What Do You Enjoy Most About Being Autistic

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The special interests, and the ability, once I manage to get started on something and if I enjoy it enough, to focus for hours.

The special interests, combined with the fact that I'm never bored.

The ability to keep oneself amused. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Also, the ability to focus on a topic of interest. I have only recently discovered that most 'normal' people are not able to concentrate on a thing with such intensity that anything else is excluded and any information related to the topic is absorbed very rapidly. They just can't - I suppose that the ability to socialise eats up their abiliy to focus.

Being able to to Mind Melds.

ruveyn

Even though synesthesia is co-morbid with autism I think being autistic makes me appreciate it more. A lot of people have it and don't know it. Being autistic makes me think about it in such a deeper way.
I like to make these little connections which only make sense to me. In fact I find connections in almost everything and it's quite fun.
I love being so obsessed with something I could look at the world and see it as nothing but physics, or I could break things up on a quantum level.
I even question science at times and come up with my own theories.
I like being able to have my own mind. Many people hold a collective mental view on the world and mine is different, often incorrect (when trying to read people) but it is mine.

I love my high attention to detail. I can get lost in everyday items by just looking at and feeling them.

I like that am completely me. That even though my quirks get made fun of I don't try to change them to fit the social norm. And people seem to like me anyway so even if I wanted to change I wouldn't.

I love thinking constantly about things, becoming curious and doing my own little projects to occupy myself with.

I also think my savant skill is doing find-a-words in record time. It's the only thing I can do as though I barely have to think about it, and from the first words to the last. It helps that I usually read words backwards.

I like the lucid dreaming. I know a bad day will end happy with the dreams that I want and can control.

Intelligence and insatiable curiosity. I like that my inability to be a sheep and conform means I'm able to challenge authority where necessary. I enjoy, well, get job satisfaction, out of a job well done, I'm a perfectionist and work to high standards and I like to feel a sense of achievement when you meet or exceed someone's expectations. I enjoy the quirky way my mind sometimes works - I'm quite good at 'joining the dots', seeing links between apparently disparate facts, people, information, and putting them together, I guess it's a bit like putting the pieces together in an intellectual jigsaw puzzle. Except sometimes, I get the feeling that not only am I the only one who's putting all these jigsaw pieces together, I seem to be the only one aware of all these jigsaw puzzles.

I do not think in terms if criterion, diagnostic self-identity nor care much for what is different or similar about myself 99% of the time with others. Therefore I like my ability to concentrate on things very intently in disregard of other these and other concerns. However the side-affect of this is forgetting other things, inability to focus on other things and troubles I will not describe online that I get social services for.

Same here! In fact, I wouldn't have been diagnosed with AS if it weren't for synesthesia. People always told me when I was little that numbers did not have colors, etc. Then I learned about synesthesia and realized I was right - numbers could have colors. When my family questioned my self-diagnosis, the only reason I didn't give up on AS was that I knew it was possible for me to be right.

I love my obsessive interests. I've learned all kinds of things from Greek mythology to cat breeds to Finnish history. The best part is the feeling of passion and purpose. I feel the most alive when I develop a new special interest.
I love remembering things. I know the first 100 digits of pi, the periodic table, the names and capitals of all the countries in the world, 30+ license plate numbers, dozens of phone numbers, countless names, and all kinds of trivia from books.
I love being self-motivated. I'm not dependent on rewards or punishments to get things done.
I love being close to animals. I'm good at reading them.
I love noticing and remembering details. I feel like I notice more than other people, which is a good thing when I'm not overwhelmed.
I love the way I see the world, and how that comes through in my art.
I love it when my sensory sensitivities are good. There are certain sounds and sights that are more enjoyable than anything else.
I love that I'm honest and direct, and not passive-aggressive. I've lost some of that honesty and directness, but I'm working on getting it back.
I love that I don't need other people to be stimulated and fulfilled. I enjoy my own company and can spend hours just thinking.

I kind of enjoy the perpetual sense of misery. It gives me a sense of self rightegeousness; as if the whole world owes me. I will be laughing one day in kingdom come.

This is what I would have said and you said it very well.

The chicks

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Bertrand Russel:

It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else that prevents us from living freely and nobly."

I like my ability to remain detached and objective as well as find humor in almost every situation. I used to be way more direct and honest with ppl. I'm still honest, but after years and years of ridicule from kids and adults for putting my foot in my mouth by saying whatever came to mind I went the other way. I'm now very reserved and quiet and it takes getting to know someone quite well before I'll open up. Even then, though, I'm about as blunt as they come. I wish I was a little more open like I used to be, but wouldn't mind if I could blunt my bluntness a little lol.

My apologies. Perhaps you didn't catch the humor in the reference to psychopathology. To clarify, things like OCD are considered a psychopathology. It can cause problems. But it can also be put to good use. I have had moments of fairly debilitating obsessiveness, but I have also used my obsessiveness to advance my understanding of photography, computer graphics etc. It's a psychopathology, but I have made it work for me.

In regard to autism being a disability only if it gets in your way, isn't that the nature of a disability? ASD being a spectrum disorder means that there are people with extreme conditions and some with relatively mild conditions. There are aspects of autism that can be useful it they are mild enough. I do not consider these to be a disability. My ASD has a down side in that I have a great deal of trouble with close relationships, but it also has a up side in that I can focus on subjects and understand them at a level that many people cannot.

If I were to look at the problems I have in life and assume that I couldn't do anything, that would be giving in. I don't like giving in and I don't like quitting. I'm lucky that the things I struggle with are within my abilities. I have a great deal of sympathy for those who struggle with far greater problems. But I advocate looking at what fated handed you and making an effort to make the best of it. I wouldn't want to reach the end of my life and think that I hadn't really tried.

I enjoy the way my mind works, or the way it processes the world.