I need to start posting on my new topic entitled “About Diversity”. I am currently reading several books on the topic that will take time to complete. Before that comes to fruition, I will post some here about my early experiences.

Since diversity comes in many shapes and forms, you never know just what to expect. With that uncertainty, fear undeniably has something to do with seeing it as good or bad. Let’s face it, when you have only been around people like yourself, seeing a person of a different color, or somewhat different view of the world can be rather discomforting. I have come to learn that discomforting is actually a good thing. Here is a story about that:

Until I went off to college in 1965, I never really knew what diversity actually meant. Being Autistic all my life, even if I didn’t discover that fact until I was in my 60s, I realized that I was on a fundamentally different level from those around me, but I managed to put on “masks” to hide that fact.

My college years absolutely changed my life. I came to appreciate the diversity of life as being an exciting thing. I even came to know people who were kinda like me. I never thought that would happen. My years after college were in a male-dominated logic-driven engineering environment. It would have been easy to fall back, but my college years thankfully stuck with me.

So, here I am in my seventies. I guess I am supposed to turn into a more close-minded person who doesn’t understand the world around me. I know the world is now very different from my earlier times, and that will only continue to accelerate. But one thing that is forever fixed in my mind is that

We Are All In This Together

The sooner all of us recognize this, the sooner we will appreciate the diversity that is around us.