Lost in Abstraction

In programming, it’s indispensable; board games would be unthinkable without it; works of art would be literally one-dimensional; and even our world of thoughts could hardly separate one thing from another without it.

My life consists of countless moments where I behaved inappropriately in the face of the prevailing rules and said or did improper things despite feeling to know best.
So why did I not hit bullseye?
Because I got lost in my layers of abstraction and landed in a divergent reality that, up to a point, ticked all the boxes flawlessly but still couldn’t do everything that human intuition covers.

 

What is Abstraction?

Abstraction is a depiction of a thing that reduces that same thing to certain basic features. On one side is the concrete and unambiguous thing, on the other side are the most important features for the current process. Often there are multiple layers of abstraction, so that the features become fewer and more important at the same time.

Before we view and process each and any impulse as uniquely new information, we build up a library of nested compartments that allow us to approach the matter more quickly.
This is not without fault and requires constant adjustment and fine-tuning, but it helps more than it sparks effort. Every human does this with every piece of information naturally; though sometimes more, sometimes less.

 

What Does Abstraction Mean to Me?

This separation, subdivision, and gradual generalization of information suits the rational property of my brain perfectly. As a hyper-feeler, I quickly learned that I can put the often times rather unwelcome emotional reactions in chains this way.

This works well as a customer service employee to not let an outburst of anger get even close to you, but also as a colleague to maintain a pleasant attitude.

So far, I’ve looked at my ability to abstract as something I can do well, and that helps me.
But I realized far too late that I’ve moved further and further away from my actual needs and feelings, just to conform to the rules of my environment.

While I consciously experience and utilise these layers of abstraction, the majority of people seem to operate those intuitively and even automatically.

 

How Does Abstraction Work?

Using the following (abstracted) graphic on emotions in everyday work life, I want to show as an example how layers of abstraction separate my inner self from external human influences and how I imagine that this would work both ways:

 

Isn’t That Great?

It’s super great as long as both parties find each other and the good feeling is based on truth.

While I do operate my layers of abstraction consciously and am always able to derive the truths (even if that usually requires a lot of energy), many living beings around me seem to sort out their feelings much more unfiltrated.

I rarely find myself in the position personally to let my feelings pass unmediated or doing something “just like that.” No, without my layers of abstraction, I’m overwhelmed all too quickly, for which I would need a particularly secure space before I allow it.

This imaging suggests that I’m rarely directly connected to myself, and I can confirm that: It’s an autistic experience.

Behind the multi-layered protective wall, I’m safe from direct contact with the outside world, but due to that it’s not guaranteed that signals reach me as intended, or that my signals are received as I thought out.

 

Now, what is Real?

Real is what we agree on.

Only this can take place at different levels of abstraction. Otherwise, we would just tell our life stories when asked “How are you?” or not be capable of irony and sarcasm at all.

The latter are still denied to autistic people, but that’s only because we haven’t found enough layers of abstraction there yet. Once those are in operation, it’s often everyone else who can’t comprehend our humour and the twisted, inappropriate things.

What helps then are translators or help in the form of siblings, friends, and advocates. Because where true understanding is lived, we will quickly agree, and that feels truly, genuinely, and undisputably good.