On Being Different
by Larry Arnold

Larry is one of the first people with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder to be voted on to the council of the National Autistic Society (UK). He is a disability campaigner of many years standing, a photographer and keen amateur poet. He describes this piece as his "tractatus logico inpenetrabilus"; in other words, his position on disability and difference.
- Anna Hayward

I am like a tall pine growing in a forest of broad leafed trees, that although I am very different from them, I am at least there equal in stature, whereas were I a younger tree or stunted in my growth, I would be overwhelmed by the other trees and maybe unable to ever reach the forest canopy because they block out my light.

Well, consider a tree growing alone in the middle of an open plain. Whatever height it is there are no other trees to compare it with. It is the tallest tree around, however young it is, it is the oldest tree around, and however long it lasts, the longest lived. however diseased or misshapen, it is the most perfect tree around, because there are none to better it.

But put that tree in a forest of its peers and it might be short, misshapen and blighted once we have sight of them. Its timber may of necessity thus be less valued.

Well every human being is that tree on its own in the plain. It is its own standard of perfection, whatever happens to it in life.

The forest is society, and only by comparison with society can an individual find him/her self valued or devalued, declared imperfect, or diseased.

Disability is not something which can be measured, it is not a quantity, like height or weight, it can only be determined by reference to something which is not disability. It is not something we are born with, it is something that is given to us by our peers, as race or creed is given, as nationality is given. as a name is given.

© Larry Arnold April 2001

Originally compiled by Anna Hayward on behalf of the alt.support.autism newsgroup, November 2000. Original site design and HTML by Kalen Molton. Please address any general queries to Mike Stanton. Broken links and problems of a technical nature should be addressed to John Muggleton by entering details in the comments box of the form here. Any opinions expressed in this article are personal and should not be construed as medical advice. We are not representatives of any of the companies discussed, nor do we receive any form of commission.

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