I just got finished having a discussion from someone who, in their own words, is “neuro-atypical”. He was complaining that it’s really hard to live in a world where he can’t do what he wants to do because he’s incapable.
I certainly can sympathize with that, there are plenty of things that I’d love to do that I can’t. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s life and you need to have realistic expectations and, sadly, this guy simply didn’t.
I’ll be the first one to say that, where society can make it easier for people to get by, we should. However, there are limits and it isn’t solely the job of society to make everyone feel like they can do anything. That’s not realistic.
In this particular case, he wanted to be a writer. That’s fine, it’s an admirable goal, but he was saying that he has serious problems constructing stories, creating characters and producing anything that anyone would want to read.
Therefore, he declared, it was society’s faulty that he couldn’t do what he really wanted to do!
Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. If you’re 4.5 feet tall, it doesn’t matter how much you want to play in the NBA, you’re not going to be able to. Have realistic expectations. They’re not going to change the rules for your benefit. By the same token, if some blind person wants to be a race car driver, they’re not going to be able to. There is no way we’re turning the track into a game of bumper cars for their benefit. There may be ways for you to do it but that’s on you, not on us.
Yet today, we have a lot of people who figure that society owes it to them to coddle their every whim. If you want something, it’s up to everyone else to figure out how you can do it! You don’t have to lift a finger on your own!
Again, that’s not how reality works. Way back when I was growing up, one of my friends had a younger brother who, at the time, was called “hyperactive”. That’s probably insulting these days but too fucking bad. He was probably somewhere on the spectrum, he had terrible impulse control, he couldn’t stop moving, he couldn’t learn anything and he was disruptive to everyone around him. Now there’s a certain amount of understanding that goes into being around someone like that, you can overlook some of it, at least to a point, but when he’s sitting there screaming in the middle of a school performance, that’s where the line has to be drawn.
To their credit, the parents never expected everyone to just roll over and accept the anti-social impulses. He got dragged outside so he didn’t bother others. It was a matter for doctors, not for the general public. He had to learn to act reasonably in polite society, not for society to just give up and let him run wild.
Yet there seems to be a move today for everyone to be considered “normal” and no one is actually responsible for their actions. It’s nobody’s job to make themselves or their children fit into society, society has to contort themselves around people’s foibles.
Sorry, it doesn’t work that way.
Like I said before, some compromise is fine. We’ll put in wheelchair ramps and handicapped parking and provide Braille for the blind. That’s reasonable. Lots of demands, however, are not.
Which brings us back to where we began. Our wannabe writer, because he couldn’t figure out how to do the job properly and he really had no interest in either learning how to adapt or taking his talents elsewhere, he wanted to somehow require people to purchase books from “neuro-divergent” authors as some kind of charity program. He didn’t call it charity, of course but that’s really what it was.
I don’t think so. Enforced charity isn’t charity. It’s bondage. There are standards and if you can’t meet the standards, you need to decide if you’re actually cut out to do the job at all.
More than anything, people need to be able to adapt to the real world, not expect the real world to adapt to them. Not everyone is “normal,” no matter how that makes them feel. It’s one thing to be understanding, it’s another to expect special treatment when you can’t handle the way reality functions. I see these people all the time. “I can’t spell but I still want to write, so you shouldn’t hold that against me!” Yeah, screw you. Learn how to spell! Learn how to use proper grammar. Nobody is going to read your book if it’s unintelligible, no matter what your excuse for it is!
Yet they don’t want to hear that, do they? They want everyone to cater to them. That’s not how it works though and the sooner these people grow the hell up and deal with the real world, the better.
I am ever so sick and tired of dealing with morons who can’t get that simple fact through their heads. How about you?