The concepts of self, story, emotion and empathy are closely linked in the human animal. Whatever they can teach us about what we are and where we’re headed, it’s certain they’ve played a pretty big part in getting us this far.

We’re built to look for, discern and process patterns and what they mean. However accurate it is, autistic people are usually portrayed as being gifted with complex systems, numbers and structures (think of the Rain Man-esque Vegas card-counting cliché).

The drive to connect and communicate is in fact so strong it exists even in the absence of the communication methods most of us know – it’s a drive we can’t hold in any more than the instinct to eat or sleep.