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| Adam Wolfond
[image: A young teenage boy with brilliant brown hair sitting on the beach.] |
Adam Wolfond
I have a podcast called Inter-Views. My first podcast was an interview with artist Ellen Bleiwas. Ellen collaborates with me in thinking about art and movement at The A Collective in Toronto, Canada. She is a kind and wonderful artist. The Inter-Views podcasts are not about me but about sharing views. I like that I am not asked questions about autism. People should learn with others. I am hoping my podcasts will reach people. In the interviews I manage to type to communicate and my guests mostly talk.
I had an Inter-Views listening party recently because I wanted lots of people to hear what we do and I wanted open minds about how people like me type to really talk. The interesting part of the interviews is the way insides of thinking are yards apart: We are managing to talk with the typing and talking together. The yards are the easy distance—always at the same and easy place—but we all have different ways of inside thinking. The inside thinking is the way of answering, mastering deep thinking which is like the way of feeling. Answering by the way of the typing is different. That is the way I am thinking when I have to answer questions. The way of feeling-and-thinking does not easily answer questions.
Thinking happens at a slower pace with typing. The idea about the typing-only listening party was to have not-speaking questions but answering with the amazing pace of inside thinking. I am mad about the fact that I can’t speak but amazing thing about the listening party was that I was like others when they had to type.
The way I feel about not being able to start conversations is always hard for me and I like when others have to work at typing, having to wait for management of bothersome social talking. The pace of talking is really fast and people seem to want to move from one topic to the next and when I type I am slowed. The slowness of typing is mostly frustrating but when people listen slowly they are thinking more and not having to worry about what to do in social situations. Always being patient when I am typing is good and makes interviews interesting. I was thinking that the management of the want of talking at the party was the funniest thing because everyone was awkward but I was pleased that want to type was in the room.
I want to say that I am wanting people to be patient when I type because I am working really hard at doing what you do and I want an easy way of always having a relaxing time with everyone. When people have to type they learn that it takes time to get out the words and I am amazed when people take the time to do it with me, answering each other like watering the plants of talking without speaking. I think the amazing sign language Deaf people use is something everyone else should try so that they appreciate many ways of communication. I would have a hard time signing because I don’t have good movement for that but I can type and that’s something a lot of people can do, and if they can’t read well they can use language of pictures. Open classes of communication need more inspiring options to express thinking.
I think the listening party was successful because everyone was in the spirit of answering the call to different way of communication. If everyone had to type the world would think about things each word at a time. The way of communication amazes me because I am wanting to talk having you and me in always equal easy feeling. I think more people should try typing-only parties and classes. My teacher at school liked the idea of typing so now the class types conversations in the morning and I am in easy equal feeling. The communication of typing thinks about real feelings and not just social words.
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Adam Wolfond is a sixteen year-old non-speaking high school student, artist and poet, and the co-founder of The A Collective in Toronto which is a learning/artistic community on neurodiversity and creation. You can hear his podcasts at soundcloud.com/awolfond.
