Assuming I'm autistic - still on the fence about that, but leaning - the thing I've always felt set me apart at work is my ability to make connections between very different things. I resolved an issue with cracks in a crystalline substrate by putting it into the context of my hobby, woodworking. To me it's a logical progression, but to everyone else it's the wildest kind of leap.
Does anyone else here do that? Find a solution by extrapolating in unusual directions?
I feel this! I make a lot of analogies when trying to explain things and sometimes it's a hit and people love the helpful framing/connection. Other times, it falls flat. Often it's because my perspective of the object/system in my analogy is way different than how the audience sees it.
@ScottSoCal my thinking is defined by "leaps in logic"! I've always collected knowledge, all different kinds of facts about how things work, bits and pieces from every field and while I can't remember when this has lead to me solving a problem, I have a bad memory I just know it's happened in the past, the most recent "leap" I can recall is thinking about light sabers and "accidentally" working out why the basic/neutral guard for a two handed blade is what it is from like a physics perspective.
@ScottSoCal @actuallyautistic Yes, all the time.