Thank you for this. It comes just as I was telling my Autistic 19 year old daughter that she will have to work and get her own place if she wants to play by her own rules. It was an empty threat but I do want her to be somewhat independent at some point. She wants only to do her art and avoid things like personal hygiene, school, church, and following household rules. My daughter feels this world's systems are completely out of alignment with her needs. I know she is right but I also feel compelled to toughen her up to the reality I see she will need to live in. My reality of course but she refuses to accept my reality. She just moved back in with me after a ten year absence. I wonder why she is coming back at this time through the transition of the earth.


My indignant daughter doesn't see the need for holding a job. I am far from being certain though that I want her to live with me for the rest of my life. It is a great challenge for an artist to make it in the world and even a greater challenge for a strange human being who has little empathy for others. Empathy breeds conformity and conformity to this world's systems is the other alternative to making art. I don't know if my ability to care for her and her ability to live independently will end up at the same place. I take her and drop her off at the studio. Is it so much to ask of her to bathe and brush her teeth? Her brain is wired so different that she might never find a way to become an independent sovereign human being.

I worry that I may leave this world ahead of my differently wired daughter and she will be run over roughshod by a world that could never understand her. I don't understand her myself but still I believe the world should have room for the gift of her art. She has a potential buyer asking about the first painting she is displaying in a gallery that shows art of developmentally disabled adults. I have hope but I hate the thought that predators and the cruel may make her life a miserable. How does someone who abhors authority of any kind survive without a strong community of those with her best interests at heart... but it is hard to find a community of tolerant people when you are intolerant others. Even though I am a non-conformist, she takes non-conformity to places I would never imagine going. I am still brainwashed I guess but I am comfortable with it.

The message you posted gives me hope that somehow there may be a place in the emerging world for my strong willed Autistic daughter. I have very similar views to those expressed in your post but I am two faced about it. I want the best of both worlds. Letting go of all of the rules, I should not judge anyone, but still I do. I hope I can let go of this system when it is time. Perhaps my daughter will show me the way...