The Missing Variable
I have been writing journals since 1994. Thousands of pages of raw data. Observations. Confusions. Patterns I couldn't quite see.
Recently, I asked Claude to help me process this archive. I wanted to turn thirty years of entries into a coherent narrative. I didn't just want a spellcheck; I wanted a pattern matcher.
The result is a piece I call "One Word."
The Debugging Process
If I could go back to my thirteen-year-old self—the kid sitting in his room in Irmo, South Carolina, carefully writing his first entry—I would give him just one word.
Autistic.
That's it. That is the missing variable.
For three decades, I was trying to run my life on a neurotypical operating system. I thought I was "broken" because my code kept throwing errors.
- Why did every serious relationship implode in February? (Seasonal burnout).
- Why could I memorize weather patterns but not make small talk? (Spiky profile).
- Why did I feel a spiritual connection to land but terror in a cafeteria? (Sensory processing).
The AI as Mirror
Working with Claude on this was a strange experience. I fed it the raw, painful snapshots of my life. It didn't judge. It just analyzed.
It helped me structure the narrative not as a tragedy of "failed normalcy," but as a story of misunderstood architecture.
It helped me see that the "February Curse" wasn't bad luck; it was biology. It helped me see that my "obsessions" were actually "special interests" that built my career.
The Excerpt
Here is the truth we arrived at:
"The quirks are not signs of something broken. They are signs of something rare. You see patterns where others see noise. You feel the world at a frequency most people can't even hear. ... The important thing isn't how quickly you accept it. The important thing is that you stop carrying the shame. It was never yours to carry."
The Protocol: We often use AI to analyze business data. But its greatest value might be helping us analyze our human data. Sometimes, it takes a machine to help you forgive yourself for being different.
