I just went to see a preview of a movie called "Adam". It was quite good and Adam was an extraordinary person. The story seemed wonderfully complex but had just two story lines; Adam’s struggle through life with Asperger syndrome and the struggles of his girlfriend in her family life. Each was compelling, but Adam’s struggle was more alien like a Spock with one foot in the human world and one in the Vulcan world of no emotion. The story lines played off each other quite well..
In the film Adam first learned the skill of the human dance of communication, like an actor. Then he learned the difference between a LIAR and a liar; how one you don’t want to be around and one you want to be around for the rest of your life. Finally, he learned how to put it all together and function, quite well, on his own.
Adam reminded me of a young man I tutored in Algebra back in Sacramento. He was almost anal in the way he laid out his work on a blank sheet of typing paper, lining up the problems just so. I was more of a guide that sat by his side and answered any questions he had. He mastered the work and ended up with nearly perfect scores-the perfect student. That was why he hired me, but the reason he was in school was to change his career. He had been a surgical operating room nurse until he was afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis. He told me of the parking lot at his school, one I knew well because it was so far away from the classes. Students would complain of the walk to which he shook his head, saying if only he had their body he would run like the wind through that lot. So, too, Adam would shake his head at people who look at the world in black and white terms.  No one is black or white and his struggle was to see that mixture.
You see, it wasn’t that Adam had Asperger syndrome that made him extraordinary. What made him extraordinary was that he found a way to communicate through it because he felt people, themselves, were worth it.