Eight Billion Ways to Be Human

I was talking to Tatai, my nephew, today. He is a PhD student at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Pune, India. He’s close to finalizing his thesis proposal and preparing to defend it. We were talking about his study pattern. For him, big ideas come easily, but the details are challenging to concentrate on. It’s a familiar place for me. Midway through, almost casually, he asked if he might have autism.

I didn't respond immediately. I'm not a psychologist. Instead, I said something simpler: maybe what you're calling autism is just you.

That shifted things. Soon we were discussing neurodivergence—not as a diagnosis, but as a way of acknowledging different ways of thinking. Tatai struggles with details unless they're clearly part of something bigger. He doesn’t fit the picture of someone who sits crunching numbers all day at a keyboard; neither do I. I'm the same way. Whether that's ADHD or something else wasn’t the point. The point was realizing that being different doesn't mean being flawed.

In that moment, something clicked for me—a small but genuine epiphany that left me unexpectedly hopeful for the human race. It wasn’t anything grand; just the quiet realization that recognizing and naming difference without judgment could be the start of something better.

We are starting to accept that folks are different, but they are also us.

I projected a future where we will no longer have a superior subrace called “neurotypical.”

Maybe we’ll accept everyone as neurotypical—it’s just difference. Different texture. Different color. Eight billion hues. All together, we contribute and paint a great picture.

In our present-day world, kindness and altruism don't always seem evident. Violence, cruelty, and exclusion still dominate. Wars are getting more frequent. In places, we are trying to eliminate the “other” people. But beneath that, a quieter change is happening. We're starting to recognize that people who don't match traditional expectations—whether they're autistic, gay, trans, anxious, physically different, or simply unconventional in ways we don’t have names for—aren't outsiders. They're just another version of us.

Maybe, eventually, we won't think of being neurotypical as the default. Maybe there won't be one “right” way to be human—just billions of different ways. Each person a unique combination. Each person necessary.

That was the world I glimpsed when Tatai asked me if he was broken.

And I told him no.

Maybe this is just how you are.

Maybe, one day, that'll be enough.

"So say we all".

I’d genuinely welcome your thoughts — whether you agree or disagree. But if you feel like sharing, I’m especially interested in your personal reflections… how you navigate these questions, if they matter to you. And if this resonates, feel free to share it with others who think or wonder along similar lines.