I’ll take earnest, autistic obsessiveness over status-seeking, charismatic charm
Nerding out
Dear Friends,
I recently finished Sally Rooney’s latest novel Intermezzo — “an exquisite return to form,” according to Vox, and “Rooney’s most mature, moving novel yet,” per The Times.
The novel follows two very different brothers, Ivan and Peter, and their three lovers.
Ivan is an earnest, underemployed chess enthusiast, uninterested in social convention, surely on the autism spectrum.
His older brother, Peter, is debonair, charismatic, a human rights lawyer with an unquenchable thirst for social validation but not a single hobby beyond accomplishment, admiration, and attractive women.
A couple of weeks ago, I was at the Big Ears music festival in Knoxville. I thought I was done with music festivals — too draining. But Big Ears is different.
If the Coachella music festival is Peter — eager to impress and be seen — then Big Ears is Ivan, unbothered by reputation or marketing, earnestly and obsessively focused on the craft of making musical ecstasy for music lovers.
I am not autistic.1 But I am increasingly drawn to people with common autistic tendencies:
Intense focus on specific interests
Hypersensitivity to sensory input
Attention to detail, pattern recognition, recalling memories others forget
A preference for one-on-one interactions over group settings
Literal, earnest communication over sarcasm and irony
A preference for routine and ritual
That’s not necessarily me. I rather easily engage in ironic small talk among a large group at a random, noisy bar. But as I get older and more comfortable with myself, a growing autistic sensibility blossoms. A desire for intense, earnest one-on-one interactions. The intentional cultivation of a hypersensitivity to small subtleties of music and literature. A yearning for routine and ritual. More than anything, like Ivan in Rooney’s novel, I seek to be fully guided by intrinsic motivation — “the desire to do a job well for its own sake,” as Richard Sennett writes — and not social prestige.
I would like to describe in microscopic, psychedelic detail how I experienced each mini-concert throughout the festival, but I will spare you.
Writing about live music is like sharing details from a dream: an illuminating window into the collective unconscious for me, a meaningless abstraction for you. Writing about live music is like taking a photo of a full moon — a stupid white dot on a big black rectangle. You have to be there.
Losing, keeping, and making friends in middle age
I have been thinking recently about losing, keeping, and making friends in middle age. I heard a podcast among three middle-aged women about the same topic and everything resonated.
The trip to Big Ears was important for S, R & me. Or so it felt. It was a time for reaffirmation and ritual. The special bond of watching our favorite bands play live. And discovering new favorite bands, too. I’ve known S for nearly 30 years now and R for over 20. It’s weird to write — those time scales. How can it be that I’ve known S for two-thirds of my life, and yet we only met in high school?
The three of us, we met an older couple from Memphis while waiting in line for Yo La Tengo. They loved us, loved our story — that we’ve managed to hang onto this friendship for so long despite the fights and the words you can’t take back even though you wish you could, but instead, you just say sorry and try to improve.
And you do improve. Even with the inevitable setbacks. Even though I am sure that they will get under my skin like only they can. Because they know me so well. Because they love me. And I told them I love them too because we — and here, I mean men — don’t tell our friends that we love them enough.
So what’s the concluding paragraph that ties this all together with neatly packaged insights? I dunno. Every week passes too quickly and writing may be my attempt to slow it down, to prove to myself that life is more than the passing of time, that I am becoming a truer version of myself. That my friendships do more than merely persist, but actually deepen over time. I suppose the ultimate proof will be when I look back in 20-30 years.
From around 2006-2007, S and I made a music podcast every month. And sometimes R would make an appearance. I was going to share an episode here, but truly, too embarassing. So instead, here’s a playlist by R of some of the groups we saw at Big Ears:
I’m already looking forward to Big Ears 2026. You should come.
Yours,
David
Our is a binary age that relishes diagnoses. Either you’re diagnosed with autism or you’re not. And if you’re not, you’re not supposed to write about it except by amplifying the voices of those who are. So, sorry for breaking the rules.