i have so much respect for great portrait photographers. in light of my looking for “true faces”, here’s some more recent portraiture.

i’ve seldom heard Asperger’s called a “disability”. A friend of mine recently called it that (i’m sure she meant no insult), but i prefer different terms. i’ve been searching for an appropriate anaology to explain it both to myself and to others, and i think i have found it. Now, the terms i’m trying to use might seem out of place, but i think it makes sense well enough. At least, it seems to make sense to me.
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i’ve been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. i’m finding new ways to explain it as i learn about and more fully understand what this ultimately means for me. Asperger’s is a pervasive neurological disorder, placed within the Autistic spectrum. It’s seldom diagnosed in adults, and very difficult to treat. In adult “Aspies”, neurodevelopment has usually already progressed to steady state. In effect, the AS is hardwired into the brain.
The anology i’ve come to see is one of hardware and software. i tend to think of the brain as being hardware, and thge mind as being software. Think of two different computers. We may even be as blunt as calling them Macs and PC’s; it’s not really important. Still, we have to different pieces of hardware, running different operating systems.
Onto these two computers we can load software, identical in function, but tailored to the computer they’ve been loaded onto. Say, something like MSWord. At the end of the day, all the word processing get s done on either machine in similar fashion, and the printed results are usually indistinguishable. Still, over time, operational differences become painfully apparent. If you have the only Mac in an all-PC environment, some things will become difficult for you, no matter how accomodating the Mac to cross-platform applications.
The Aspie brain is kinda like that. We’ve all been subtly trained since birth to arrive at certain conclusions in the face of certain stimuli. The thoughts and perceptions (the software) needed for this have been taught to all of us by a process socialization, implicit or otherwise. For nuerotypical persons, the software “fits” the hardware. For people with forms of autism, the software does not. There is no “flaw” to the brain, no more than a Mac is “flawed”; it is simply different. Being different, it requires different software to produce predictably “correct” results. In the meantime, a human mind in an Aspie brain seems to work in starts and fits, coming to conclusions that seem “correct”, “incorrect”, or “freakin’ unelievable!”. Speaking for myself, i sometimes find it very hard to tell the difference. Often, this running of neurotypical “software” on neuroexceptional “hardware” produces results nearly indistinguishable from “normal”. At other times, it is quite beyond any observer to understand why i’m acting or speaking the way i am.
Sometimes i feel very out of control, and hate what i am. i get extremely frustrated trying to produce acceptable “correct” responses to social stimuli. In my youth, i had the same feelings, the same questions, but no answers. Now i have answers, but no solutions.
Asperger’s is more treatable in children, especially if diagnosed early on. Young Aspies can be “programmed” with proper “hardware specific software”. Their perceptions and thoughts are not so much changed, as they are trained to use their brains to repeatedly come to the “correct” answers. This is possible because Asperger’s is a neurodevelopmental disorder; in children, the neurological connections are fluid in their developing stages, and can be trained into certain pathways. By the time most Aspie adults are diagnosed, the pathways have been set. In many ways, adult Aspies may be to used to their own brains to change.
That still doesn’t mean that the Mac can’t hold it’s own in the PC world. Some would argue that it can do alot of things even better…

i recently wrote a letter to a friend. In it, i questioned something that she had written to me. Somehow, i saw something beyond her words, and asked her why she had written them. She responded that there was no point to them; that there was no further meaning at all. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps i was hasty. Still, the processes of my brain make it difficult for me to accept much at face value. Sometimes this hinders me, but sometimes it leads to much insight.
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Now, i love my friend dearly. i would never wish to cause her harm. She sees in me things which absolutely nobody else sees. Sometimes she sees in me things which have delighted me, though i could barely stand to hear it. She has loved in me those things which i otherwise would hate to even acknowledge. Other times, it seems like everything she sees in me is negative.
My brain perceives, in her every word, a point. That is how i have always read the words of others. Everything said or written comes to me not just as a literal verbal message, but as a flood of all the possible meanings, all the possible interpretations. Out of those, i select what seems to fit the situation. Sometimes i am correct, in that i see what others are wishing to impart to me. Often, i am wrong, in that i can only perceive those things completely unrelated to the other person’s intent. However, on rare occasion, i perceive something buried deeply beyond the words, something the other person may be hiding, or something they didn’t know of themselves. Generally speaking, i am seldom able to accurately discern between these instances; i have little way of knowing whether i am right, wrong, or if i have stumbled upon insight.
i often feel compelled to ask when i am unsure. This can start some very interesting conversations. This can also start some awful arguements. With those for whom i care the most, i end up walking a delicate line between applauding them and offending them. My challenge then is not one of ceasing to perceive as i do; that is hardwired into my brain on a nuerological level, completely and irrevocably. My challenge is to learn to discern between insight and fascination, between obsession for details and concern for whole systems.
Ultimately, i think i can be a most incredible friend. I feel love and appreciation in a fashion that few others can. To a brain that sees most everything as a mass of details, the whole greater image is sometimes blurred, but to such a brain, the details are seldom lost.
I guess that’s the point.

i like to look at people’s true faces. It’s something i’ve picked up, or maybe created, i dunno. What’s a true face to me? i think it’s something that few people deliberately show to the world, or even know they have. It’s in our own minds that we subconciously catalogue all that a person presents to us. From this catalogue, we each may create the image of a person’s true face.
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How do i do this? It’s nothing, really. It’s more a matter of not doing than doing. First, you have to have known a person for long enough. How long is that? Well, sometimes it depends on how well you know them, or much much of them you have known. i find it best to have some experience of a person’s full range of emotions. Then, i think it’s best to take some time away from that person.
This is not too far from Khalil Gibran’s advice from The Prophet: “When you part from your friend, you grieve not; for that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.”
When i wish to see a true face, i must have no emotion. i must not think of that which i love or hate, know ot not, within my friend. i must empty my mind and heart. Coming to this, many memories will come to my mind. i will often remember forgotten times we’d shared, old jokes, or shared achievments. i may remember some things best forgotten, old wounds, hatchets best left buried. but overall, and remaining after the other images have past, i will remember the face of my friends. i will remember the range of emotions. i will remember sadness, anger, and grief. i will remember tears. i will remember uproarious laughter, shouts of excitement, and calls to join in fun and frolic. i will remember times of repose, of introspective thought, and of intense concentration.
i will remember all these faces without casting my own emotions upon them. i will not choose what to see. i will not judge. i will not force myself to visulaize without predjudice, but rather allow myself to. i will allow my preconceptions to drain away. i will see this face without fetters.
The face i see will not be what i imagined it to be. i will not say, “Of course!”. If i cannot see, i will not force myself to. i will take as much time as i need to, until everything presents itself, or nothing at all.
In the end, i will see a true face. i will hold in my calmed mind’s eye the true face of my friend. This true face is the reflection of their soul. It is not simply the average of all the faces my waking mind has seen, but instead it will be the true face that both hides behind all the others and supports them.
Often this true face will be commonplace. Seldom is there a wealth of emotional expression. Still, the calm mind can draw much from the subtlest of expressions.
For instance:
I have known my mother all my life. She has known me for all of mine. Furthermore, she has poured so much of her life into me that i might know something of her before i even was. My mother is a passionate woman, and i have seen the full range of her expression. When i calm myself and think of her, eventually i can see it. Her true face is not what most would usually see with waking eyes. Nor is it unusual. Her tue face is the face of the sage. Her eyes see inwards and outwards. She appears wise in a way that suggests she is unaware of her wisdom. She is calm without effort. She sees the tue faces of others.
i have known my friend Slacks for years. We have often been parted, and often been returned together. He too is a passionate person. i have seen him at his worst and and at his best. i have seen him display emotions both false and genuine, and at end of days, known in him the things he might hide. When i calm myself and think of him, eventually i can see it. His face is not what most would usually see with waking eyes. Nor is it unusual. His is the face of the persistant thinker. His brows are slightly tightened, in concentration and curiosity. His countenance suggests that he is always at odds with the ideas that he finds, but that he will never give up. His is the face of one who sees everything in life as a small challenge; in meeting these challenges, he masters both the world and himself.
i lived with Yeuxvert for years. For some now time i have not known her, and so her true face may have changed. Still, for the years we were together, i knew so much of her. She was seldom given to great rise and fall of emotion, but she was not cold. When i calm my mind and think of her, it is with difficulty that i apass over that one image; the image of her face contorted by grief, anger, and bewilderment, that look she had when she found out i was cheating on her. That is a compelling image. i must move past it. i must see all that i knew her to be. When i move past her grief, i begin to see her true face. Her face is beautiful. She is smiling the smallest of smiles. Her hair is long, as it was in her youth, for hers is the face of innocence. Innocent, yes, but without ignorance. Her eyes show depths i cannot focus on. The slightest tension of her jaw shows she is anxious or annoyed, but only distantly. She looks as though she may never change. Ah, that is how i knew her… Quite, shy, beautiful, and deep, with the weight of the world resting within the green drops of her eyes.
Often, we project our own fear, apprehensions, loves, and hates upon the images in our minds. To see the true face, these must all be shed. When you find yourself seeing something unfamiliar, it is a sign that perhaps you have made the wrong assumptions about a friend all along. When you find something that you expect, perhaps you have not cleared your own mind enough. But then, sometimes, you unexpectantly find a true face that identical to what you have seen in life. Perhaps you have not known them well enough.
Or, perhaps, they have nothing more to show.