Living in a linear world

How to Be Human: An Autistic Man’s Guide to Life (2021) by Jory Fleming and Lyric Winik

Living in a linear world will always warp my mind into a shape that it doesn't belong in.

How to Be Human is jointly written by Jory Fleming and Lyric Winik his interviewer and editor. For the most part, it takes the Q&A format where Lyric presents a topic and Jory responds. There are segments written by Lyric to provide supplementary details about Jory’s early years, his diagnosis, and current research on autism. But mostly, it’s Jory and his thoughts.

    The topics are diverse: language barriers, living as an autistic thinker, the world as a sensorium, socialisation in manmade environments, the meaning of friendship, faith and prayer, and his assistant dog, Daisy. Even more astounding is the way he connects them––like overlapping shadows of trees—shifting, merging, breaking apart, and merging again.

    The book isn’t long or difficult. It’s 192 pages of conversations. But it’s the type of book that provokes you to question things you don’t usually have time to muse on. Unless your full-time job is philosophic orator in the Ancient Greek agora. It’s the kind of book that makes you feel like you can tune in for the interesting bits, take a break and come back, and the discussion is still as lively as ever."