Over the Christmas break I have had a lot of time to reflect, and boy did I blow it by not making a cheesy “reason for the season” post… so moving on from that tragedy I am not quite sure where to go with this post. Somewhere around Christmas Eve I started thinking that it would be a great idea to discuss all the major emotions in a series of posts that would… wait no bad idea… that would go downhill fast. But of course you all want me to rant about my new tools (yes I did in fact get those 2 years in a row now), or perhaps you would like me to go into great detail about our time watching (and/or mocking) Hallmark movies as a family. But I think I will talk about an even less personal topic, love.
(Yes! I did it! That last line was a Bombshell!)I bet all three of my readers are wondering why I just said that love wasn’t personal, or perhaps simply commenting that this blog could use with a few less of my thought process being recreated on the page, and to you I say it’s my blog I DO WHAT I WANT.
So where were we… oh yes, love that thing that everybody and their mother seems to have an entire book of clichés about. I may have lied when I said this would not focus on Hallmark movies, because if we are to talk about clichés where else would we start? According to their formula (seriously I think they just take old scripts and change a few names) love can be characterized roughly as “feelings and stuff”, ok so not quite that much like how a fourth grader would say it but you get the point. If we are to believe even for a second that they portray the model of romantic love then we would live and decide our lives in that area based solely on attraction, be it physical, emotional, or otherwise. But coming from someone who was a modicum of experience watching those relationships fall apart (I do go to high school after all) I can say I have my doubts in the merits of that system. I may be wrong or just far too cynical but it looks as if we are practicing for divorce as teenagers. Let me explain… every day I watch my peers “fall in love” (which shouldn’t be a saying but I digress), get far too physical far too fast, and all too often break up just as suddenly. The reason I’m not overly fond of that kind of living shouldn’t need explanation but perhaps my loathing of a certain phrase might. “Falling in love” implies a lack of control, and certainly if you are discussing attraction then “falling” certainly applies, it is fast and uncontrollable, but love is nothing of the sort. Perhaps I am naive but I believe that we use that word far too loosely, we LOVE that pizza, millions of people LOVE that pop artist, but in either example aside from a few bizarre outliers none of us really means it. The reason I say this is because LOVE is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
And if you haven’t figured it out quite yet I was quoting scripture, yes that dreaded “draconian” text that is spoken of in hushed tones in school, specifically 1 Corinthians 13:1-7. And say what you will about anything else inside that text but the wisdom of this passage is pretty obvious. If I had to sum it up in one sentence it would be that in all circumstances love is a verb. Love is not an emotion, or a feeling, and I think we have missed the mark entirely by applying it so unanimously to romantic notions. The ubiquity of love in our pop culture is hard to miss, it (or a perversion thereof) is the subject of most of our most beloved songs, and every b-rate film has at least one love driven sub plot. However, if conventional wisdom is to be bucked (and it should) then the feelings we celebrate are inconsequential. That is not to say they are not powerful, or that they are bad. In fact if they didn’t hold such sway over us do you think the world would have been so shocked when the Beatles managed to have chart topping singles that (Gasp) weren’t about love?! The point of all of this is actually quite simple, emotions can be great, and if you happen to like how the people you love look then bonus points to you guys, but even the perfect person cannot be so forever, and love comes in when the façade fades and you are forced to come to terms with the reality of others. They (we) are all flawed and sometimes love looks like encouraging your son’s stupid hobbies by giving him the tools he needs for Christmas.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Contentment (or how to save yourself)
It is approximately midnight, all day I have wanted nothing but to sleep, and yet, here I sit at a computer typing. I tell you this not because I want sympathy, many of you have had far later and much less restful nights, but because I cannot sleep and that is when I get sappier than a chick flick… so buckle up.
This late in November it is a nigh impossible task to spend any meaningful time on the internet and not come across a slew of articles, clips, and blog posts about thankfulness and contentment, and trust me I have tried. Who are these strangers to tell ME how to be thankful; I am the master of thankfulness. I am entirely content (except for that list of gifts I want for my birthday and/or Christmas) but you guys don’t understand, I NEED that new computer, and my PS2 and NES are seriously out of date. Surely they must understand that is true suffering. So it was a real shock to the system over the last 48 hours to realize that my world view is so fundamentally wrong.
The last year has made me a different person, but it never prepared me to face Thanksgiving, not this year not with my grandmother were she is. I am watching the bravest person I have ever known lose the hardest fight of her life and the realization of her disease has knocked the wind out of me. So how now can I find the strength to be truly thankful when I know that so much pain is coming? Perhaps contentment comes when you don’t expect improvement. It may seem like a rather uncouth time to blame society but when we annually celebrate such a selfish practice as trampling one another for cheap electronics just hours after celebrating what we are thankful for I find it hard to be sincere. Each year the promise of upcoming gifts looms over the temporary and manufactured joy of simply being happy. And so as I prepare to spend what we know to be our last holidays with someone so dear to my family it isn’t unreasonable to say that this year more than ever I will be content.
Maybe I am overtired, perhaps I am just emotional, and it’s possible that I am simply off my rocker, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think that we tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. And right now what I do have is a chance to say goodbye, so as I try to get some rest, I pray that the God who has so altered the course of my family’s life would find it in his heart to heal my grandma. And I am praying for a heart that is willing to praise him if he does not, and celebrate the time we have left with her.
This late in November it is a nigh impossible task to spend any meaningful time on the internet and not come across a slew of articles, clips, and blog posts about thankfulness and contentment, and trust me I have tried. Who are these strangers to tell ME how to be thankful; I am the master of thankfulness. I am entirely content (except for that list of gifts I want for my birthday and/or Christmas) but you guys don’t understand, I NEED that new computer, and my PS2 and NES are seriously out of date. Surely they must understand that is true suffering. So it was a real shock to the system over the last 48 hours to realize that my world view is so fundamentally wrong.
The last year has made me a different person, but it never prepared me to face Thanksgiving, not this year not with my grandmother were she is. I am watching the bravest person I have ever known lose the hardest fight of her life and the realization of her disease has knocked the wind out of me. So how now can I find the strength to be truly thankful when I know that so much pain is coming? Perhaps contentment comes when you don’t expect improvement. It may seem like a rather uncouth time to blame society but when we annually celebrate such a selfish practice as trampling one another for cheap electronics just hours after celebrating what we are thankful for I find it hard to be sincere. Each year the promise of upcoming gifts looms over the temporary and manufactured joy of simply being happy. And so as I prepare to spend what we know to be our last holidays with someone so dear to my family it isn’t unreasonable to say that this year more than ever I will be content.
Maybe I am overtired, perhaps I am just emotional, and it’s possible that I am simply off my rocker, but I don’t think that’s the case. I think that we tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. And right now what I do have is a chance to say goodbye, so as I try to get some rest, I pray that the God who has so altered the course of my family’s life would find it in his heart to heal my grandma. And I am praying for a heart that is willing to praise him if he does not, and celebrate the time we have left with her.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
So I am still Alive... Oh I and I still do that Writing thing
It seems that I haven't posted since June... It also seems that I no longer have any subscribers... so that's fun. Good news, I didn't fall of the face of the earth, bad news... I literally have zero free time. So much has happened in the last few months that I cannot even begin to sum it up in one post, nor do I really want to try. Instead I will give you what my dad likes to call the "guy" version, which means short and simplified to the point of inaccuracy. School happened, school and sports and family and a job and tears and stuff, yeah apparently I can be sappy… get over it. I am simply posting now to inform any poor soul still browsing this blog that I am sorry, and that I will be posting again soon, and don’t worry I fully intend on over using the ellipses just as much as ever…
So yeah this is still a thing that exists
So yeah this is still a thing that exists
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Cerulean Blue
This is an old post that I wrote back in April. It was posted on my original site on April 11, it is my thoughts and reactions to how autism is treated by schools and even organizations such as Autism Speaks. Please comment with your thoughts:
April, like clockwork the process of plastering everything with the cerulean blue of autism awareness begins same as every year. Each year growing up I have been made to sit through videos all through the month of April "educating" me about the so called tsunami of autism. But this year is different, for the first time I am going into this month with genuine knowledge about the disorder, and suddenly the false spotlight of April does more than simply shine, it burns, it stigmatizes.
All at once the student council is full of "experts" each one of whom regards autism as a disease to be cured, or a plight which must be eradicated. And each time one of them opens their mouths and begins to recite their speech about autism I die a little bit inside. I open my mouth to rebut, but nothing comes out and I silently go about my day wishing I had the courage speak.
Sometimes I think about what I would have said to those kids, how would I show them that autism isn't a disease, and how would I explain why I care, how could I get my peers to understand that what they don't understand can hurt me more than they know? I listen as comments so ignorant they boggle my mind are made, people are so blissfully stupid that it is easier for them to simply take up the pseudo crusade of autism awareness and ignore those around them who are living with autism every day than it is to educate themselves. I am on the spectrum, not that any of the students that surround me know that. I do not lack empathy, as everyone seems to think of us with autism, in fact I feel more deeply for the suffering of others than many of my peers can imagine. I do not lack emotion, or feeling, and I am not an idiot. And yet, the very people who claim to be the champions of the autistic continually reinforce these same false statements as fact, that all autistic people are somehow damaged.
When I was diagnosed just a few months ago I was in shock, I wanted to scream I am not broken! I had always assumed that autistic was just another word for mentally deficient. I grew up with the idea that because people were different they were somehow worse. The last month or so I have realized that mercifully, incredibly, I was dead wrong. We are human beings with uniquely valuable traits, while social interaction might not be my forte, I take serious offense at the thought that because of some diagnosis I am somehow inferior to my neurotypical counterparts, and have begun to resent the groups such as autism speaks which paint with such a wide brush, assuming that we cannot speak for ourselves, when in fact we can. While some may be nonverbal or even borderline, when given a computer suddenly people who were stigmatized as idiots are capable of expressing amazingly complex ideas. These organizations should highlight that, push for acceptance. Instead we are represented with a puzzle piece. As if the videos and lights were not bad enough, the symbol is a stunningly brazen stab at the autistic community. Perhaps I am the only one who sees this but to me the puzzle piece flies in the face of all that the month supposedly represents. We are not fragmented puzzles, I am a complete human being, with complete human feelings. April should be about learning to accept and encourage those among us with autism, not stigmatize and demean them.
Let me be clear -- autism is not a disease. Autism is a congenital variation in neurological structure -- and a lot of us take pride in our difference. So stop referring to autism as a tsunami, a deluge, an epidemic, a tragedy, a situation, and most of all… a burden. Autism does not need a cure, it needs recognition as a community of individuals who think differently.
April, like clockwork the process of plastering everything with the cerulean blue of autism awareness begins same as every year. Each year growing up I have been made to sit through videos all through the month of April "educating" me about the so called tsunami of autism. But this year is different, for the first time I am going into this month with genuine knowledge about the disorder, and suddenly the false spotlight of April does more than simply shine, it burns, it stigmatizes.
All at once the student council is full of "experts" each one of whom regards autism as a disease to be cured, or a plight which must be eradicated. And each time one of them opens their mouths and begins to recite their speech about autism I die a little bit inside. I open my mouth to rebut, but nothing comes out and I silently go about my day wishing I had the courage speak.
Sometimes I think about what I would have said to those kids, how would I show them that autism isn't a disease, and how would I explain why I care, how could I get my peers to understand that what they don't understand can hurt me more than they know? I listen as comments so ignorant they boggle my mind are made, people are so blissfully stupid that it is easier for them to simply take up the pseudo crusade of autism awareness and ignore those around them who are living with autism every day than it is to educate themselves. I am on the spectrum, not that any of the students that surround me know that. I do not lack empathy, as everyone seems to think of us with autism, in fact I feel more deeply for the suffering of others than many of my peers can imagine. I do not lack emotion, or feeling, and I am not an idiot. And yet, the very people who claim to be the champions of the autistic continually reinforce these same false statements as fact, that all autistic people are somehow damaged.
When I was diagnosed just a few months ago I was in shock, I wanted to scream I am not broken! I had always assumed that autistic was just another word for mentally deficient. I grew up with the idea that because people were different they were somehow worse. The last month or so I have realized that mercifully, incredibly, I was dead wrong. We are human beings with uniquely valuable traits, while social interaction might not be my forte, I take serious offense at the thought that because of some diagnosis I am somehow inferior to my neurotypical counterparts, and have begun to resent the groups such as autism speaks which paint with such a wide brush, assuming that we cannot speak for ourselves, when in fact we can. While some may be nonverbal or even borderline, when given a computer suddenly people who were stigmatized as idiots are capable of expressing amazingly complex ideas. These organizations should highlight that, push for acceptance. Instead we are represented with a puzzle piece. As if the videos and lights were not bad enough, the symbol is a stunningly brazen stab at the autistic community. Perhaps I am the only one who sees this but to me the puzzle piece flies in the face of all that the month supposedly represents. We are not fragmented puzzles, I am a complete human being, with complete human feelings. April should be about learning to accept and encourage those among us with autism, not stigmatize and demean them.
Let me be clear -- autism is not a disease. Autism is a congenital variation in neurological structure -- and a lot of us take pride in our difference. So stop referring to autism as a tsunami, a deluge, an epidemic, a tragedy, a situation, and most of all… a burden. Autism does not need a cure, it needs recognition as a community of individuals who think differently.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
So I guess this is "finding yourself"?
Hello all! I know it has been a while since I last posted
due to the incredibly hectic schedule I had at the end of the school year. So
without further ado I would like to begin…
On Planning for the future:
High school is overwhelming at times, which is scary because
at this time it is readily apparent that the real trouble doesn't start until
after graduation… oh boy. I appreciate that the school administrators are
simply concerned for or future and that is why they force us to take so many
career oriented classes, but honestly for me that has been the hardest part of
school. This is not because these classes are exceedingly difficult (in all
honesty they are guaranteed A’s), but rather because they are meant to help us
make the overwhelming decision on what it is we would like to do for the rest
of our lives. Granted there really is no pressure on us to make actual
decisions in the classroom setting, I began to realize just how daunting of a
task growing up really is.
Errr, well actually I have… kind of. You see I have this bad
habit where I decide that I definitely want to do something, and sticking by
the plan whole heartedly… for approximately two months at best. To pull an example
from the nerdier recesses of the internet I most definitely want to be a floral anthropological historian one day (this is false) and the next I have decided
that I like my prospect more as a professional career fabricator (that is one
who creates fake jobs for a living). While these are both utterly ridiculous
concepts the reality of my wild fluctuations in interests has presented itself
as a problem. What does one do when he could find himself loving certain
aspects of almost any job but hating the bulk of most? Do I simply decide to
search for contentment by finding the job I hate least? I hope not, because I
refuse to simply settle for finding a career based on merely how tolerable I find it. So
what than is my next step? I for one have decided to explore just what it is
that I really enjoy, and you know what my interests have never really changed,
they are just numerous, and quite frankly varied. Here it is me, in a list:
- I find computers fascinating, but am most content outdoors
- Paradoxically my love for the outdoors leads me to love technology more, I need balance
- I enjoy creativity and inventiveness, in writing and creating physical objects
- Often I am incapable of completing a project in writing or mechanical invention without first taking a break to pursue the other hobby
- I love people
- Paradoxically I simultaneously hate dealing with them
- I cannot be placed at a desk and told to work, I need movement and I need freedom
My list is
far from complete I, like everyone else, am incredibly complex and you know
what? I am no closer to finding my dream job, but guess what I still have two
years of high school. So if you had to describe yourself in under 10 bullet points, how would you do it?
Thursday, May 23, 2013
On talking... or whatever it is I do around people
Hi, how are you? Crazy weather right?
Simple if nothing else, these conversation starters may not make you the most well liked person in the world, but at least they get people talking…. right? I mean the weather in Lancaster is super bipolar, and therefore usually a suitable topic.
I wouldn't really know. It’s not that I haven’t tried, I have, believe me, I have. Not that I don’t want to connect as I assure you again, it seems at times to be the sole goal of my efforts. Then, what is holding me back? Nerves? I don’t think so, I don’t get nervous about talking to people but I just don’t understand people, perhaps worse I can’t understand my own brain.
At times it seems that it’s my worst enemy, just picture for a moment I were a fighter jet (bear with me) and a good one at that, I am talking top of the line brand spanking new super-secret research project and my brain was the pilot. I have just embarked on my first combat mission (I am coming to a point soon… I think) well at first sight of an enemy, even one which is far out gunned, my brain hits the eject button. By the time I realize it was just a weather balloon the pilot has already jettisoned and is floating softly to the ground as the now out of control multi-billion dollar jet plummets to the earth….
Perhaps I am being a bit melodramatic but that’s how it feels at times. Suddenly and without warning my mental faculties cease mid conversation, and I am left silent and confused, incapable of communicating. All the strategies and planning in the world can’t save me now, mid-sentence with nothing to say. And that prodigious vocabulary that took years to hone? Gone. My now seemingly absent mind offers up a few meager samplings, about five words… typically resulting in such bumbled attempts to communicate as. Um, well, like you see…. that um like um…. bye.
I do understand that it is always safe to ask questions as long as you have a genuine interest and can do so without repeating yourself or sounding creepy, but honestly I have the tact of a stampede of elephants, and that’s being generous. It’s not because I’m not confident, just ask me, I’m awesome. But finding something… anything to say that doesn't get weird stares often feels like and impossible task.
Today I won’t be offering any answers, just questions. Does anybody else feel like this sometimes? What do you do to help keep up the conversation that you have gotten yourself into?
Simple if nothing else, these conversation starters may not make you the most well liked person in the world, but at least they get people talking…. right? I mean the weather in Lancaster is super bipolar, and therefore usually a suitable topic.
I wouldn't really know. It’s not that I haven’t tried, I have, believe me, I have. Not that I don’t want to connect as I assure you again, it seems at times to be the sole goal of my efforts. Then, what is holding me back? Nerves? I don’t think so, I don’t get nervous about talking to people but I just don’t understand people, perhaps worse I can’t understand my own brain.
At times it seems that it’s my worst enemy, just picture for a moment I were a fighter jet (bear with me) and a good one at that, I am talking top of the line brand spanking new super-secret research project and my brain was the pilot. I have just embarked on my first combat mission (I am coming to a point soon… I think) well at first sight of an enemy, even one which is far out gunned, my brain hits the eject button. By the time I realize it was just a weather balloon the pilot has already jettisoned and is floating softly to the ground as the now out of control multi-billion dollar jet plummets to the earth….
Perhaps I am being a bit melodramatic but that’s how it feels at times. Suddenly and without warning my mental faculties cease mid conversation, and I am left silent and confused, incapable of communicating. All the strategies and planning in the world can’t save me now, mid-sentence with nothing to say. And that prodigious vocabulary that took years to hone? Gone. My now seemingly absent mind offers up a few meager samplings, about five words… typically resulting in such bumbled attempts to communicate as. Um, well, like you see…. that um like um…. bye.
I do understand that it is always safe to ask questions as long as you have a genuine interest and can do so without repeating yourself or sounding creepy, but honestly I have the tact of a stampede of elephants, and that’s being generous. It’s not because I’m not confident, just ask me, I’m awesome. But finding something… anything to say that doesn't get weird stares often feels like and impossible task.
Today I won’t be offering any answers, just questions. Does anybody else feel like this sometimes? What do you do to help keep up the conversation that you have gotten yourself into?
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Introductions (my first rant)
OK forget the catch-phrase, that's never gonna happen. I guess here goes nothing...
I once heard it said that each and every one of us is suffering through the same debilitating mental illness... mortality. Variations of the quote have it ending with the words humanity, sin, emotion, etc. Essentially word choice is important, that quote can inspire, demoralize, confuse, and polarize, sometimes even all of the above. Regardless, I have chosen to focus on the first part of that phrase "each and every one of us" the author of this quote would have us believe that we all are driven by the same thing, that the human condition as its referred to affects us all in the same way, or at least that’s how I took it. Right away I entered a fit of indignation, I was screaming on the inside, how could anyone be so ignorant? Had they not noticed the kids like me sitting in the corner, not interacting, apart, and seemingly entirely isolated? Sure I try to keep up with what’s happening in the world around me, I listen to popular music (Dizzy Gillespie is still popular right?), watch popular television (the second doctor was the best, period), and even watch popular sports at times (F.C. Chelsea all the way). But yeah, it’s pretty safe to say I live under a rock. At least it’s a rock with windows, that is to say I spend five days a week in the penitentiary called high school, where like it or not, I am forced to get my daily dose of social interaction. Each day my peers seem to interact without fear or trepidation whilst I struggle agonize in my attempt to connect. But aside from my many (currently unimportant) qualms with our education system I don’t dread it anymore. If nothing else I have become a master at listening and observing. One of the things that I noticed right away is that if you are willing to shut up and listen, which comes very naturally to me, people will pour their souls out to you. And do you know what? That quote isn’t wrong, while not everyone is as socially awkward as me and certainly very few get frustrated as quickly as I, one thing is sure… everyone feels incomplete. And while people still don’t make sense to me I have been able to wrap my head around one thing.
No matter who you are, what groups you claim membership of, where your allegiance lies, or how you view religion/ politics/ insert controversial issue here; each of us has a void, a flaw, a missing piece if you will. And so without further ado I would like to pose a question, THE question that I hope will get us all started off on the right foot. Please answer as you feel comfortable in the forum section under introductions and be honest.
Who am I and what makes me unique? And: What do I feel I am missing? (I know it is two questions, but it’s my blog I don’t have to play fair)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)