Just as Evariste Galois struggled to explain his ideas, I wish also to struggle to make people become aware of autism. Yes! I catapulted that math story to bring home the concept of ASD because I can affirm, from a lived experience, that the two are related: The complexity of autism is represented by a colorful puzzle while mathematics is simply a bunch of puzzles.
On thirtieth of may 1832, a gunshot was heard ringing out across the 13th Arrondissements of Paris. A peasant who walking to the market that morning run towards where the gunshot had came from only to find a young man writhing in agony on the floor clearly suffering from a dueling wound. The young man’s name was Evariste Galois, a well-known revolutionary in Paris at the time. He was rushed to a local hospital only to die the following morning in the arms of his brother and his last words were, “Don’t cry for me Alfred, I need all the courage I can muster to die at twenty!”
It wasn’t in fact revolutionary politics that Galois was famous for because some years before and while still at school, he had cracked great mathematical problems and even written to academicians trying to explain his theories but they didn’t understand a thing! Below is an image of how he used to write…
One of Evariste Galois writings. Credit: Alarmy
Earlier, on the eve of the duel, he probably had realized that that could be the last chance to explain his great breakthrough and thus spent the whole night writing. Morning came and he went to meet his destiny leaving behind piles of his writings on the table for the next generations to see. Maybe the fact that he ‘transnighted’ doing mathematics is the reason he lost out and got shot. Jokes aside though!
But before I die I also want to leave a legacy that I was great at math. That I used to score As in math throughout the entire elementary school life and this vested potential even bewildered the teachers and the fellows in the major. But why am saying all this in a blog meant for ASD?! Just as Evariste Galois struggled to explain his ideas, I wish also to struggle not to explain math theories but to make people become aware of autism. Yes! I catapulted that math story to bring home the concept of ASD because I can affirm, from a lived experience, that the two are related: The complexity of autism is represented by a colorful puzzle while mathematics is simply a bunch of puzzles.
Contrary to Evariste’s writings, my writings are not complicated. I don’t wish to screw up anything in this journey that I just started of making things right about the realm of ASD. For instance, many people in Africa hardly know a thing concerning this neurodivergence. Diagnosis for it is not something that is ordinary since I honestly have never heard of this practice being conducted in Kenyan schools. The issue gets addressed on media stations once in a while though and usually it’s the levels 2 and 3 (the severe cases in the spectrum) that is paid attention to. The milder case seems to be shut eyes on and it sincerely hurts! To cut a long story short I simply come to shed light on all cases of autism and more so to the milder case that over the years have appeared to be neglected.
So before I die guys, may it get it into people’s minds that: I tried as much as I could to create awareness for the monster called autism. My efforts as you might have already observed go varying from writing about this phenomenon to interacting with the likes on social media who talk about it.
JoE ADiX 