Switched On by John Elder Robison
I first heard of John Elder Robison in December 2013, via a radio interiew. I subsequently read Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's and found it an eye opener (see below). I came across his 2016 book Switched On: My Journey from Asberger's to Emotional Awakening in January 2019 when browsing in The Bookgrocer in Moonee Ponds. I snapped it up for $7 and have now finished reading it. It was a superb read that definitely took me out of my comfort zone.
The book describes his participation in a pioneering Asperger’s study at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston in 2008 and the immediate and subsequent changes in his emotional life. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, doctors hoped to activate neurological pathways in his brain that would deepen his emotional intelligence.
Most of the effects faded over time, but to this day, he moves more comfortably among strangers. He relates better to the customers at his car repair shop and has even learned to look people in the eye. Some of the changes are subtle - nonverbal cues have be come increasingly legible to him.
The last chapters of the book, he muses about the cost of mitigating the effects of Asperger’s. So many of the world's creative geniuses have been on the spectrum. If their conditions had been diagnosed at young ages and therapy had been available to 'fix' them, would the world have been poorer as a consequence. Heady stuff!
For himself, he is not sorry he participated in the TMS study and he feels his life is now enriched as a result. But he also acknowledges that it is not for everyone.
The writing is a bit laborious and is heavy on introspection and detail, but that's obviously Robison. It is not a criticism. You accept the man as he is.
Robison seems to live life with heightened perception, compared to me (and I suspect compared to the general population). His insights are ones that I would never have had.
I had never heard of TMS and am amazed at what it can offer and what the future holds.
I definitely recommend you read Look Me in the Eye first.
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison
It was December 2013 when I had finished a long walk on a hot summer's day and was driving from the Tan to Middle Park beach for a swim and I had the car radio on ABC National and heard John Elder Robison interviewed on ABC radio,. I only caught the second half of the interview but it was enough to whet my appetite and when I got home, I checked out his books. I decided on this one which describes his life with Asperger's and his attempts to fit into a society which he did not understand. A rivetting read and one that I recommend. An amazing man and an amazing life.
Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet
This is one I bought and read a few years ago (after reading a review in the Melbourne Age newspaper) so I searched the bookshelves and dusted it off for a reread once I had read Robison's book. Definitely a must read for someone who wants to appreciate the untapped potential of our minds.
The blurb says it all
He sees numbers as shapes, colors, and textures, and he can perform extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn to speak new languages fluently, from scratch, in a week. In 2004, he memorized and recited more than 22,000 digits of pi, setting a record. He has savant syndrome, an extremely rare condition that gives him the most unimaginable mental powers, much like those portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man.
Fascinating and inspiring, Born on a Blue Day explores what it’s like to be special and gives us an insight into what makes us all human—our minds.
Daniel Tammet - Thinking in Numbers
On Tuesday of this week (Tues 9 February 2016), I had a bit of time and was bored at home so popped down to Moonee Ponds for a walk and a coffee (Moonee Ponds is my favourite roaming spot and my second favourite coffee spot after the Victoria Street Mall in Coburg. Anyway, I checked out the Book Grocer there as they had a $6 per book closing down sale. And I came across Thinking in Numbers by Daniel Tammet so I snapped it up.
At 270 pages, it is not big but it is big on ideas. You should definitely read Born on a Blue Day first to learn more about the man, and then you should read this one. If you want to see Daniel giving a TED lecture, check out https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_tammet_different_ways_of_knowing?language=en.
Anyway, it was a generally good read once you reconciled yourself with the fact that this was a book obsessed with numbers, their occurrence in life and their interconnections and symmetries. Some chapters are better than others but the thing that does stand out is the huge depth of knowledge of Tammet and his immensely wide reading.
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