Broadly speaking you are unburdening yourself of something. Do you have AS, or are you using it as an allegory of sorts? I've sometimes wondered if I have it, but the AS community is somewhat hostile towards self diagnosed individuals, especially those that try and glamourise it in some capacity.
Speaking more broadly, I was interested in aircraft as a kid and I got back into it when I turned 25. There was a vast self-policing period from about the ages 12 to 21 where I tried hard to conform to certain groups, political ideas, music tastes etc. It has been quite fun to re-establish an interest in stuff I thought was deeply uncool, or that I figured I had moved beyond or was above. It makes political opinions a tad easier to formulate.
Interesting to see a mention of Ayn Rand. I've only ever met more than one 'follower' in the flesh, and only encountered one serious follower online. Oddly, both worked low-pay jobs as short order cooks. I'm not entirely convinced either of them could claim to be John Galt, at the end of the day. It seems almost that Ayn Rand's works gave them a more solid framework for their own inferiority complex. These guys use 'collectivist' as an insult but are constantly under the boot of some higher up authority and have jobs that stifle any form of creativity or individuality! At the same time they whine endlessly that the John Galts of this world are endlessly under compensated for their work. All very strange!
I've had another think about musicians with aspergers, and I'm thinking (in no particular order): Robert Fripp, Peter Gabriel, J Mascis, Neil Young, Billy Corgan, John Martyn, Blackmore and Jimmy Page.
All of these guys had a fairly robust, unflinching opinion of what their music should sound like, usually at the cost of any level of self awareness. Page, Fripp, Corgan, Mascis, Blackmore and Young definitely drove their bands with an unnerving clarity of vision that I tend to associate with AS.
I read Neil Young's autobiography. Up until that point I wouldn't have considered it a possibility. I thought the book would be full of hoary road-dog tales, but instead it is a rambling monologue about bio-fuel powered cars, model railways and vintage cars. At one point his partner is giving birth to his child, and he tells us more about the car he drives to the hospital in. He doesn't really take full responsibility for any time he f***ed up and ruined a relationship, friendship or band. When his friends went off the rails and ended up OD'ing, by his own admission he was the last to notice things going sour.
