A/A Series… Advocacy (Dual) versus Flow State (Non-Dual) Conversation…
My recent podcasts on Flow State and the Double Empathy Problem seems to have awakened some curiosity in my Allistic friends about our very different views of “having a conversation”.
Specifically, there is an interest in an Autistic perspective on conversations that are easy to connect to, and conversations that I find alienating.
The first, key observation I would make is the problem of Allistic people encoding conversation with advocacy. Websters dictionary defines advocacy as: the act or process of supporting a cause or proposal.
This advocacy shows up for me as conversations encoded with assumptions and coercive content designed to push or illicit a desired response. It appears to me as the weaponization of language.
What makes this so problematic is that this advocacy is shrouded in lack of precision or context.
An example, something is said like, “Don’t you think it would be great to go for a hike?”
As an Autist, I must likely withdraw my attention from the flow state I am experiencing to become someone who is listening.
What I hear, in my literal and logical brain, is that some collection of people, possibly only myself and the person suggesting a hike, could at some future date and time go for a day hike (I am guessing it is not backpacking) and that the obligation of responding to this vague speaking has been put upon me.
I might ask myself if the question is figurative, “Is hiking good?”, or is what was said a proposal for action. At this moment, I have the choice to ask a series of clarifying questions, but I am not sure yet who or what I am in this “conversation” so I let that go.
My default would be to say No (until I am clearer on what has been proposed).
If I am given enough time to evaluate the option of actually going hiking at a near term point of time, I might ask “What are you proposing?”, but in practice my thoughts are often interrupted by the next remarks from my “conversational partner” usually involving a changing context, such as “Don’t you want to go hiking?”.
I will tend to listen to this as advocating that I should want to go hiking, but in spite of my love of hiking, I am resistant to being coerced.
At this point, I can easily begin to resent the claim of authority that what matters in this moment is hiking and that I am being interrogated by my “conversational partner”.
I am emotionally dysregulated, not in touch with myself or the other person...
Verbal brawls can be problematic and painful.
For both parties.
Clearly, the alternative could be, “Would you like to go on a day hike with me sometime next month?”, at which point I could think, and ask clarifying questions. Given enough time, I might even be able to remain in flow in my non-dual experience…
What do I mean Non-Dual?
As an Autist, I seek to be in flow state. What this means to me is to not identify with or have a form of self, but instead identify with the unfolding of the whole of creation. Sure, this experience is in a body, so there are concerns for time, food, shelter, being with others, but there does not have to be a fixed or even a form of self… in a way a self in this context is like clothing… we wear it but it is not our nature.
I view this in contrast with Dualism, in which I have a self that is not you, this self is filled with properties, I am this way and not that. In this world it is obvious to me that “It would be great to go for a hike”, and it would be easy to think that others should agree with my perspective.
The second, key distinction I would make around conversational disconnects between Allistic and Autistic people is rhythm and music.
Too often, what passes for convers
