Complexity
My understanding of complexity as an autistic systems change practitioner.
Complexity is a word that popped up throughout my Basecamp journey with School of System Change. It was so ubiquitous that it caused me to reflect on how in flow my brain feels when grappling with complexity. I enjoy turning a complex problem over in my mind to look at it from different angles, to sense its boundaries and see its component parts. I can map out the connections between things, observe elements that are beyond my control, identify opportunities to nudge something to affect change. I can feel into complexities.
Given these observations were revealing themselves to me at the same time as I was discovering I was autistic, I wondered at the parallels between the two. I’ve come to the conclusion that my familiarity with complexity in a systems change context has evolved from my lived experience being infused with complexity.
Let me give you an insight to my autistic brain and how my challenges with executive functioning can turn even mundane encounters into complex challenges to be solved.
The ‘Dogs in Space’ Conundrum
On a slow work-from-home day my partner and I decide to break for lunch together. He is looking through Netflix for cartoon inspiration for our three-year old. I go into the kitchen to prepare something for myself and a few moments pass. Then my partner calls from the other room:
“There’s a new show on Netflix called ‘Dogs in Space.’”
I pause, fridge door half open, milk carton in hand.
I don’t understand, I think silently to myself. ‘Dogs in Space’, surely we’ve moved passed such dubious ethical practices. In fact, how did that even get approved by the TV production equivalent of an ethics board?
Wait, there’s something I’m not getting.
I linger a little longer with the fridge door open, knowing I need to buy my brain time…time to see if I get closer to understanding the statement but, if I’m honest, time to also conceal my lack of comprehension. Even with my partner who loves me deeply there is a sense of lack of safety, of feeling exposed.
So I let the statement hang in the air, in the hope that my lack of response will invite more detail. Another split second passes, my thoughts are still suspended. This requires further processing.
If they have truly sent dogs into space for a TV show, what is the entertainment value? Just a bunch of dogs wandering around a space shuttle rigged with live feed cameras?
No wait. They must be prompted to participate in activities or competitions. Less fly-on-the wall, more gameshow with a cosmic canine twist. But then I guess there must be humans on board to facilitate these games. Ok, perhaps this is a bit less ethically dubious than I first thought.
Yet I still feel like I’m missing something.
But now too much time has passed. I realise I’ve paused for an unnatural period of time in terms of standard conversational conventions. I was hoping this extended pause would also elicit further information, but no such luck.
Eventually I manage a vague interjection — along the lines of “hmmm”, as in I’m acknowledging what you’ve said and that it’s interesting. Or maybe it was inadvertently more “hmmm?”, as in what? I don’t get it. Tell me more.
Either way my interjection works and my partner follows up with: “It’s a new animated series.”
Of course. Of course it’s an animated series.
Life in Hard Mode
You can laugh if you want. I know I did. If only because this was the first time I managed to glimpse how challenging my brain finds social communication. I had previously struggled to identify with this autistic trait but this moment alone shone a light on a rapid internal sense-making that I now realise I rely on more frequently than I care to admit.
While daily interactions like this might not seem complex to 98% of the population they are, I would argue, objectively complex. They often encompass several components: words; gestures; intonation; facial expressions. Then there’s the context of who is saying what, what has been said beforehand and the wider context in which they’re saying it. It’s likely even tailored to the person receiving the communication. Many of these elements are unpredictable and the boundaries are not always clear. Yet it’s all interconnected — adjust one element and the meaning changes entirely.
As an autistic person playing life in hard mode, this scenario is akin to grappling with complexity in systems change practice. My need to subconsciously manage complexity in most of life’s situations, means I am forever primed to consciously manage complexity. Granted my subconscious efforts aren’t always successful (as above) but this constant exposure to navigating complexity, while exhausting, does have its benefits when applying my mind to systems change work.
Interested in knowing more?
This is part of a series that I’m writing following on from my Basecamp journey. I recently published my introduction to this series entitled Unpacking the system of the self alongside Part I about Patterns. Over the coming weeks I’ll explore three more aspects of my autistic self that lend themselves well to systems thinking. Follow and subscribe to keep up-to-date as I dive into these topics:
| chaos | inclusivity | sense-making |
You can also click through the image below to access a visual map of this journey.
