Today, the brain is considered the master organ in the body. Modern science tells us that the brain organizes everything: bodily functions, senses, information, and personality. But what does humanity miss out on when we neglect the perspective of a minority of people born with a different type of brain? Jory Fleming, the first autistic man to attend Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, gracefully reveals a new method of thinking about the world that challenges our assumptions about emotion, language, and neurodiversity. Despite not being able to speak in traditional ways until he was 18, years of determination and support from his community led Fleming to learn to translate, in our limited language, his journey in the world as an autistic man.

Language delay is a common indicator of autism in children. Researchers suggest these language struggles may be due to an integration problem between brain regions. When Flemming was a child, he would ask his mother to play music by saying, "It's a cold night." His initial use of language was disorganized and made little sense in context. Today Fleming speaks in sophisticated and nuanced ways due to years of speech therapy. Yet, his entry into language as an outsider posed real questions about how restrictive and subjective words are. Why use words to communicate? What if there was something other than language as an alternative to communication? 

Fleming goes through a process of translating images and concepts in his brain into English words to communicate, a process that, in neurotypical people, happens unconsciously. Instead of having an internal monologue, he accumulates his ideas like data points and past recollections in what he calls "beads." The beads are all floating in his brain without any label or order of importance. So Fleming spends most of his mental energy retrieving them, quickly scanning through every single bead and translating the ones he needs into words. When thinking about trees, for instance, he pulls from his brain recollections of past experiences with trees. He does not label them with a word unless he is forming a sentence, in which case, through conscious effort, he translates it into the word "tree."

Being limited by a set of labels in language sometimes makes us vulnerable to misunderstandings. We can have the illusion of seeming to perceive an experience totally, not realizing the meaning of the experience is limited by the words available to describe it. In many ways, language is a way of thinking constructed by our culture that we use to make sense of everything. Still, it may be stopping us from having our own thoughts––our own uncorrupted vision of things. 

The Gaels of Scotland, for instance, use the short phrase rionnach maoim to indicate "the shadows cast on moorland by clouds on a sunny day." This brief phrase defines a detailed experience of shadows that takes a sentence in English, allowing one to talk objectively about what exactly is happening in a multi-layered manner. Conversely, there is only one word for snow in English, even though we can perceive snow in various forms. Of course, we can add adjectives and connectors to reach specificity, but why cannot single words project more dynamic images or narratives? Why do we rely on labels? 

Fleming considers Plato and the movie Arrival good examples that challenge our use of language. Plato used the Forms as a method of communication with nature, ourselves, and others. The Forms are a complex system of relating to the world around us and beyond, which takes time and labor to achieve. In the movie Arrival, aliens speak in circles with tiny variations that mean different things. World leaders freak out and attempt to blow up the aliens who are just trying to help humans gain prophetic powers by teaching them how to read the circles. Meaning is lost in translation precisely because humans are trying to put into words what the aliens' complex language communicates: the ability to see the future. Fleming considers the movie a metaphor for how he feels sometimes living in a world where meaning is given exclusively through word association. He's drawing complex circles, and neurotypical people are confused because he has difficulty putting them into words. 

Even with experiential knowledge, Fleming finds it hard to explain what autism feels like. So he uses a metaphor to explain it. His brain is divided between what he calls a magician and a wall builder. The magician represents autism and sends mysterious messages to Fleming’s brain through lightning bolts because the magician is unhappy with Fleming’s attempt to build walls. In contrast to his childhood when the magician had complete control of his brain, today Fleming is at the helm and can hold the walls up against the lightning bolts.

For Fleming, autism is simply a state that he was born with. He doesn't know what it is like to live without autism, and if he had the chance to, he would not take it. He is not irritated by having the condition—as most people would imagine him to be—he simply lives. This is so true for Fleming that he finds telling people about his autism to be "unnecessary information." The goal of explaining how he sees the world is to help us realize that autism is only considered a problem under specific modern contexts—contexts built by neurotypical people based on narrow views about human perfection and intelligence.

In previous times, the most valuable part of a human was the heart. Thinkers in Ancient Egypt believed the heart housed the intellect and emotions of the person. Aristotle thought it was the most essential organ. Hippocrates said the “spiritual soul” dwelled inside it. Today this view has changed, and the brain has become the master organ. But even though science affirms that all brains are different, autistic brains are often singled out and considered subhuman. Central to his conversation with Lyric Winik is Fleming’s argument that this idea is an unfounded assumption. 

There are problems with thinking that humanness is defined by cognition, or worse, by a collective standard of what is considered “proper” cognition. Moral and ethical discussions often take time to catch up to genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, and medical advancements. Fleming argues several of these moral questions are essential to the discussion about curing disabilities: Why do they need to be cured? Why is eradicating a particular human experience beneficial? Why are individuals who can’t think like the majority perceived as flawed?

For Fleming, they are several advantages and disadvantages to having autism, just like they are several advantages and disadvantages to being neurotypical. Losing autism would not be a win-win situation for him. In fact, Fleming would have to give up his visual-based processing and the ability to not be overly influenced by memory and emotion. Perhaps society should recognize and cultivate these benefits of autism. Still, a cost-benefit calculation may not be an appropriate framework when dealing with human beings. As Fleming proclaims: People are ends in themselves, and their value lies beyond the perceived utility of their brains.

Just like there are vast differences among neurotypical brains, there are also vast differences among autistic brains. Neither type of brain can accurately be described with a blanket statement, which makes discussions about disabilities even more nuanced since a ”standard brain” does not exist. The questions remain: Who gets to decide what a perfect human is? Is it ethical to think in these terms? And who does it benefit?

Science is now revealing that people’s emotional development happens differently for everyone. In Fleming’s case, he feels the same things a neurotypical person would but is affected less. Emotions seem to happen at a distance from him, like tiny signals in his path or a nice flower appearing in the distant grass. He can decide to either pay attention or walk past them. 

Fleming is aware that his ability to be less affected by emotions may be odd to understand for most. But he argues there are some situations where emotion manifests in neurotypical people in ways that, from his perspective, should freak all of us out. Like when a crowd begins acting as one body and individuality gets lost. Neurotypical people are prone to join the same emotion in a concert or a protest. We seem to lock on to a feeling in the air and embrace it without question. But for Fleming, it is surprising (and perhaps it should be for the rest of us) that there is no set of principles governing these collective emotions. 

The stereotype about autistic people having difficulty experiencing emotions may be accurate but misses that these people are often really good at other things because of this weakness. Plenty of situations show no reason to think that neurotypical people have the most reasonable way of interacting with each other or solving social crises. 

Facebook is an excellent example of how emotions manifest in neurotypical people and corrupt personal interactions. Nuanced thinking and engaging with valuable facts become a backdrop to the more pressing goal of fueling others' anger. We normalize videos of people falling or having injuries, and we laugh when we should be feeling empathy and pity. Climate change is another issue that Fleming believes could benefit from more subtle, intellectual solutions rather than passionate arguments. Other problems, such as structural racism and poverty, make Fleming sad, but too much feeling is unproductive for him. 

In many cases, Fleming argues, we stifle our ability to help other people when we prioritize emotional empathy, as if a big bear hug would fix the issue. Instead, Fleming practices logical empathy, a way of caring for others that is not founded on emotions but on thinking. This method allows him to think clearly and in a detailed manner about how to alleviate people's suffering. Unlike emotional empathy, which burns out in intense but short bouts of feeling, logical empathy is more permanent and grounded in action.

Despite his preference, Fleming notes that emotion should be considered a vital human quality. Some advocates of Artificial Intelligence say that its freedom from emotion is the technology’s real benefit and allows for better calculations. But hypotheses like these should be accompanied by much forethought. Flattening out one way of thinking (emotionless logic, in the case of AI) as a strength and the opposite (emotional influence) as a weakness may have powerful consequences; for Fleming, neither extreme should be singled out and overestimated. Everyone, whether neurotypical or autistic, should learn to think paradoxically, accepting the gifts and flaws of their own way of thinking while recognizing that a different way of thinking also has advantages and shortcomings.

Emotions do not always make people weaker; sometimes, they make them stronger. Fleming sees neurotypical emotions as a sidewalk with eggshells and rocks that blend with it. The rocks represent emotional strength and the eggshell emotional weakness. Fleming has difficulty identifying the strong from the weak and differentiating both from the sidewalk. And since we use language to communicate emotions, neither of which have much importance or meaning for Fleming, visceral emotional reactions are complicated for him to justify and understand. Because of this, Fleming decided to memorize a manual (given to him when he was a peer leader in college) that taught him a specific, step-by-step method of responding to people in emotional distress: acknowledging their concern, investigating where it comes from, facilitating solutions, and avoiding judgmental language.

We grow as a society by giving others what they need to reach their potential, not what we think they need. Fleming has found some things that others can do to help people with language-processing difficulties. Some of these include: explaining things in multiple, visual ways; avoiding words with dual meanings; steering away from phrases that only have emotional content or are based on cultural assumptions; using repetition; and speaking slowly.

In addition to having autism, Fleming also has cerebral palsy and mitochondrial disease. Growing up, he was in and out of hospitals for various health problems and infections, not to mention a plethora of speech and physical therapy sessions. Most people view having one disability as a state of suffering, but Fleming adamantly professes that, intellectually speaking, the optimal response to his circumstances is "ruthless optimism."

Most neurotypical people view personality as an intrinsic process we use to relate to our environment and culture. When we talk about the development of our behavior and sense of identity, we usually associate them with our life experiences and how they have shaped us. Fleming, however, feels like there has always been a disconnect between him and his environment. Though he consciously labors to modulate his personality to participate in his world, the process is predominantly intellectual rather than emotional. This mental relationship to the world allows Fleming to embrace a profound truth: The basis of the human condition is finding the freedom to choose how to respond to the human condition itself. 

Throughout the years, Fleming has created various masks that he uses for different occasions: an outgoing persona, a conversational one, a cheerful one, etc. If he had not developed these personalities, his response to all life circumstances would be the same: calm and intellectual. Although Fleming recognizes this might sound weird to most people, he values the freedom to be able to switch between masks for the sake of himself and others. He reminds us that we too have the freedom to choose our personalities, to construct a philosophy of life that is our own, independent of circumstances. 

Fleming’s Christian faith is also vital to how he thinks about the world. Like many other facets of Fleming’s life, his faith is founded on logic. He sees that religions often help people think beyond themselves and they also offer a broader perspective on the meaning of life. These perspectives shape people's values and behavior. Fleming’s mental image of faith is that it works like a kelp plant, rooted in rocks at the bottom of the sea but swaying with the waves and changes of the ocean in motion.

To navigate our modern, fractured society, we must learn to carve out internal stability founded on self-awareness. Working arduously to fit in has taught Fleming the value of questioning his own fixed behavior as an attempt to serve others and play his part in this world, even when the world is not set up for him. By reevaluating ourselves and being open to the possibility of being wrong, no matter how emotionally uncomfortable, we acknowledge that no one is self-made. We all need each other at our best, and cultivating diversity of thought creates a more resilient world. 

Fleming dedicates the book to his mother, Kelly, who from the beginning supported him and guided him to where he is today. He notes how there is no guarantee of our impact on the world. Sometimes our emotional biases trick us into thinking we would be more valuable if we were famous or rich. But if we can learn to temper these emotional biases, we can see that every person is valuable regardless of how great their legacy might be. We can realize our actions, no matter how small or unnoticed, are always meaningful and have the potential to change lives. 

Logically speaking, whether we have a lasting legacy or simply set out to treat people positively in our daily interactions, both are critical aspects of the human condition that are worth our appreciation. As Fleming sees it, nature teaches us precisely this lesson: The old trees in Oxford, some older than the US, are just as lovely as the flowers that live for one day.