs to change here? I don't know, but this isn't sustainable. This is not even in the same neighborhood as sustainable. Whatever the solution is, it had better arrive soon because charging a lot of money for degrees most employers think of as worthless isn't morally sound.

-Frank

Advice To Autistic Children

I have, several times, been asked to offer advice either directly to autistic kids or their relatives. For the longest time, I was reluctant to do so, because I just know too much that they won't want to hear. This isn't so much for the ones who are catatonic or otherwise so low-functioning that they're deemed mentally incompetent. For the ones like me though, who are deemed high-functioning, there's this thing that is with us our whole lives. Like the Greek myth of Tantalus, who was damned to Tartarus where he would always have a tree with fruit just out of reach and water that recedes just before he can take a drink, so too is the autistic to humanity. It is a life spent on the outside, looking in. To a degree, it is possible to reduce this sense of isolation, but only to a degree. Even the most patient, the most loving, and the most accommodating of friends and family can't remove it entirely. So you've got this nagging sense of loneliness always with you and that makes you very insecure about your contributions and whether you even deserve to be here. Compounding this issue, you've got social limitations, non-obvious physical handicaps (can't ride a bike, mop, snap your fingers, that sort of thing, but you look like you can), noise sensitivity, poor coordination (sporting activities lead to hearing the word, "retarded," a lot), and that's just off the top of my head. Depending on the particular traits that manifest themselves and how they do so, this can render an autistic virtually unemployable, friendless during childhood (even beyond without the right environment), tragically inept at relationships, and vulnerable to exploitation by friends, lovers, and business associates. From all this endless struggle and profound misery, what hope and constructive advice can I possibly offer? Well, I didn't have anything until recently. Like all advice and all answers, it is profoundly based in my own meandering experience and may not work for any autistics besides myself. However, it is what I have and it has taken me a long time to get the few answers I have to offer. 

When you are a child, especially if you're not diagnosed and everyone, including you, is confused as all hell about what's going on, you're going to think you can be and do anything when you grow up. That's not true. Actually, that's not true for most kids. Some kids are virile, highly bright, and possessed of natural ambition. These people become high-level politicians, military officers, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, et cetera. Most people are not these people and these people are definitely not you. You're autistic and that means that achieving success the traditional way isn't going to work for you. You've probably got at least a couple of defining obsessions though, and your path to success probably won't come about regarding those either unless you find a way to make them marketable. If the traditional paths to success won't work for you, then you've got be clever. Invent a new path to success and fail until you don't. More specific instructions would, admittedly, be helpful, but the thing about cutting new paths is you have to figure out where to cut on your own.

Autistics spend their lives relying on neurotypicals to guide them through the world. There will come a point, however, where you've got to stop that. Having control over your own life is a quiet power. It doesn't have a lot of flash to it and it can seem scary and daunting. However, the time will come when listening to other people should stop and what you want your life to be should start. If you need legal work done, hire your own attorney, make sure you like and trust him and that he really works for you instead of some other interested party. The same thing applies to insurance people, CPAs, bankers, doctors, or any other professional that will have a great impact on your life. None of that will rid you of autism, but it will so something almost as good. It will mean that can have a life that is yours, that you like, and that matters to both you and other people. There will be resistance to this, to be sure, much of it coming from people who mean well. Especially if you went undiagnosed for a long time, like I did, there will be many people in your life that mistake your high-functioning autism for something equivalent to being mentally incompetent. These people can sometimes be reasoned with and other times not. Do whatever you have to get around them as obstacles because being in control over your own life, whatever danger it may present, will be better than being safely controlled by others.

These are the constructive things I've managed to come up with to tell autistic children. I know they feel like aliens and I know that that isn't going to change. What can be done is for them to live a worthwhile life among neurotypicals. Some autistics even find romantic love, but there are a great many who don't. Want to have every hopeful notion you've ever held for there being somebody for everybody dashed? Go to a autistic message board sometime and read the despair. Horror stories analogous to mine are present and you can feel the hope in young men, and sometimes women, dying out like the last flickering light of a firefly. So I wouldn't tell an autistic child that they'll definitely find someone. What I would say is that they may well not find someone and that they need to find a way to be happy without someone. Beyond the practical aspect of being prepared to sustain happiness without the cooperation of another hypothetical person, being happy being single actually makes one more attractive for mating. Confronting the very real possibility I'll never be coupled or reproduce did most of the work of turning me into an atheist, so I know it can be very hard to take. The only real advice I have for coping with the loneliness is that one should cultivate a philosophy of compassion. When the happiness in oneself comes from the knowledge that one made a positive difference in the life of others, one can take solace in the fact that one's life was a worthwhile one. Be as clever as possible, take control of your own life, and develop a philosophy of compassion and you can do great things. Great things are worth the tears, worth the nagging ever-present loneliness, and beat sitting about fretting about things that will never change. 

-Frank