stay together, learn the flowers, go light.

This past fall, I watched a documentary on savants called Beautiful Minds:  The Psychology of the Savant.  Savants are individuals with mental, behavioral, or physical disability who possess extraordinary powers of observation, mathematical aptitude, or artistic/musical talent.  As early as the 1880’s, people who had savant syndrome were labeled as “idiot savants.”  They were very misunderstood, marginalized, and thought to have severe mental retardation.  Now, as neuroscience research on savant syndrome and autism becomes more and more advanced, our society is slowly realizing the unfathomable genius and beauty of savant brains (not to mention, researchers can now speculate that past geniuses like Michelangelo, Mozart, Charles Darwin, Emily Dickinson, Einstein, and Any Warhol all probably had various forms of autism.) 

This is one of my favorite Tedtalks from 2011.  Daniel Tammet is one of two high-functioning autistic savants who have shared their stories and visions with us on the TED stage (the other being Temple Grandin.)  But, I really love the way Daniel intimately and delicately shares the way he perceives the world through his beautiful mind. He remind us to embrace the diversity of all learners and thinkers of the world and also challenges us to break out of our boxes of conventional thinking and see the world with “new eyes.”  

“So in these few minutes, I hope I’ve been able to share a little bit of my vision of things and to show you that words can have colors and emotions, numbers, shapes and personalities. The world is richer, vaster than it too often seems to be. I hope that I’ve given you the desire to learn to see the world with new eyes.”

Because of Daniel (and other savants), I’m constantly thinking about how I can optimally learn and think in different situations and contexts… which is exciting for an adaptive nerd like me.