The Fear of Being Wrong

One of my deepest fears which I am willing to not hide behind is the feeling that I might speak out of line even with the least intention of doing so. I have read (or am reading) works by Plato, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Austin, Dickens, Darwin, Nietzsche, Wilde, Dostoyevsky, Dickinson, Joyce, Yeats, Frost, Conrad, Hemingway, Eliot, Ellison, Baldwin, Achebe, Mailer, Bellow, Sagan, Eiseley, Fukuyama and Diamond and I can't wrap my pinkies around all the wisdom and knowledge I try to consume on a daily basis. As with the music I play, I want the words I say to be thought out to the best of my abilities at all times. On top of that I want to take the feedback I know must come to the best of my abilities, though a pathologist I have worked with in the past once told me it would be a struggle to do so in social settings. Even among those I have respected the most I have occasionally twisted my tongue while trying to articulate my words and ideas.

I have been told by a few specialists I have met with that the compassion they have seen in me for others is an unusual occurrence for one on the autism spectrum. It's not that those who are autistic are incapable of showing it much less feeling it. It is usually that they feel so comfortable inside of their own mindsets that even the consideration of others is far more difficult though not impossible by any means. It is not my words but those who have stated it to me who have said they were impressed at the extent to which I could feel sympathy for others different from myself to the extent that I could for an autistic person. But, what if I ever let their words go to my head? What if like the words I articulated, the feelings I tried to could come off as less than I intended them to?

I know the feeling of being in the presence of those who seem to think they understand the topics they speak of as well as they need to and do not appear to recognize the limitations within their perspectives. (For clarification I am not in saying so referring to anyone I have known well or been close to). On a daily basis I feel a sense of dread at the thought of speaking from the very limited foundation I have always wanted to avoid and which I believe I could be guilty of with no realization.

How long I wonder will it be before like the fictional playwright Barton Fink, I will be confronted with another and ask why they signal me out only for them to yell in reply: "BECAUSE YOU DON'T LISTEN!!!!"?