Hello Again

In my piece What a Shame, I related how I use the word "hello" to recover my bearings when I feel shame, shame due to blunders, to my awkwardness dealing with others especially in social situations. It is, thus—with humility—I use the word in the title of this piece. I am experiencing shame; What a Shame was written in 2016, nearly nine years ago. Before today, I last wrote for Living Amongst Humans two years later when I published Holding On For Life about my brother Doug. My absence was, although unavoidable, inexcusable.

During the seven-year lapse I have been occupied with a hectic career coming to its dénouement, with disease, and with a currently incomplete attempt to collect and extend my writings into a longer format separate from this web site. I continued taking advantage of opportunities to speak to audiences on my life with Autism and how it led me to many conclusions on addressing the needs of other Autistic people as they navigate this human-dominated world. I have always had the intention to return to this medium, to continue writing for others to read if they like. But to do so, I need to reintroduce myself. This, then, is that.

With that extended throat-clearing out of the way, let me look forward. I am a bit older and arguably wiser. Still, I have a sketchy record when it comes to predicting my future. I have many ideas of topics I might cover in further writing, leveraging my musings during my time away: topics broadening beyond my Autism, but also how my brand of Autistic experience has influenced my outlook, my personal philosophy, and my assessment of the state of the universe. It would be difficult to put it more grandly.

I need to make sense of the world. Growing up Autistic, but unaware of my Autism, led me to struggle—with some success—to decipher the world of humans surrounding me. My drive to do so, to survive, required me to consciously and explicitly catalog the intricacies of human interactions, interactions which humans take for granted but may leave unexamined. Conscious awareness gives me an advantage, at least in articulating what I have learned. Along with what I discovered in how others think and interact, I have examined the rest of the universe in detail. I anticipate writing about what I have learned in all of this, while continuing to relate my experiences as I have done in the past. My reason for writing at all is captured at the end of my first piece for Living Amongst Humans, Boundary Issues, "I have a story to tell. And so I shall."

I have refreshed the look of the site and updated some pieces in my rededication to this effort. My hope is I made the site more navigable and more digestible. As part of this refresh, I took pains to retain the original comments. Living Amongst Humans has been visited by individuals from 176 countries over the years, including during my hiatus. So many of these people—whether Autistic themselves, family members, allies of those who are Autistic, or just interested parties—contributed their own thoughts by responding directly to me or to other commentors. It was almost universally civil. Reading these comments has been deeply moving to me. Receiving this feedback is a crucial component of my inspiration to write. I hope to recapture the interactivity I crave. Don't hold back. Let me have it!