Notions of Normalcy and Operating At Capacity

When I was younger, I thought that people were all like me. On the inside, I mean. I thought that even though they looked different, that within that unique but fairly standard packaging they thought in much the same way I did and had the same capabilities and aptitudes. Certainly there were some small number who had mental or physical handicaps-again, whatever their individual packaging consisted of. At heart, though, where it really mattered, I thought any differences could only be shallow ones and that we all had a core that would lead us onto the same basic track.

As I've become a more complex thinker (or at least think of myself as such), I've revisited and re-evaluated this concept. I'm starting to wonder if it is actually more that we tend to operate within a narrow range of mental and physical specifications. What if there are a greater degree of adaptations we encompass instead of a sort of "on/off", "yes/no", "normal/abnormal" status? Instead, there may be a number of significant differences that allow individuals to operate within the confines of our systems. After all, it's not like we're products on an assembly line-there's no stress-testing or design studies on each model. If we manage to do most things for ourselves, that's generally good enough.

I've been hearing this new buzzword "neurodiversity" lately, and I suppose what I'm talking about may relate to it. This is about 30 years after the notion of "multiple intelligences". The idea takes a bit of wind out of IQ and expands from a single "academic/learning" understanding of intelligence into several distinct types. The validity of either point of view is not at issue, I mention it to note that the desire and search to understand how people operate and the way that the internal influences the external is still being examined.