Variation Need Not Be Qualified

Variation exists, and need not be adaptive, maladaptive, or explainable.

We have a tendency to view differences of any sort, in any domain, in qualitative terms. One variant must be better, the other worse. One right, one wrong. A spectrum of difference, with the worst on one side and the best on the other.

We want reasons for every difference. Why is this this way, and that that way?

You say you're like that, but I don't understand because I'm like this. If I don't understand it, it must be wrong. Or maybe I'm wrong. We can't both be right! Right?

But most things, and the variations of those things, just are. Until we've projected qualitative properties onto them, they have none.

I think about this a lot when it comes to neurodivergence. I frequently see comments and articles about how, hey, maybe ADHD/autism/etc exist because those traits were evolutionarily advantageous in a prior societal structure! There is of course no evidence for such a claim, but the thing that bothers me about it is that someone would think it mattered. These traits don't need to be justified by evolution, or anything else. They don't need a reason to be fine, actually. They're neither fine nor not fine. They just are.

The combination of my life experiences and how my brain processes them is not the same as anyone else's. It's more similar to some people's than to others, but different from all. No two people process the world in the same way, no matter how many labels they share. This fact is neither good nor bad, it just is. There are many mismatches between how my brain works, how others' work, and how the world works. But none of those mismatches are judgments.

It's a constant struggle, allowing my differences to just exist without thinking of them in terms of better or worse, right or wrong, sufficient or deficient. It's also a constant struggle to allow other's differences to merely exist without doing the same. Or without feeling like I need to understand those differences to accept that they simply are.

Differences can generate strife, but that doesn't have to be a commentary on the differences themselves. Rather, a commentary on their mismatch.