TEACHING MYSELF TO SEE
by Tito Mukhopadhyay
Free pdf download – Paperback for purchase
Teaching Myself to See deals with Tito’s struggles to participate in a world full of visual details. As a person with autism, Tito is visually selective, processing the myriad of details seeping in through the eye rather than the whole. Tracing Tito’s experiences to learn to see in his own, “hyper-visual” way, through art, through magazines, through everyday life, Teaching Myself to See is a work of auto-anthropology, capturing in words, sentences, paragraphs, poems, a way of seeing that might seem so bewildering that doctors and psychologists told his mother he wouldn’t be able to think. This book proves otherwise. By teaching us to look through his eyes, Tito shows us the miracle and immense complexity of sight, of neuro-atypicals and neuro-typicals alike.
“But doesn’t matter why…. I continue to teach my eyes to see – as I realize seeing is an essential part of survival in a chaotic system called ‘world’ where things do not gather to simplify but scatter unto chaos. Visual details will crowd, wouldn’t go away with a wish. I have to see with my adapted seeing – continue to teach my eyes to see. Who is this book for? I have written this book, but do not claim ownership of what I have written. It is written for anybody who thinks this book will matter. How will I define my reader when I am yet to search my own definition?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I wonder what to write about myself. I have a long full name – but “Tito” is sufficient. But this is a biography and I am sure it is not a permanent status. Like everyone I would change in the future. When I wrote The Mind Tree, I was definitely somebody else. I saw things differently. When I wrote How Can I Talk if My Lips Don’t Move, I was a different self. My book called Plankton Dreams was written by a different version of me. Every book creates, erodes, and modifies me, including the experience of writing this book. I was featured on Good Morning America, BBC, National Geographic, Scientific American, New York Times, and CNN. Those articles and documentaries changed me too! I was humbled every time with every opportunity. And what is a book anyway? It is an opportunity to interact with noisy spaces of mind.
