Part 7 of a seven-part series examining neurodivergence through the lens of usefulness. This article moves beyond analysis to response, arguing that when systems fail to produce belonging or meaning, the only viable path is to construct meaning deliberately. Drawing on lived experience, philosophy, and practice, it explores how to continue without resolution by building something that matters, rather than being defined solely by usefulness.

Contents

1. Introduction: There Is No Resolution Waiting

There is no point at which this resolves, no moment where the system suddenly makes sense, where the gap closes, or where effort converts cleanly into belonging. There is no threshold you cross where usefulness becomes enough, where competence translates into connection, or where success produces the thing it was supposed to produce. That does not arrive later, and it does not arrive at all.

The assumption is that problems should be solved, that if something is difficult enough, persistent enough, or important enough, it will eventually yield to effort, learning, or time, and that improvement leads to resolution. This is not that kind of problem.

You can improve. You can adapt. You can become more capable, more aware, more effective at navigating situations that once felt impossible. But improvement does not remove the underlying structure. It does not change how experience is processed, how connection forms, or how misalignment accumulates over time. Continuing is not the same as solving. It is something else.

1.1 Series Overview

This short series explores the “question of usefulness” across seven perspectives: historical, social, personal, diagnostic, systemic, experiential, and constructive.

• Asperger’s Syndrome and the Question of Usefulness examines the historical origins of the diagnosis in Nazi-era Vienna and the uncomfortable context in which it emerged.
• Neurodiversity and the Question of Usefulness looks at how modern economies increasingly frame neurodivergent cognition in terms of its value to technical industries.
• Lived Experience and the Question of Usefulness reflects on what it means to live inside that dynamic, where certain cognitive traits are valued while the broader reality of neurodivergent experience often remains misunderstood.
• The Spectrum Problem after The Question of Usefulness examines whether the modern autism spectrum accurately reflects the diversity of autistic cognition, or whether diagnostic simplification has obscured meaningful differences in neurological profiles.
• We Still Don’t Understand Neurodivergent Minds Even Beyond the Question of Usefulness brings these perspectives together, exploring how the concept of usefulness continues to shape the conversation and arguing that meaningful inclusion requires changing environments rather than sorting or flattening different kinds of minds.
• When Autism Doesn’t Work: The Human Cost of the Question of Usefulness describes what that dynamic looks like from the inside when it does not work.
• Choose to Build Your Own Meaning Anyway: Beyond the Question of Usefulness explores what remains when usefulness fails as a framework, arguing that meaning must be constructed deliberately rather than assumed to emerge from success or inclusion.

Taken together, these essays explore a simple but important idea: that understanding neurodiversity requires looking not only at cognitive strengths, but also at the historical, social, human, and structural contexts in which those strengths are interpreted, and what follows when those frameworks break down.

2. Meaning Is Not Given… And May Not Exist

There is a long-standing argument that meaning itself is an illusion, that the world does not organise itself around purpose, that it does not provide a structure that guarantees that effort leads to fulfilment, and that any attempt to impose meaning on it is projection. The world does not resolve. It does not explain itself. It does not provide answers that justify the cost of operating within it.

There is truth in that. There is no built-in alignment between what matters to you and how the world works, no guarantee that doing the right things leads to the right outcomes, or that living well produces a life that feels coherent. You can accept that and stop there.

Or you can take a different position. Not that meaning exists in some objective sense, and not that it will be revealed if you search for it long enough, but that it can be constructed. Not discovered, not given, but built, not because the world demands it, but because, without it, you are left operating entirely within systems that define you only in terms of usefulness.

This is not optimism. It does not assume that things improve, that the cost disappears, or that the outcome matches the intention. It is a decision about how to proceed in the absence of those guarantees.

3. If You Are Only Useful, You Will Be Used

Across the series, the same pattern appears repeatedly. Neurodivergent people are valued when they are useful, when they produce, when they solve, when they contribute in ways that align with the needs of the system. The framing shifts over time, from historical classification to modern economic narratives, but the underlying dynamic remains consistent.

If you are useful, you are included. If you are not, you are not. That creates a problem because usefulness is conditional, defined externally, and measured against needs that are not yours in systems that were not built for how your mind works. If that is the only basis on which you are valued, then you are not being valued. You are being used.

The alternative is not to become more useful. It is to build something that is not reducible to usefulness, something that matters to you not because it is validated externally, but because it is aligned with how you think, how you operate, and what you consider worth doing. Something that cannot be withdrawn if you stop being immediately valuable, or reinterpreted through a lens that was never yours.

This does not remove the system. You still operate within it. You still have to function, contribute, and navigate it as effectively as you can. But it is no longer the only structure that defines you.

4. Not a Safe Space, a Safe Environment

This is not abstract. It has to exist somewhere.

For me, one example of that is the West Midlands Cyber Hub. On the surface, it looks like an economic and technical initiative. It brings together students, SMEs, and enterprises, contributes to regional capability, and supports the development of the cyber and technology sectors in measurable ways aligned with broader goals.

That is part of it, but it is not the reason it exists.

The more important aspect is the environment it attempts to create. Not a safe space in the sense of separation or protection from the world, but a safe environment in which different kinds of people can operate without being immediately filtered out by the assumptions built into existing systems.

That includes women, who are often marginalised in technical domains, and neurodivergent people, whose capabilities may be recognised in narrow ways while their broader needs are ignored. The aim is not to isolate or categorise, but to create conditions in which contribution is possible without requiring people to become something they are not in order to participate.

It is not perfect. It does not solve the problem. But it is intentional.

5. This Does Not Make It Easier

None of this makes the underlying reality easier. It does not change how interactions feel, how relationships form, or how the gap between capability and belonging presents itself. It does not remove the cost of masking, the impact of misalignment, or the accumulation of experiences that do not resolve cleanly.

It does not fix anything.

And yet, you continue, not because it works, not because there is a guarantee that it will lead to something better, and not because the system will change or the gap will close, but because stopping does not resolve it either. Continuing is not a solution. It is a position.

This series was never intended as a universal account of autism. It examined one recurring pattern: lives in which competence becomes easier for society to recognise than distress, and usefulness becomes easier to reward than belonging.

This series is also shaped by a very specific autistic configuration: one that gives the work much of its clarity and coherence, while also limiting how universally it can apply.

6. Conclusion: Not Because It Works But Because You Decide It Matters

At that point, the only remaining decision is what to do with that. You can allow the system to define you entirely in terms of usefulness, to determine where you fit, how you are valued, and what your contribution is worth, or you can define something that sits alongside it.

Something you chose. Something you built. Not because it works, not because it is recognised, and not because it resolves the problem, but because you decide that it matters.

This is what it looks like when there is no resolution.

Not absence of effort. Not the absence of capability. But the decision to continue, and to build something anyway.

This series begins with: Asperger’s Syndrome and the Question of Usefulness.

The history of Asperger’s reminds us how societies once judged human worth through usefulness. Lived experience reminds us why that question still matters. The later articles explore what happens when that framework breaks down and what follows.

This article is part of a series:

1. Asperger’s Syndrome and the Question of Usefulness — Historical Origins
2. Neurodiversity and the Question of Usefulness — modern economic narratives
3. Lived Experience and the Question of Usefulness — personal realities
4. The Spectrum Problem after The Question of Usefulness — diagnostic frameworks
5. We Still Don’t Understand Neurodivergent Minds Even Beyond the Question of Usefulness — systemic perspective
6. When Autism Doesn’t Work: The Human Cost of the Question of Usefulness — how it feels from the inside
7. Choose to Build Your Own Meaning Anyway: Beyond the Question of Usefulness — constructive series finale

7. References

1. Frankl, V. (1946). Man’s Search for Meaning. Beacon Press.
2. Camus, A. (1942). The Myth of Sisyphus. Gallimard.
3. Voltaire (1759). Candide.
4. Nietzsche, F. (1883–1885). Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
5. Horkan, W. (2026). Ides of March: Motivational Quotes on Betrayal, Resilience, and Overcoming Hardship.
   https://horkan.com/2026/03/15/ides-of-march-2026-motivational-quotes-on-betrayal-resilience-and-overcoming-hardship
6. Horkan, W. (2024). Zen Koan of the Tigers and the Strawberry.
   https://horkan.com/2024/11/28/zen-koan-of-the-tigers-and-the-strawberry-staying-in-the-moment
7. Horkan, W. (n.d.). West Midlands Cyber Hub related articles
   https://horkan.com/tag/wm-cyber-hub