FULL DISCLOSURE: I am on the spectrum. I’ve been encouraged to let people know I am “autistic” versus “being on the spectrum” as most folks clearly have no idea what I mean when I say I am on the spectrum. The discussion of “on the spectrum” can either be weird, useless, or fruitful. A few times people have said “Oh, yeah, I have a relative on the spectrum. He lines up cans when he’s in line in the supermarket with his mom.” I merely said I was on the spectrum, and suddenly people think that “autism” in general suggests a specific kind of presentation. However, the giveaway is the word “spectrum” which should connote a range of behaviors. I have high functioning autism, which can be difficult to assess and strange for people to encounter.
Most people can tell there is something different with me, but they can’t exactly figure out what. However, most professionals have been able to pinpoint the behavior almost immediately. I met my PCP seven years ago and she picked up my Autism within five minutes. My current shrink asked me towards the end of the intake. One of my mentors has personal experience with Autism so she asked me when we started to work together. When I was a kid, I was embarrassed that I was labeled “retarded”. I was placed on the “small bus” with other kids that had different kinds of exceptionalities. However, I soon learned that the “small bus” was full of kids that were super bright, creative, and highly motivated. What was essentially another way to stigmatize a group of people, turned out to be a support group. One of the kids that rode that bus with me is now a Fortune 500 CEO. I was at his house nearly every day. He had pages of code he cranked out from his dot matrix printer. That dude is not only a highly successful CEO, he is an exceptionally talented human being with an amazing wife and two daughters that nearly worship him. I think Autism, when channeled correctly, is merely another way to catalog behaviors which provide us with a different way of looking at the world.
You might be wondering what the photo and videos have to do with celebrities on the spectrum. After all, I elected to use both a screen grab AND a video. Well, nothing. The media is absolutely unrelated to this story beyond the fact that I find this sea life absolutely mesmerizing. Part of the presentation of people with Autism are “restrictive interests”. My interests include Mathematics in all forms, animals, movies, sobriety, and in the last 17 years I added another interest: digital marketing inclusive of WordPress. Nothing else interests me or matters to me. All of my books on my bookshelf represent my interests, and all of the bookmarks on my Mac reinforce that. It might not make sense to add a photo of a sea creature, but I think it’s a nice contrast. The video and photo feature a relatively new taxonomic category of an animal that was found in the Mariana Trench about three miles from the surface. It’s a form of Jellyfish that has not been completely classified. However, it’s absolutely beautiful. Don’t you agree?
So I digress. Let’s list some folks that are Autistic. Some of the people noted here will be a “no duh” to you when you view the list. Others might surprise you. I’m never surprised other than being surprised that it took so long for people to understand these folks are on the spectrum. I will simply list the people, and then at a later time I will return to add some data. I hope that if you peep this list, you will add someone I neglected to mention.
1) Albert Einstein
2) Leonardo DeVinci
3) Darryl Hannah
4) Dan Aykroyd
5) Anthony Hopkins
6) Tim Burton
7) Bill Gates
8) Steve Jobs
9) Heather Kuzmich
10) Henry Cavendish
11) Charles Darwin
12) Emily Dickinson
13) Bobby Fischer
14) Barbara McClintock
15) Michaelangelo
16) Sir Isaac Newton
17) Jerry Seinfeld
18) Satoshi Tajiri
19) Nikola Tesla
20) Elon Musk
21) Clay Marzo
22) Vernon Smith
23) Adolf Hitler - current research indicates he had Autism as well as Parkinson’s
24) Vincent van Gogh
25) Steven Spielberg
26) Alfred Hitchcock
26) Thomas Edison
27) Alexander Graham Bell
28) Benjamin Franklin
29) Henry Ford
30) Ludwig van Beethoven
31) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
32) Bob Dylan - Musician
33) James Taylor
34) John Denver
35) Carl Jung
36) Lionel Messi
37) Samuel Clemens
38) George Orwell
39) Jane Austen
40) Charles M. Schulz