What would it be like to live in a world of autism or Asperger’s syndrome? To have a mind that follows rules literally and without understanding? From Object to Life opens the door into the remarkable world of a blindness that perceives other humans as closer to objects than to living souls. Yet Asperger’s was also the syndrome shared by the likes of Einstein, Lewis Carroll and Mozart.

The great teachers Jesus, Buddha and Rumi all pointed to an essential blindness in humanity at large—the blindness of all those who “lack eyes to see”. Humanity’s essential path is the struggle to surmount this failure to transcend. Via the thoughts of great souls whose lives were dominated by this curious condition, Duncan leads us through a succession of remarkable creative, unfiltered and raw autistic worlds.

The book is written in a series of ‘remarks’.

David Duncan on his writing style:

The style was primary.
There was something special about writing in remarks—almost a kind of magic.
For reasons I did not fully understand, discarding paragraphs and arguments for remarks felt like being freed from shackles.
The usual way of writing seemed inappropriate and lifeless; at times even unethical.