scars

07 Sep, 2025

Luis Villasmil for Unsplash

I was sitting, lost in thought, when there was a light rap against the door. It was the senior neurologist, although he didn't look that much older than the attending neurologist, who appeared to be in her 20s. He shook my hand and introduced himself very pleasantly, and then he sat down on the bed (I was already in the free chair). I hesitated. I asked him what he knew about mirror neurons. He brightly explained they were an important part of early childhood development. I listened dutifully.

Finally I figured I should go for broke, since this was technically a research facility. I said I'd had an experience—a one-off, an isolated event—that had scared the shit out of me. I'd been relieved, months later, to read about mirror touch synesthesia¹, a concept that could potentially, tidily, explain the experience. It might be caused by an overconnected mirror system, I reported, which in turn might correlate with autism. I trailed off and looked at the senior neurologist imploringly.

After a brief pause he said I seemed like a "person with high empathy" who "internalizes things." I raised my eyebrows, since he was, however ambiguously, answering a whole spate of questions I'd had. He continued to be bright and smiley until he reached the door. When he thought he was out of my line of sight, just before he exited the room, his smile dropped and his entire face changed.

I am still wondering if it were his smile that was fake, or if the benign expression were a mask he wears outside the room. I am still wondering if I wasted his time.

On the Lyft ride back from my appointment, I thought about something my friend had told me that morning. I had been complaining about Malcolm Gladwell ("He was always a lazy thinker," I'd fumed, "always taking the shortest distance to connect two points"). My friend had shared the term pathological science: that is, when an experiment goes a certain way because the outcome was already expected².

"Ohhh, of course! Pathological!" I'd exclaimed. "A preordained or predestined path!"

Once again my thoughts turned to the California wildfires, how they'd burned grooves, "scars," into the terrain. The concern, shortly after the fires, was that impending floodwaters would potentially rush through the scars, following the path of original damage. I thought about this in terms of neuroplasticity, or our lack thereof. I thought about stories and myths—the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, or the stories other people tell us about ourselves, or the stories that predate us—as terraforming 'scars', neurologically but also societally, hardwiring predictable pathways. Then I thought enviously about how lucky some people are to not have mirror neurons at all, and I idly wondered if little chaos gremlins were better at writing their own destinies. (Psychopaths. Psychopaths don't have mirror neurons. This presents its own set of problems—including, I’d venture, a limited ability to imagine other circumstances, or potential outcomes, an inability to learn from other people’s stories and experiences.)

Well, I have no trouble dreaming up probable outcomes and worst-case scenarios; that’s why I've always wondered how to write a surprising story. Maybe I'd have to be more neuroplastic to have the imagination to think up a startling new development. Mostly what I'm good at is hearing someone else's silly story—or, in the case of the dream job I briefly held, pages and pages of raw data, which would have to be interpreted and then 'told' in an accessible way for laypeople—and making it seem plausible, grounded in reality. Most recently I did this on the lakeshore: I told a group of small children who were 'cooking', using sand, water, and seaweed, that it sounded like they were making a roux. The head chef was very fascinated. I guess that's called "worldbuilding," not storytelling.

Yeah, I've done some pretty good worldbuilding. After interviewing them at length, I surprised and delighted some tabletop game designers with several virtual sets, and tools, for their roleplaying games. I wrote an hourlong radio play around someone else's plot and a smattering of one-liners. It's all just theater, staging, right. When you are on a stage acting, sometimes you have to walk off in a weird direction, and you have to think of a good motivation, even if it's just a pained look on your face, to compel yourself in that direction. It's even better if you actually feel the feeling that is compelling you across the stage. It's the same way with writing collaboratively, where you're creating a credible environment or setup, or entire framing device, for a few killer one-liners.

In recent years I've noticed that if I don't like a stranger's 'vibe', I will move away from them—something here about mirror neurons and boundaries and physical distance³. But you can't constantly or completely get away from people; sometimes you are trapped with them. In those special cases, like on an airplane, you might silently tell yourself a story about that person, trying to recast them and their motivations in a favorable or charitable light, just so you can comfortably coexist next to them for a few hours (in lieu of feeling like an accidental interaction might put you in mortal peril). I guess I've never been good at reading or interpreting people's intentions, so I’ve just been making them up as I go⁴. It comes to me naturally.

I think what was most startling to me about hyperactive mirror systems was learning about their supposed correlation with autism. I've always assumed I had a different developmental trauma entirely. But then I think back—as I do, routinely—to a group of girls who left a condom stretched over my doorknob at summer camp, and my total confusion at finding it. I didn't even know them?? If constantly understanding other people's baffling or grotesque behavioral motivations is somehow my responsibility instead of theirs, then fuck it, fine, I guess I'll be autistic.