Project Hail Mary, Autism, and Aliens

Until we learn to communicate with one another, we are all aliens to someone else.

Among the great joys of this period of my life are my son Jacob and my annual trips to national parks. The time together and the shared discovery of places of wonder are so meaningful. We’ve traveled together to the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, and Yellowstone National Park.

We have several traditions when we take these trips.  We stock up on gluten free bread, bananas and almond butter for our breakfast and lunch meals. I search out distilleries to find local Bourbons. And we always download science fiction books to listen to as we drive. In our first trip to the Grand Canyon, Jacob selected Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Last year, for his birthday, Jacob and I went to see the movie together.

I’ll do my best not to give away the plot for those who have not seen it or read the book. Essentially, the story is about solving difficult challenges by learning to communicate with someone who is alien to you—learning to connect with the other and to enter each other's worlds.

Until we learn to communicate with one another, we are all aliens to someone else—another culture, another generation, another political perspective—someone who perceives and processes the world differently than we do.

I believe this is true of how many people perceive individuals with developmental and physical differences. It is easy to view autistic individuals as being different and alien. They may have no spoken language, run in circles, flap their arms, and hold their hands over their ears and scream. From the outside, these actions may seem bewildering and frightening. But while they may seem incomprehensible to us, the actions of autistic children have a meaning and a purpose.

In his wonderful book “Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism,” Barry Prizant wrote: We fail when we “treat the person as a problem to be solved and to be fixed rather than an individual to be understood.”[1]

Our family learned to follow our son Jacob’s lead rather than trying to stop behaviors that we didn’t understand. We began to see these behaviors not as an obstacle to forming a relationship but an invitation to nurture one.

We met in the middle and learned to respect and care about each other. Thus, rather than insisting that autistic individuals enter our world, we engage them based on their actions and their initiatives. We honor them for who they are and we find ways for our worlds to meet.

I love this quote from Prizant’s book “the best way to help autistic and neurodivergent individuals progress toward fulfilling, meaningful lives is to find ways to engage them with deep respect, to help them build a sense of self, and to foster connection and joyful experiences.”[2]

Here is the other thing I learned, when we open ourselves up to the other, just like Rocky and Grace did in “Project Hail Mary,” not only can we find that person, but we can find ourselves. In our case, Jacob and I found ourselves in the middle and saved each other.

[1] Prizant Ph.D., Barry M. Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism (p. 289). (Function). Kindle Edition.

[2] Ibid.