Sometimes I feel like I have several different people living in my head. No, I don’t have split personality disorder or Schizophrenia. They don’t speak to me or tell me to do stuff, well, at least not directly. Everybody experiences this, not just me and not just Aspies. It is an important part of the human consciousness and is vital to our perception of free will. Imagine that you are presented with a cake. Looks delicious doesn’t it. It even has your favourite filling; cooked to perfection. You can smell its sweet aroma wafting into your nostrils, exciting your taste buds, making you salivate. But wait, it looks incredibly fattening and unhealthy! What about your cholesterol levels. Could you eat it all without feeling sick? You can probably imagine these thoughts racing through your mind. Do you eat the cake or do you resist the temptation. If you do chose to eat it, then how much do you think that you can eat without feeling too bad about it? Could you maybe go for a run tomorrow to make up for it? It’s a tough decision.
This is internal conflict. Your non-physical being (i.e. your mind) consists almost entirely of constant internal conflict. We don’t even realise that these battles are going on as for the most part they take place in our sub-conscious. Every time you decide to do something, your mind experiences a miniature battle between the do and don’t do factions. Even doing something as insignificant as lifting your finger can cause internal conflict. Studies by Benjamin Libet and Sirigu et. al, have revealed increased brain activity in people at least a second before they became aware that they were going to move. Most of the time we are not even aware that it is happening.
However, it is more disruptive to our lives when consciously experienced, as can be demonstrated by the cake example. I often wonder if Aspies experience it more than NT’s. I am often aware of conflict between the ‘normal’ biological part of me and the physical manifestation of my Aspergers (I’d say that I’m about 30% ‘normal, 70% Aspie, if that makes any sense). I have already described two situations where this is apparent. I experience love, but rationally speaking, pursuing a relationship would irresponsible due to my inability to handle change very well. My special interest in Japan conflicted with my dislike and fear of travel. I love certain bands, but going to see them play live involves a great deal of trouble, so I can only do it in special circumstances. The ancient Greeks had an excellent way of describing the human mind. They said that the mind is a chariot pulled by two horses: passion and rationality. Quite often they want different things and when they do, they pull in two different directions. You can imagine what happens to the chariot. As I have said above, I believe that my being an Aspie means that my rational horse is stronger that my passion horse. Logic usually wins in my internal conflicts, but that is not to say that they are always one-sided. As in the case of my SI in Japan, these fights can cause a great deal of destruction before one side wins. It seems that a great deal of the emotional and physical turmoil that I feel as an Aspie comes from such internal conflict and maybe it’s the same for other Aspies. All I know is that it is natural and I just have to grit my teeth and bear it. Everything comes with a price.
P.S. If you are interested in the relationship between free will and the sub-conscious, then I would thoroughly recommend ‘Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain’, by David Eagleman.
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