Here’s a new question for other autistic people: do you ever find that a thing you might be able to do for yourself is not something you can do for other people? As if only an internal motivation provides the necessary lubrication for those cognitive gears to engage? I’ve often had people tell me, for example, to look at jobs 1, 2, or 3 because they’ve seen me talk about doing X, Y, or Z, but I know from the experience of decades that literally I can’t do X, Y, or Z for other people. (This is not limited to employment questions; this is just the easiest example.) I know that my brain won’t function for them the way it will function for myself, and I’ve never been able to find a way to explain this that doesn’t sound like selfishness, laziness, or simply an excuse. The above is the closest I can come to illustrating it: without the internal motivation, the gears don’t move.