Unpacking the system of the self
This is a starting point
I have to remind myself that there is no end, no static moment at which I arrive at being fully myself. To wait until that moment would be to tie to myself to a perpetually blinking cursor, taunting me from the glare of my screen.
So I write.
I write to make sense. I write to connect. To connect my ideas, but also to connect with others. My starting point is twofold — a transformative systems thinking learning journey and a deep inner journey towards a more authentic self.
My systems thinking journey came about through my participation in Basecamp 2022* with School of System Change. Expertly guided and nurtured by Sean, Rachel and Jasmine, this became a space where I started to recognise my innate capacity for systems thinking.
My inner journey is more complex and can’t easily be confined to a single paragraph. In short my world slowly, but chaotically, disintegrated when I found out, at the age of 39, that I am autistic. The life-long, uncomfortable feeling at the back of my mind could no longer be ignored as it dawned on me in 2022 how much I struggled to just be in the world. There have been many clues over the years but perhaps only now was I ready to take a classic, autistic-style deep-dive into the world of autism. Reading a mixture of peer-reviewed papers and personal accounts by other autistics left me in no doubt that I had, for the first time in my life, found a lens through which everything made sense. In this short paragraph I do myself, and anyone who has received a late-in-life autism diagnosis, an injustice. Because these words fall so far short of describing how cataclysmic such a diagnosis can be.
But, for now, they are the only words I have.
Autism & Systems Thinking
Which brings me to the relationship between these two defining experiences. Separately they are significant, combined they are powerful. The collision of learning about systems thinking, while simultaneously reevaluating and unlearning so many things about the core of who I am, has provided me with an incredible opportunity. It seems only natural for me to apply what I’ve learnt on Basecamp to explore the complexities of my inner systems and how they relate to the systems around me.
To the outside observer the link may seem tenuous but I feel strongly that my autistic brain is predisposed to thinking in systems and pattern spotting, not to mention fine-tuned to wanting systemic change that would make the world more nourishing for neurodivergent people like me. So these writings are my attempt to foreground the overlap between these two experiences and allow them to lean into one another, to the point of no distinction.
My systems thinking journey is one and the same as my journey to the centre of who I am.
Interested in knowing more?
This is part of a series that I’m writing following on from my Basecamp journey. Over the coming weeks I’ll explore the five 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:
| patterns | complexity | chaos | inclusivity | sense-making |
You can also click through the image below to access a visual map of this journey.
*Huge shout-out to Louise Armstrong who intuitively knew that Basecamp was the right place for me 💜
