tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54198593342080411392024-03-05T06:51:18.542-07:00Owl's Cyber NestI appear to have something to hoot about.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.comBlogger246125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-70562563410940185582022-04-23T19:39:00.004-06:002022-04-23T19:39:55.066-06:00The tension of becoming a Reorder Youtuber<p> Being a self taught recorder player there is always the question of who my "audience" is. It's well enough to play for my own pleasure but performance gives a certain excitement, a sense of purpose for pursuing excellence, and a community. Playing as part of a school band or orchestra always has performance built into the model somehow but there is nothing automatic about it. I've enjoyed performing at church a few times, but it's been a struggle to find my comfort level with it. Our society largely uses recorders as educational toys with no intention that anyone actually learn how to play properly, so if you announce a recorder performance a lot of people will expect nothing but what they've experienced before. I didn't want to play in public until I could smash away people's expectations. Also, my experience is that many music performers aren't really that good until they've been playing for a fair number of years, so I have had trouble believing that my playing is any good. Early on I felt like I was playing quite well but I assumed that was just the <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Dunning–Kruger effect in play, the overconfidence of the beginner. I am quite aware I'm prone to such over confidence so I made a point to find recordings by actual professional players to compare myself with, which was both inspirational and quite sobering. Erik Bosraaf, </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span aria-level="1" class="yKMVIe" role="heading">Lucie Horsch, and </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span aria-level="1" class="yKMVIe" role="heading">Michala Petri</span> sound amazing and often given me whole new perspectives on what the instrument can sound like. But, there is no way I'm ever going to perform like people who started serious performance practice as young children and went to world class conservatories for training. Continually comparing myself to them isn't healthy, but as a self taught player I struggle to find many alternatives. When I do perform in public I often feel like I need to practice for months before I'm worthy to present my art and I'm so obsessive about it I struggle to practice anything else in the meantime, giving public performance a really high cost both in terms of time and emotional investment.<br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The other performance venue I've had consistent access to is posting video's online. I didn't want to do much of this to begin with. I've had my share of experiences with internet trolls and again even when I felt like my performance was exciting and excellent I knew the Dunning-Kruger effect was altering my perceptions. Nothing seemed likely to draw trolls as much as an overconfident beginner playing badly without knowing it. But on the other hand people did seem to appreciate seeing what I was doing, so I mostly posted video's in private chat messages and only occasionally posted them for everyone to see. As my equipment improved my recording files became too large to send in private chat messages and sending videos became very cumbersome.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">While learning to do live broadcasts for my church I had to learn to use YouTube. Posting on YouTube has been the perfect solution to the difficulty of uploading video files for every person or group I want to share with individually. It's been a big step forwards emotionally to post performances there, a statement to myself that what I'm doing is worth showing to the public. To begin with it was mostly only a few family and friends looking, but recently the audience has expanded and my video's are getting many more views. That is emotionally exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. I don't want to get sucked down the track of trying to compete for attention on the world stage, become hooked on giving YouTube free labor on the possibility that I could become monetized, or spend enormous sums of money setting up a home recording studio. But on the other hand it feels like validation that all of my obsessive practice has actually started to pay off and I'm musically maturing. I'll never be a professional, but I can now consider myself a mature beginner. It's nice to feel like I've finally arrived.<br /></span></span></p>CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-20263585146001280072020-05-30T21:47:00.003-06:002020-05-30T21:47:57.782-06:00Learning Recorder - One Year retrospectiveWhen life took a few wrong turns I stopped being able to play trombone, it felt a bit like part of my life had gone missing. I've been living in apartments ever since and I've always been afraid to start practicing again because it seemed inevitable my neighbors wouldn't tolerate the loud noise. There isn't really much of a way around it, trombones are loud. With my career not really moving anywhere in a hurry and housing prices raising much faster than my income does it doesn't seem likely I'll be in a house where I could practice trombone in the forseeable future. So it had felt as if playing music just wasn't going to be part of my life anymore.<br />
<br />
About a year ago that changed. One was a friend gave our son a recorder as a birthday present. My father, who is a recorder player, mentioned he was a self taught recorder player and suggested my son could self teach as well if he was motivated enough. This took me totally by surprise. When I learned to play trombone I had never heard of anybody seriously attempting to self teach an instrument if they wanted to play it properly. I hadn't known the recorder had a reputation for being an instrument that you could self teach. Also, we learned one of the main reasons the recorder fell out of favor as an instrument was that it was too quiet to compete in the orchestra's that developed during the romantic era. But a quiet instrument is just perfect for us. Once we knew, my wife and I decided it would be fun to learn how to play together and we started down a new road together.<br />
<br />
So now that it has been a year, what is it like to try to learn the recorder without a teacher? In some ways it is a lot harder than learning to play the trombone. There is no one to catch it when you hold the instrument incorrectly unless you catch it yourself. There is no one there to diagnose what isn't working when a technique just fails to come together. There is no schedule of performances to prepare for through the public school system. But, there is the internet. There are online web forums where people discuss learning the recorder, where people swap self recorded videos of there own playing for feedback, and where you can find information about what books to buy and what brands to favor. There are high quality youtube channels where professional recorder players share tutorials.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately the internet isn't as convenient as it could be, especially if you are new to the recorder. You can't trust amazon product listings or reviewers to know whether a method book is for Alto or Soprano recorder. Some listings will claim a book is for both when it isn't. Some enthusiastic but ignorant product reviewers will claim that as well. Online sheet music dealers will claim to be able to special order books they can't actually get their hands on. Many recorder method books are bad quality or are written for children who can't read music or both. Many of the good quality recorder method books published more recently are only in foreign languages. Many of the good English books were published in the 1960's or 70's and have gone out of print or are only available from specialty stores that charge high prices. But with determination it is possible to get your hands on good quality English recorder method books meant for adults who don't want to relive their elementary school glory days of playing nursery rhymes.<br />
<br />
What is it like cost wise to pick up the recorder? Comparatively speaking, very cheap, especially in comparison with other hobbies or instruments. Just for a quick comparison, many video games can be completed within 60 hours of playing and cost $60/ea. So video games as a hobby often can cost around $1/hr even before you factor in the cost of buying and periodically upgrading the video console. If you buy a $300 nintendo switch and then a new video games once every month or two your first year expenses will be between $720 and $1,020.00. For comparison, a good quality resin alto recorder can cost between $25-$60 depending on the brand and model and for all practical purposes they don't wear out. I bought a $25 dollar model and have been very happy with it. The two volumes of Hugh Orr's basic recorder method for Alto cost me about $40.00 and I still haven't finished them after a year of steadily studying them. So the core expenses for my first year of music study have been only $65.00. Sure, there are side expenses on top of that such as a book of scales and arpeggios, reference materials, additional sheet music etc. But most of those we didn't strictly need and our total expenses aren't in the hundreds of dollars and won't get anywhere near the cost of a video game hobby. In comparison with other musical instruments, a good quality recorder above a student model generally costs between $300-$900. Most good quality musical instruments easily cost much much more than that and even the student models often cost that much.<br />
<br />
So if you love to play music but are stuck in an apartment like me, a quiet instrument like the recorder is a wonderful choice.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-38982287436305638892019-01-30T23:53:00.000-07:002019-01-30T23:53:02.791-07:00Lonely PanicMaybe it was last week, maybe a few months ago, maybe in 4th grade. It makes little difference really. I'm lonely. I'm so different that most of my peers won't have anything to do with me, nothing personal but I'm just that weird. If I relax at all and just act me it almost always goes wrong, so I've been hiding for a long time. Long enough to lose touch with the part of me that is hiding and I'm not even sure what that part of me looks like anymore. That leaves me... hungry... Most people I've ever tried to explain this to simply don't understand and might even make insulting comments about how its my fault for not smiling enough.<br />
<br />
Every once in a while the social deck is reshuffled a new person comes into my life. Maybe a new student in the class, a new coworker, almost anyone. Instead of being a novelty that I can choose to ignore or accept from a position of security I'm often so hungry for contact I can't help but hopefully imagine that this new person is going to be when I break through and the isolation will be over. Generally speaking its a short lived hope. Many of the people I've intentionally tried to befriend practically don't even notice me. Others became outright hostile. I can remember in particular one new kid around 5th grade that I tried to make friends with by trying to help him with the new kid bullying he was being subjected to and he outright told me to leave him alone and stop trying to help him. Other kids I'd try to invite to come play on the sole basis that they never tormented me and seemed nice enough and they'd start tormenting me to drive me away. There were a few people who would be friendly with me, mostly from the bottom of the social ladder. Generally it didn't extend as far as being invited to come and play and since my family didn't celebrate my birthday once I got beyond the first few grades of elementary school I couldn't even build a social network by inviting people over to parties once a year. I coped by trying to be invisible which only worked so well when it seemed some kids made fun of me not to get a rise out of me but to prove to others that they weren't low class like me. This was before the Columbine shooting happened so there weren't anti bullying policies in place to protect kids like me. And really, those policies came into existence more in fear of school shootings than because anybody cared, so its not as if I feel grateful to society for changing those policies after I was gone. In any case, it was bad enough that when my parents pulled me out of school to home school me most everyone assumed it was because of the bullying that virtually everyone seemed to know about other than my parents. For me it was a huge relief just to escape the anger and despair I had felt at being trapped in a toxic social cesspool. It was only a short time before my home became a new hell to replace the one I had just left, but for a while at least it seemed as if I was actually free.<br />
<br />
To this day I can find myself in the same pattern, unable to socially relate to anyone in a particular environment, becoming desperately hopeful when the social deck is reshuffled, and often being disappointed. A few months back this happened again and a coworker seemed fairly intent on making sure I knew I wasn't wanted, making comments in front of me about how they only wanted their actual friends to talk to them, ignoring my existence if I tried to start a conversation, that sort of thing. I started having panic attacks - feeling as if I was still trapped back in public school hell. I was able to request a seating rearrangement to escape the situation but I was so far gone before I was able to get up the courage to ask that I could barely avoid breaking into tears while trying to make a generic request to be moved. Apparently that part of my life hasn't really left me, one of a set of traumatizing experiences that leave me not only socially incompetent as comes with autism but practically terrified of launching new conversations. Social anxiety might be irrational in many situations, but the fact that it develops in the first place is at times completely unsurprising. While thanking everyone who has given me safe haven to be as much of myself as I could figure out, I also wish that more people could understand what is going on.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-4270932293090058512018-08-30T16:29:00.005-06:002018-08-30T20:15:07.431-06:00Current Reading ListI've always been a bookworm. Books are easier to understand than people and sometimes more forgiving too. So for people who have always known me it should be no surprise that I always seem to be carrying around a small library and this has only gotten worse now that I have audiobooks. In part this is because I can carry around a large number of books on a memory card. In part this is because my book holds on the Overdrive app have a tendency to all show up at the same time, creating boom and bust cycles in how many books I am trying to finish at the same time. Here is my current reading/listening list:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Fiction</b></div>
<ul>
<li>The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan</li>
</ul>
A fantasy classic, needs no explanation. Listening to audio books at work makes it a lot easier to tackle a big series like this.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander</li>
</ul>
The Chronicles of Prydain is
one of my all time favorite childhood reads that has carried into
adulthood. I've been relistening to the series.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Forever War by <span data-ved="2ahUKEwj78YyX4ZXdAhVhw4MKHTOBA_4Q2kooAjAVegQICBAO">Joe Haldeman</span></li>
</ul>
<span data-ved="2ahUKEwj78YyX4ZXdAhVhw4MKHTOBA_4Q2kooAjAVegQICBAO">I
picked up this war in outer space audio book because it won both the
Hugo and the Nebula Award. So far it has been a fascinating and yet
frustrating read. The story seems to be a science fiction version of
the horror stories I heard as a child on Christian talk radio about why
women shouldn't be in the military. At first I was wondering if this
novel was the source of those imagined horrors or perhaps had been
influenced by whoever invented that narrative. Then I discovered that
according to wikipedia this book is commonly interpreted as a
metaphorical retelling of the author's</span><span data-ved="2ahUKEwj78YyX4ZXdAhVhw4MKHTOBA_4Q2kooAjAVegQICBAO">
experiences in the Vietnam War. This would suggest that the story
should be read as social and political criticism of the conditions
between 1950's-1970's. If I read the story as social and political
criticism instead of as a futuristic horror story about why talk radio
hosts believe women shouldn't be in the military then it is a hauntingly
beautiful story about the difficulty of navigating social change and of the depressing futility of war.</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny</li>
</ul>
I managed to get the
entire Chronicles of Amber on audiobook and started the series again when I was temporarily out of books. Unfortunately I am very full on books right now and was caught in the middle of the book. I am very fond of this series.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Non Fiction</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<ul>
<li>A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn</li>
</ul>
When I
am in between books I often like to listen to a book on history. As a
result I work my way through them very slowly. This book is at once
fascinating and very frustrating. The author proposes to write a
history of the United States where the story telling emphasis of what
gets included or not is based on an allegiance to the working class
rather than on the rich and the powerful. This is at once extremely
enlightening and frustrating. It exposes the ways the government of the
United States has often worked against the needs and ideals of the
common people in favor of the needs and ideals of the rich. It is
frustrating because for one that isn't always a pleasant part of US
history to look at and also because sometimes I think it stops being a
history of the common working class and almost feels like the author is
instead giving a frustrated rant complaining that there hasn't been a worldwide
communist revolution yet.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Paul: A Biography by N.T. Wright</li>
</ul>
N.T. Wright is a
prominent Anglican theologian who specializes on, among other things,
the writings of Paul. This book focuses on Paul from a biographical
perspective and sounded like fun. It is quite interesting so far,
discussing the theological, political, and mystic influences Paul likely
interacted with. I listen to this when I'm tired of listening to
fiction.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Spiritual</b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<ul>
<li>The Contemplative Journey by Thomas Keating</li>
</ul>
This is a lecture series discussing the practice and theology of a Christian meditation practice as interpreted by Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith by Marcus Borg</li>
</ul>
In this book Borg, a recently deceased prominent Episcopalian theologian, explores a theology of God based on a renewed emphasis on God's immanence and how a renewed emphasis on this concept affects religious beliefs and practices more broadly. This has been a fascinating read, though slow since I mostly read it while I'm on break at work. I've almost finished it.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Too Deep for Words: Rediscovering Lectio Divina by Thelma Hall</li>
</ul>
Lectio Divina is a traditional practice of reading the bible as a form of meditative prayer. This short book teaches the ideas and practices involved in this form of bible reading. I mostly read this on Sunday's when the kids give me a break to do something on my own and that isn't often. So far the ideas presented have been very similar to concepts I've encountered in Thomas Keating, probably because they are both building on the ideas of Thomas Merton.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><span data-ved="2ahUKEwj78YyX4ZXdAhVhw4MKHTOBA_4Q2kooAjAVegQICBAO">The Bible</span></li>
</ul>
<span data-ved="2ahUKEwj78YyX4ZXdAhVhw4MKHTOBA_4Q2kooAjAVegQICBAO">I've been reading the bible in a cycle known as the Daily Office Lectionary. It has been one of my most enjoyable times reading through since I purchased an NRSV study bible which has much better study aids than I grew up with. For example, I think this is the first time I've ever read through the Book of Judges and actually understood the narrative themes that tie the entire book together instead of viewing it as bunch of mostly disconnected stories.</span> CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-45166762638553644912017-11-01T22:06:00.000-06:002017-11-01T22:06:47.821-06:00Autistics Speaking DayWhat is it like to me to be autistic? Well, have you ever had writers block? I mean those times when you sit staring at a piece of paper for ten minutes, an hour, or maybe even days knowing that you should have something to say. Or maybe you even need to say something because it is a school assignment or a work evaluation and just nothing will come? Maybe your earliest experiences with writing were attacked by a grammar Nazis who couldn’t tell the difference between cultivating the creative process and the sense of power it gave them to point out all your misplaced commas? And after their loving attention, every stinking time you try to write it is as if your middle school English teacher is staring over your shoulder, telling you your formatting is wrong before you’ve even written a single word?<br /><br />That is how I feel when I try to do “small talk.” Like staring at a blank piece of paper that just won’t let itself be written. When I do try to talk it often doesn’t go well. I’ve probably been asked more than a thousand times if I could “say that again in English.” It’s probably been more than a thousand times that people tell me “stop making me think.” It has probably been more than a million times that people have told me to “stop using such big words.” While there generally have always been some people who could accept the way I spoke without criticism, these were very common reactions and they even happened routinely within my own family. While there are people who try to impress others by "talking smart" I am not one of them. I can't turn it off. Compared to a typical mind I tend to understand and describe the world in its “details” rather than in its “big picture.” The literal meaning of words is just as obvious if not more obvious than the social meaning. Connections between ideas that seem obvious to me are at times obscure to other people. All of this spills over into how I speak. To successfully talk with other people I often have to consciously “translate” my natural language into “normal people” language. If I get excited by an interesting discussion I sometimes forget to “translate” and sometimes people stop being able to understand me at all. It is easier for me to talk about specific ideas and concepts than it is to perform the “talk about nothing” social ritual that normally lubricates social interactions. The larger the group of people, the harder it is for me to do small talk. I also have very little feel for guessing in real time how people will react to the things that I say, often only realizing afterwards if something would be likely to come across wrong.<br /><br />So what does it do to you to be different like that? It makes you into the mostly silent kid who “talks like a professor.” Most people are not ready to be friends with someone who has trouble doing small talk because small talk is the language they use to navigate the early stages of relationship. If you don't do it, they might assume you don't want to have anything to do with them. Even if they know that you are technically part of their social group, they have trouble viewing you as anything other than the "smart person" whom they only talk to if they want to know something. I was lucky growing up to have a good friend who excelled at connecting me with larger social groups, so as a I child I was nowhere near as bad off as I might have been. There is unfortunately a limit of what one person can do. In many social contexts I became the lonely kid who is told over and over that if they don’t have friends it is their fault for not smiling enough. That is about as useful as telling someone in a wheel chair that if they really wanted to be included in the party upstairs they’d just quit whining and walk up the stairs like everybody else. It isn’t that I don’t want friends or that I don’t smile at people. It isn’t that I don’t want to talk to people. But even holding what to someone else seems a “normal” small talk conversation can be a good deal of work. It can be a relief to hang out with people who are well educated enough that they’d never think to complain that talking to me makes them think too much. Well educated people are also much more likely to enjoy talking about ideas (easy for me to do) rather than endlessly talking about nothing (very hard for me to do). For all the honor students, graduate students, and college professors who might wonder why I hung around you so much, now you know why. People who actively accept people who are different than them are also a joy.<br /><br />I do have autistic traits other than difficulty socializing. I have poor executive functioning skills, stims, sensory sensitivities, and obsessions. For the most part, however, these don’t interfere with my life as much as the social anxiety and awkwardness. My poor executive function, or inherent ability to organize myself to get things done, is no where near as bad as some people have. My sensory abnormalities, which used to make warm water, beans, and sales tags attached to clothing unbearable, diminished in severity during adolescence. My stims, including sequentially touching each finger to thumb or tapping my feet are noticeable to those who know me. I can’t pretend these don’t impact me at all since I was once told by a man that if I were to apply for a job from him he probably would not hire me because he thought my stims would be unsettling to customers. However, in my daily life they don’t get in my way. No one has ever made concerted effort to “cure” me of stimming, so unless I am in a job interview, interacting with police (who might think I look nervously guilty or on drugs), or doing public speaking I rarely feel insecure about stimming. Other autistics aren’t so lucky, having had doctors and family go to great lengths to try to cure them of their stims to the point where they have debilitating anxiety just being in public for fear that someone might see them fidget. My obsessions, which at times have made it difficult for me to talk about anything other than birds, telescopes, armadillos, or whatever idea had come to me recently, come with less frequency and intensity now. Instead of hardly being able to talk about anything else, I now often find myself able to talk about other things if someone else starts the conversation. If I am starting a conversation I might have trouble thinking of anything to say outside of my obsession. If my particular interest at any given time is socially inappropriate for the situation, like say talking about exercise routine design with obese people for example, I generally stay silent. Silence is easy, except for bit where you are automatically isolated from people who don’t accept companionship in silence.<br /><br />It is often difficult to talk about how I am affected by being on the autism spectrum even when I am prepared to describe it eloquently. Many people can accept it without difficulty, but it is common that some people just don’t want to believe that my life is in any ways substantially different from theirs. When they see that I obviously can socialize to some extent, they can’t accept that it might still be difficult in a meaningful way. Jane Meyerding, writing in the anthology “Coming Out Asperger” (p. 254) describes the problem well:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
The only way to escape the generous NT assumption that “we’re all alike” - and that the only acceptable way for a decent person to react to difference is to refuse to acknowledge it - is to “hit them over the head” with an example too outrageous to be reinterpreted as “normal.” And that’s a shame. As Larry Arnold has written, “nobody turns around and says to someone that they can’t have arthritis because they are not in a wheelchair”</blockquote>
Some people who don’t understand autism or who don’t want to believe that I am autistic will think I am whining or being a wuss about having had a bad childhood. They might think that everybody struggles in middle or high school, right? So I should just move on with my life like everybody else. Or they accuse me of having a bad attitude, telling me the lie from childhood that if I just smiled at people more I’d find more friends. Or they tell me that I am gifted in life to be able to make it my life mission to socialize with other misfits to make them less lonely. I don’t think people who say this realize they are asking me to take on the social work they would rather not or cannot do themselves and that unless the misfit in question is a misfit in the same way I am, there isn’t any automatic reason I am particularly suited to the task. While I am happy to try, as part of being an ethical person, if we are misfits in different ways I might even be worse at trying to reach out to them than other people would be.<br /><br />What I wish for is that there was some reliable way I could communicate to the world that I want to socialize and be friendly with them but it will help if they take the lead in starting and helping to maintain the conversation. Or if I was not feeling up to being able to verbally socialize, that people would meaningfully include me even when I am not able to use language in a social way. For example, when people bring treats in to work to share with the people in cubicles near them they often don’t even offer them to me, acting as if I weren’t even there even though sharing treats is not based in language. This kind of inclusion would be exactly the same kind of politeness that nobody blinks an eye over when they hold a door open for a person using crutches. I’ve never learned how to advertise that need for a little help to be included, though I do try. My desk even has a sign by it saying “Say Hi to Me” on it. People see my silence or perhaps the adaptations I use to help with my auditory sensory issues (I typically can’t filter out the distraction of background sounds and loud background noise levels can be distressing) and assume that I just don’t want to talk to them. It is not uncommon that when I try to start conversations with people they seem unaware that I even spoke to them. I am fairly sure it is not because they can’t hear me. My voice is naturally on the loud side and I have trouble always even realizing it when I need to be quieter. I can never tell for certain if I just missed a social cue that would let them know to pay attention or whether they are actively ignoring me. I worry that if they are ignoring me and I keep trying harder to get their attention on the assumption that I missed giving the right social cue, I might make myself positively obnoxious. I am fairly certain that at least part of the problem is that in a new social situation it can take me a long time to warm up to people, and by the time I am ready to talk to them (say after several months of sitting near them at work) they no longer view me as part of their social group and are caught by surprise when I speak. All I know for certain is that I made a substantial effort to overcome my own social anxiety to talk to them and they acted as if I weren't there. Trying to be socially invisible was something I did as a child to avoid being tormented by bullies. I stopped trying to be socially invisible years ago, but I often still feel invisible.<br /><br />
Even though in many environments it is common for me to face some degree of social rejection, I rarely see it as the result of people being mean. People simply find it easier to only socialize with people who are like them. That is a natural instinct that serves "normal" people pretty well because there are gobs of "normal" people they can meet at almost any time. For people who have never struggled to find friends, it seems almost mind boggling that only socializing with people who are like you doesn't work for everyone. I can go years at a time without meeting a new person who I naturally get along with instead of having to work hard and long to build even a basic relationship. For people who find friends easily, it is easiest to imagine that somehow this is my fault and they have no idea the mental toll their exclusion takes on me. <br />
<br />
Despite all of this, I still try to socialize with my peers at work and
elsewhere. I often feel discouraged but I still try. Since I often
have only a distant awareness of my emotions I often can't tell the
negative emotions from this discouragement are building up until they
are intense. Sometimes the only way I know I am in under severe stress
is because my body starts showing medical symptoms of high stress such as
my jaw muscles locking up, my eye lids start twitching, and my acid
reflux getting worse. Occasionally the feelings become strong enough to
directly break into my awareness and I have exhausting days where I
think I am feeling fine and then suddenly find myself so deep in anxiety
an depression that I have difficulty focusing. Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg, writing in the anthology Loud Hands (p. 274) describes the emotional landscape I find myself within with painful beauty:<br />
<blockquote>
Put yourself in our shoes. It is vital that able-bodied people consider how soul-wearying it is to keep trying until one finds those people who simply accept the awkwardness - my awkwardness, their awkwardness, our awkwardness - and make a connection. It hurts the heart to keep going out and trying. Ask yourself: What is keeping you from extending a word, a listen, a desire for connection to us? And how does your failure to use your social skills to bring other human beings into community translate into a social disability located in autistic people, rather than in the able-bodied world?</blockquote>
To all the people I have known who have accepted me as I am and been willing to make space for me in their lives, you know who you are and you have my infinite thanks. I just wish the rest of the world was just as inclusive. And not just of people like me but for everyone.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-6189898298358597342017-10-20T01:01:00.000-06:002017-10-20T01:12:10.861-06:00I get it… please let me know when I don’t…Before I started dating my wife I had an unsettling experience. I was a passenger in a truck and a woman who was a casual acquaintance of mine was sitting in the center seat next to me. She scooted over close to me and started unexpectedly started rubbing the side of her body against mine. I had no romantic intentions towards this woman nor did I have any awareness beforehand that she had any towards me. I never was an opportunist when it came to “making moves” on women. When like me you know you can’t read people very well the idea of accidentally doing something unwelcome and dishonorable seems terrifyingly possible. I had no positive or healthy sense of relationship with my own physical desires and here was a woman seemingly at random arousing me because… why? I had no idea, I just froze, not knowing what to do other than to scoot a little farther away from her on the bench. I got home and tried to imagine role plays in my mind where I could do something to stop the advance. I felt guilty about being caught in a situation where I didn’t know what to do.<br />
<br />
A week or two later I recall she announced she had a new boy friend, after having previously announced that she was feeling frustrated because she had no romantic prospects. This felt very confusing to me, how do you go from being frustrated that you have no prospects to going steady with someone within about a week? And didn’t that mean that she was already well into the process of entering a romantic relationship with someone else when she pulled a move on me? Did that mean she made a pass at me for her own amusement, either her own physical enjoyment or enjoyment at watching me squirm? Did that mean that she had been desperately lonely and was trying to get me to pay romantic attention to her? Was this what my sisters meant by saying men were so blind they had to be hit over the head to see or understand things? Was it all a misunderstanding? I doubt it, since it is one thing to lean against someone and another to squirm back and forth in a snuggle. The fact of the matter is I have no idea what motivated her behavior. If she had just asked me if I wanted a hug or a back rub because she noticed I was lonely I probably would have happily accepted because those were types of physical touch I have a high craving for, can understand at a platonic level of relationship, and I had no real way of getting at the time. It would have felt like she was giving to me rather than taking. I still don’t know if it was meant exploitative or if she just thought that a casual opportunistic snuggle was a great way to flirt. People rarely make intuitive sense to me.<br />
<br />
As a man I can recognize I rarely have had to worry about these kinds of experiences. I spend more time worrying that my clumsy social skills will make me do or say something really sexist and I won’t realize how it is going to sound until just a little late. But I do know a little of what it feels like to be taken by surprise by an unwelcome touch, to freeze up, and then feel guilty about it afterwards. I even know a little bit about what it feels like that nobody would really believe you. I doubt many people who don’t know me well would believe that this is how I reacted. Men are “supposed to” always be looking out to “get some” so how could that possibly go wrong? So please, understand that while I might not really have felt anything like the extent to which you have experienced verbal and physical assaults I do understand some of the pieces of what those experiences are like. And if I ever say anything that comes across just wrong, please let me know so I can do better.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-53044978218067597562017-08-26T19:13:00.000-06:002017-08-26T19:13:15.028-06:00Relaxation and ProductivityOne of the frustrations in my life is that virtually anything that is enjoyable enough to really make me feel relaxed is also probably something I am border line obsessive about. Which means that if I sit down to enjoy something I really like chances are it will be difficult for me to stop. Which means that to maintain good productivity for prolonged periods of time I have to make sure my breaks are only a little bit relaxing or enjoyable. Because if they were I'd have trouble switching my mind back to what I was supposed to be doing. So I get into grand swings where I can go weeks or even months without doing anything I really enjoy because I need to maintain a high level of productivity. And yes, that tends to contribute to periodic bouts of anxiety and depression. And then occasionally it swings the other way and I am up till 2 in the morning doing something that I love and my personal productivity tanks. Working two jobs and trying to be a dad actually engaged in my kids lives to the extent that I can sometimes means that I totally lose track of what I might want to do for fun. Because in order to maintain my personal productivity I often go extremely long stretches of time doing things I only enjoy a little.<br />
<br />
Sometimes there are exceptions to this rule, like when I can listen to an audiobook I really love while working. Only some kinds of work are compatible with audio book listening, so that only helps some of the time. And if a good audio book is the only thing keeping me afloat I really crash when I can't find one that suits my mood or when my anxiety levels go too high for me to be able to listen to one at all.<br />
<br />
So for those of you who don't have obsessive personalities, be greatful the next time you decide to do something you really like for maybe 15 minutes or half an hour and then walk away from it refreshed to do something useful.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-10933810711646390242016-10-14T22:19:00.002-06:002016-10-14T22:57:37.762-06:00The Worth of Souls- and PoliticsThe concept of divine grace has been coming up in recent politics more than normal. Since God's forgiveness extends even to the most vile of sinners should the sins of politicians be overlooked? Should Trump be excused because King David had concubines and had God's favor anyways? Should white supremacists be personally immune to criticism because as Christian's we shouldn't judge people? I honestly don't object to religious concepts being used to promote civil discourse towards people... because people are people and have inherent value. If you want to say that we should define actions as despicable and not people because people are always redeemable or however else you want to express that fundamental respect I am actually very ok with that. That being said, there seems to be a weird switch going on every time this comes up. Politicians and religious activists seem to have a tendency to invoke these concepts only when it involves their own political group. James Dobson can claim Bill Clinton is unfit for the presidency because of his infidelity but that Trump is fit for the presidency because he is a baby Christian who should be forgiven for his mistakes. Not that all the leaders in this discussion aren't Christian's by some denomination and measure, at least by baptism so that is hardly a relevant point to distinguish one set of people from another as who we should view as receiving God's grace. Bill Clinton is as a Baptist, Hillary is a Methodist, Trump grew up a Presbyterian even if he lacks much familiarity with Christianity in general. <br />
<br />
I think it is valid to argue that there are really two discussions happening here. One is of someone's political worthiness and the other is about the worth of someone's soul. Everyone has their political opinions and their political leaders they align most closely with. Everyone's soul has their elements of brokenness and of goodness and the potential to grow in brokenness and goodness. Everyone is in some way redeemable and has inherent worth. I don't think it is dishonest to support a politician whose political
goals align with yours even if their personal character isn't to your
liking. But it is very problematic to change the subject from political to moral worth as if they were the same subject. Sure they are related subjects, but not the same thing by a long shot. If you propose that your opponent is politically wrong and morally unsuited for office and then propose that your own deeply flawed leader is morally forgivable because God forgives everyone, you run the risk of suggesting that God loves everybody equally but that some people are more equal than others. At that point the message about God's universal love and your advocacy for moral goodness become eclipsed by your political message. At which point it would have been better to have never brought up morals or God in the first place and to have just made the argument about politics. You might even say that the saying about good fences making good neighbors applies to the separation of church and state. If you try to use God as a servant to your politics your politics can subvert the message about God or subvert your political aims by gaining the opposition of people who believe differently about God.<br />
<br />
So go ahead and argue all you want for how we should give broke people a chance to be leaders because God loves everybody- just so long as you actually mean everybody.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-7011757743427194022016-08-19T22:29:00.002-06:002016-08-19T22:29:41.869-06:00Exercise as a mind gameI think there is always a balance between how much increasing the difficulty of your work out routine is actually about slowly building up to build strength and avoid injury and how much of it is just a mind game you play with yourself. A game where you say "it doesn't matter that I feel exhausted, I can do more" or perhaps "I don't care that the weights look crazy big" or "I'm going to ignore that I'm intimidated by what I'm about to do." Anytime you increase something there is always that nagging fear in the back of your mind that you aren't really sure if you can do it or not. Which is mostly a healthy fear- it keeps you from pulling muscles and doing other stupid things to yourself. But that fear gets in the way of moving on as well.<br />
<br />
Growing up as a teenager I loved doing situps. For one I could do more of them than anyone else I knew with only a few exceptions. If I had a situps competition with someone else the explosion of power I could command at the start of a set honestly surprised people sometimes I think. For another it was amazing how many daily life activities became easier to do once my abs muscles were in top shape. And honestly sometimes the sheer strength was just fun to have. I was strong enough I could lay on my back and flip my legs up so powerfully so as to throw myself into the air and land in a standing position.<br />
<br />
It took probably several years of work to get to my peak- when I did 3 sets of 300 situps 3 times a week. A lot of that time I spent just being scared- 100 situps in one set was a lot and I felt sore when I got up that high. It just simply scared me that doing that many seemed kind of insane. The soreness towards the end of the set of 100 just never seemed to go away. Finally I got fed up with it and decided to push through the soreness to see how many I could do before failing. I jumped very quickly from 100 situps to 300. I discovered it wasn't about whether I was ready to move on physically, it was just a mind game.<br />
<br />
Since I started exercising again I haven't really had many specific goals, except that I want to be able to do 300 sit ups again. After learning how many I could do without feeling like I had practically pulled something I set a goal to always try to beat my last week's routine by 5 situps per set. As I approached 100 it had me wondering, how much of this is just a mind game again? I didn't want to recklessly push to see how many I could do before failure, but increasing by 5 has just been painstakingly slow. In the range below 100 I felt like I had to fight for every increase and sometimes spent a couple of weeks in a row without increasing at all. Since I past the 100 mark I've started to pick up the pace. Instead of increasing by 5 every time I've been increasing by 15. Last week that would have landed me only 10 away from 200, so I pushed through and increased by 25 just to be able to say I hit that mile mark. Then today I was psyched up enough I increased by 25 again, up to 225 per set. As I was working through the 3rd set going above 100 I just felt exhausted and scared that I couldn't do it. 225 situps just feels like an insane number, how could I push to that so quickly? But for the rest of the day my abs have felt fine- no problems. Tomorrow the stiffness will probably set in and I'll spent 2-3 days feeling the consequences of my rush. It begs the question, what will I do next week? And the week after that? Am I at the point where physically I'm ready but I still have to win the mind game to keep up the pace? Will it only take me another 3 weeks to get to 300? Or will I be forced to slow down again, collapsing in exhaustion on my exercise bench? I simply don't know what to expect.<br />
<br />
The problem with doing endurance training with really high repetitions is that they take a long time to complete. I could use adding maybe another wrist exercise to my routine but I don't have time right now. Once I hit 300, I plan on switching my situps to be more focused on weight training instead of on high repetitions. Lets see if I can still do 50 situps while holding 10 lb of weight. I've never done situps with weights so I don't know what to expect. But I know when I sit down on that bench there is always the fear that I won't be able to complete my crazy goals. But I'm doing it anyways. Right now I'd say I'm winning the mind game. And why not? It's fun.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-20265885680570959032016-07-17T00:38:00.000-06:002016-07-17T01:06:19.457-06:00What does it feel like now that I have two autistic kids?I wanted to explain what it feels like now that not only just one but both of my children are diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. It is... complicated.<br />
<br />
I believe that I am a fully valid person whose being on the autism spectrum is fully part of who I am. Some days are harder to feel that way because I have to fight to believe in myself. As I told someone not long ago, I wish I had known I was on the autism spectrum earlier in life so I could have understood why I felt so different from other people and not just like some kind of unexplainable freak. As an extension of fighting to believe in myself, I have to believe in my children no matter whether they are autistic or not. Part of me wishes their life didn't have to be as complicated as mine. But the bigger part of me believes just as much as I believed when my wife and I decided to have children that the kind of life I represent deserved to have a chance to be lived. We always knew genetically we had a high chance of having autistic children. That being said, I never would have intentionally tried to have all of my offspring be autistic if I could. I would have been perfectly happy to see what a non autistic "version" of me could have been like through my offspring. Now I know that won't happen. Life is hard enough we don't expect to have any more children and both of my kids are autistic. While it is easy to say the words "I accept you no matter what" in reality the act of acceptance is tied to the complicated idea of accepting myself. There is nothing simple about it.<br />
<br />
How I feel about my son being diagnosed is so closely tied to how I feel about myself that it is almost impossible for me to approach the subject with other people without including that context. The thing is, I mostly "pass" as normal and get some privilege from being able to do so. Whenever I disclose that I am on the spectrum there is always the possibility that I'll run into whatever bizarre stereotypes people have or even direct or subtle bigotry and ablism. Every single time a person on the spectrum commits an act of notable public violence the news can't help sensationalizing their diagnosis as an explanation for their violence regardless of the fact that autistics are statistically no more violent or prone to criminality than other people. I can't just walk into my new job and announce "Hello, I'm new here an I have Asperger Syndrome" without wondering whether a coworker will start to fear that I'm a mass murderer waiting to happen or whether my manager will start to view my performance with a biased pessimism based on the assumption that a disabled worker could never be as good of a contributor as a non disabled one. As a result, even trying to talk about how Lionel has been diagnosed and how I feel about it is a socially tricky situation to navigate. Unfortunately to be an effective advocate for my sons I need to learn to navigate these kinds of situations. I already had that problem once over, now I have it twice.<br />
<br />
Now I have to confront the world of treatments. With <span class="st">Taliesin his main problem has always been that social interactions were so frightening that he couldn't talk except to us in specific situations, or in other words selective mutism. Working with speech therapists in multiple settings and of course just letting time pass has done wonders and he is making great strides to being able to talk to a larger and larger sphere of people. While he has other problems as well they are not as daunting to us personally. We've never felt a need to pursue any dramatic scale treatment program. Mostly he is just fine the way he is as a quirky kid and we could feel ok pursuing narrow treatments for narrow problems. Lionel, on the other hand, is more "severely" impacted. I hate using such language often expressed as whether the autistic person is "high functioning" and "low functioning" because these terms generally are used in popular language to mean whether the observer using such phrases is immediately aware of the problems the autistic person has in their life without having to guess much. Taliesin is not "obvious" if you don't see him in a setting where he is having problems talking, but has problems in his life that I won't elaborate on that are stereotypical of "low functioning" kids even though most people would call him "high functioning" because they can't see the problems. Lionel, on the other hand, has issues that immediately stand out as what would popularly be called "low functioning" including a delay or abnormality in his ability to use language at a level developmentally appropriate for his age and rather severe issues with trouble paying attention. In any case, there is a more obvious need to get him a broader scale treatment program. And, for the first time, we actually have insurance coverage that will help us do that. In a way is wonderful. In a way it is a daunting prospect filled not only with questions of how to find the providers, find the time, and find the money but also with the complicated tasks of avoiding the ethical pitfalls of how our culture deals with the treatment of autism.</span><br />
<span class="st"><br /></span>
<span class="st">Therapies for autism have a sullied history. While I haven't been exposed to many of them first hand since I wasn't diagnosed till I was an adult I've been a part of the autism community enough to learn about the skeletons in the closet. There are plenty of dead ends filled with fads and quack doctors selling hope instead of medicine. Some treatment protocols in the past openly advocated for violence and abuse against the children in the name of "curing" the symptoms through behaviorism based psychological interventions. While generally such dramatic violations of people's dignity are looked down upon now the ghosts of the past are not completely gone. There are still treatment centers out there that will openly advocate for the use of aversive's and punishments to try to reprogram behaviors. And even program that don't "intentionally" inflict harm and claim to only practice positive reinforcement can be tainted. Putting children into situations where they are highly pressured to not show the symptoms that would let people know they are disabled can be extremely distressing- such as being required to suppress stimming or required to show gestures of affection on command with strangers or required to show the appropriate patterns of eye contact no matter how personally distressing. Once a service provider who had to decide what version of therapy program to run told me that they personally struggled to offer such a program because forcing children into such high stress situations made them obviously miserable. To an extent valid medicine can hurt just like an injection for a vaccine is still valid medicine even though it hurts. But when therapies can easily become side tracked by the question of making the child "look normal" instead of trying to help them adaptively interact with the world the infliction of distress and suffering can become questionable. Another pitfall can be that aggressive service providers and desperate parents will often try to set up treatment protocols calling for extremely long therapy sessions- perhaps longer than 8 hours a day- taking over the life of everyone involved in an act of desperation more than because it is evidence based. Another pitfall associated with these marathon training programs is that in order to try and make the positive reinforcement training as powerful as possible the service provider will work with the parent to systematically identify everything the child enjoys or takes personal pleasure from- and then remove all access to those things so that the only way the child can gain access to anything they enjoy in life is as a reward for achievements in therapy. Such a program might technically be positive reinforcement only but is performed in a context of abusively restricting access to anything the child enjoys in life. I've read that autistics who grew up in such treatment programs learn to try to hide anything that they take pleasure in to the point where as adults the normal social act of someone asking simple questions about what they enjoy is an extreme invasion of their need for privacy that developed as a defense mechanism against their parents and service providers trying to deny them free access to anything that they enjoyed. Another pitfall of therapy programs is that in order to try to teach "normal" verbal communication it is often suggested that parents refuse to acknowledge any attempts at communication unless a child can reframe the message into "normal" speech. The problem is that it is completely an unknown factor whether an autistic with a language delay will ever comfortably develop a "normal" speech ability. Refusing to communicate except through "normal" speech can become a pervasive refusal to communicate or to treat any adaptive attempts to communicate as inherently invalid. To a point insisting on verbal communication helps develop verbal skills. Past that point its an abusive refusal to respect the human dignity of the child because they aren't normal. There is no easy answer as to what is the right thing to do.</span><br />
<span class="st"><br /></span>
<span class="st">On top of it all of the ethical questions and social pitfalls to avoid we simply don't have much spare time or money to use to pursue treatments. Even getting </span><span class="st">Taliesin the limited services he has had has been a real strain. The entire prospect is honestly daunting and leaves me feeling tired.</span><br />
<span class="st"><br /></span>
<span class="st">After all is said and done, Lionel is still the same person he was before the diagnosis. He is still the little guy who obsessively loves large trucks, dinosaurs, and trains. He is still the affectionate little guy who can climb almost anything in the house and on some days loves his broccoli almost as much as he does chocolate cake. He is still the little odd ball who has for a long time phrased practically all of his questions as statements and frequently communicates through tangential references to his favorite books and movies. We are enough of an autism family that the diagnosis grants us less an understanding of Lionel which we already had and more gave us the passport to helping the outside world understand who he was, give him the supports that are his due, and have a chance to accept who he is. So in a way perhaps I shouldn't feel different than I did before. But there is something in the nature of naming a problem that makes you face it with an urgency you could avoid before. I could just wish it weren't so complicated.</span>CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-88995632598858868832016-06-23T22:37:00.000-06:002016-06-23T22:37:04.576-06:00Goodbye call centerI've spent the last 10 years or so of my life working at a call center. It got me through school, provided medical benefits for me and my family, got me started on my 401k, paid for several surgeries, and everything else money does for you when you don't really have much of it. I started out as a minimum wage employee earning around $7/hr and ended at $13.85/hr, more than most of the managers who were forced to work 50-60 hours a week without overtime pay. I started as a tenor voiced infomercial order taker whom prank callers thought was a woman when they wanted to talk dirty, next was a ATT wireless tech support guru who advanced to being one of the "ICU" agents who got to do floor support in a white doctors coat, and ended off as a Comcast customer service guy who sometimes got to hide from taking phone calls by working on migrating accounts from one billing or phone platform to another. I was employee of the month once, and won an award by racking up a large number of compliments and thank you's from other agents once. I've spent most of the last 10 years working swing shift so that I could do classes during the day time. Only recently did I get a day shift back again. The first time I heard a chorus of birds singing in the morning I actually started to cry.<br />
<br />
I wish I could say I had more to be proud of for the last 10 years other than that I provided for my family. I tolerated taking infomercial calls and I've despised working for Comcast. I am more or less proud of the work I did for AT&T. Its easier to care about your work when the company acts as if doing a good job for people actually matters.<br />
<br />
I've started a new job working in accounting and collections for a manufacturing company. Basically staring at an excel sheet all day and emailing people to remind them to pay for their orders. Not exactly rewarding in terms of people interactions, but on the other hand, I've never really been a people person. But I have noticed some huge corporate culture differences.<br />
<br />
For one, the new company publicly rewards people on a regular basis. Drawings for gift cards are done for people who were complimented publicly or for turning in safety tokens. A big step up from being offered $1 things of shampoo or pasta as an incentive.<br />
<br />
For another, if a fire alarm goes off, the building is to be evacuated immediately. Instead of waiting for permission while the managers scramble to find out if the alarm is real or not. According to a long term employee, the call center once ordered people to remain at their desks and continue taking calls during a natural gas leak. Its not as if they care whether we live or die, nor our customers either. I was once directly ordered not to reach out to the police on behalf of a woman who was assaulted while on the phone with me, on the grounds that we didn't know the full story so we shouldn't get involved in a domestic dispute.<br />
<br />
Another cultural difference is that if something is broken, I have multiple and immediate avenues I can pursue to get it fixed without someone else having to give permission first. I saw a program break down on someone and they were able to get it fixed within a few minutes and got immediate responses from their IT support when they asked for it. In contrast with a call center that didn't even have an on site repair guy for quite some time and even when he was around managers didn't always care to file repair tickets in a timely manner or at all. I once had a login sit disabled for 6 months because my request to repair it was looked upon with suspicion. A computer next to me remained disabled for more than a month because repair tickets weren't filed in a timely manner after IT broke the computer during testing and never bothered taking their own initiative to fix it until multiple repair tickets were filed.<br />
<br />
For another thing, the building is clean. At the call center trash thrown on the floor could easily stay there for more than a week and the place generally looked pretty dumpy. For a long period nightly cleanings were being skipped because the night janitor was faking their cleaning records. It was normal to be able to write in the dust on any smooth horizontal surface and all the computer air vents were clogged with dust. The new job, well, I have yet to see any trash on the floor and the only places collecting dust are the places hard to reach for cleaning. There might be dust due to construction in the building, but not due to lazy or dishonest cleaning staff.<br />
<br />
I'll be glad to leave the call center behind me. There were calls I was proud of, like the time I helped a father pick out a good phone for his son with asperger syndrome so his son could text him any time about his pokemon obsession even if he couldn't talk to anyone else about it. Or the time I helped prove that a business man was telling the truth that a sales rep had over promised the coverage from his plan and cost him $13,000 in data roaming charges. But in general, the call center has left me in a constant cloud of anxiety regarding whether I'll be fired for having my calls too long or not selling enough or wondering when my next screaming angry person would come on the line. The absurd levels of dust and the employees who continuously ignored the rules forbidding applying perfumes in the building left my allergies turned up so high for so long I had to have surgery on my sinuses to make it harder for my nose to go crazy on me. I'm just glad to be finished with call center work.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-88050878637057610922016-05-03T17:52:00.000-06:002016-05-03T17:52:13.828-06:00A Lifetime of...Supressing LaughterLet me introduce myself and how I relate to laughter. Not now, but maybe 25-30 years ago. I thought the world was a hilarious place. I laughed at tangential word associations, at slightly odd muscle movements made by my older sister when she chewed, at the slightly amusing faces made at my by strangers at church. I laughed uncontrollably a lot of the time. When I was very small I was almost never taken out of church for crying, but I was taken out of church routinely for laughing. Even as I got older my sister had to not sit across from me at the table often because I found her chewing motions to be hilarious. I was commonly sent away from the dinner table for excessive laughing since the only way I could possibly finish my meal was to be socially isolated from other people so that nobody would unintentionally make me laugh. The world was simply hilarious.<br />
<br />
As I got older I discovered more problems with this. Randomly breaking into laughter around other people starts making them worry that you are making fun of them. Most social occasions don't accept much laughter. My parents greatly prioritized dinner conversations that were formal and structured in nature and for a time I was relentlessly criticized for being too silly during family dinners. A lot of my laughter became tightly controlled. Often instead of breaking into uncontrollable laughter I gave simple bursts of "HA!" that could be cut short as soon as they began.<br />
<br />
The last time in my life where I felt secure enough to laugh like was natural to me was when I went on a canoeing trip with the boy scouts up in Minnesota and Canada. Being with the same group of people in an nonjudgmental setting for so long stripped away a lot of the varnish shall we say. I regained the ability to laugh uncontrollably. The other boys might say "There he goes again" while I would burst into unstoppable laughter for minutes at a time if the slightest thing struck me as hilarious. This once happened while I was eating the remains of a jar of peanut butter. I laughed so hard the other boys swore I spewed chunky peanut butter out my nose.<br />
<br />
Later on I found myself trying to prove to a religious leader that I was "normal" enough or could at least mask having Asperger Syndrome enough to be allowed to volunteer for missionary service. It was open season for every little odd thing about me to be criticized to give me feedback and allow me to pursue my spiritual duty to be as normal as possible and someone who medically I was not. During this time my father, searching for a morally applicable way of thinking about my abnormalities, speculated that our shared way of making puns was possibly a prideful ecocentric display of cleverness that should be suppressed. One of things my religious leader didn't like about me, along with my stimming behaviors, was he found my short bursts of "HA!" annoying. Stimming I couldn't really stop, but laughing was much easier to manage. I don't laugh that way anymore. <br />
<br />
My father's speculation about puns couldn't really stop me because one I didn't like his analysis and two, my brain processes language in a way that makes the most absurd puns as easy to come up with as listening. When people say words, my brain often hears multiple possible meanings at once and has to sort them out. Sometimes my brain is sorting out alternate definitions, alternate groupings of syllables, or sound alike words. The longer I am in a situation the less often these language rearrangements occur to me since I become accustomed to the phrases and meanings of the situation. But when I am in a new situation these alternate possibilities sparkle into existence like stars coming out at dusk. The contradiction of meaning are sometimes enormous in the simplest of situations. Just earlier today I heard someone talk about how they had a live feed from a camera, and my brain immediately thought how this was better than a dead zombie feeding. Occasionally this bizzarity of my language processing is more inconvenient especially if it results in a misunderstanding regarding job performance or medical information, but mostly I just enjoy the self renewing supply of absurdities to both share and laugh at. <br />
<br />
However, that is not to say they are not greatly suppressed. The problem with suppressing laughter is that if you keep it up long enough things stop being funny. As a result I have trouble perceiving my humor as having independent value that I can actually laugh at unless I can share it in a socially appropriate way. Instead of just laughing because something is funny like I imagine most people do, I might at most creak the barest wrinkle of a smile while taking time to analyze whether the people around me are people I know and trust, whether it is a socially appropriate time to laugh? Is the pun one likely to be socially acceptable to those around me? Is it a subject matter upon which I can speak without immediately being considered too much of an outsider to have dared raise an opinion? Would the pun detract from something important someone is saying that will leave them feeling devalued because I changed the subject to an irrelevancy? I don't answer these questions by a gestalt of the situation, but by careful examination. If the answer to any of the above is no, then probably I'll never get to laugh at all. I once had a boss tell me that they always liked seeing me make jokes because they could use it to tell whether I was relaxed and comfortable. If I am dealing with new people who don't know me I have to be careful introducing them to my humor because many people find it unsettlingly odd and require a break in period before they will accept it or me without judgement and criticism. Which is unfortunate since as I said earlier, jokes are often the easiest form of communication for me to achieve.<br />
<br />
I know some of the changes I've experienced are simply the result of a maturing social awareness. Others I am sure are only because I chronically experienced very judgemental people and situations. I wish I knew how much was which and could magically fix it so that I could laugh again like I used to. CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-24384555909615991622016-04-08T22:00:00.000-06:002016-04-08T22:00:03.559-06:00The FirstThe first autistic I ever knew didn't speak, but loved to feel the stubble on my chin, on anyone's chin really. He liked bread, and once bit through plastic to get a taste of bagel. My sister babysat him sometimes. His brother, one of my friends, was the first to recognize the similarities we had, noting how I stimmed and suggesting that I might be on the autistic spectrum as well because my nervous twitches didn't just come while talking to girls but were essentially all the time.<br /><br />A few years later I was emailing his brother explaining that his playful suggestion held more weight than he may have realized. I was indeed on the autism spectrum and the process of finding out was being both a blessing and a curse. I suddenly understood myself and my past like never before, but knowing also involved telling, opening me to stigmatization and discrimination. I was not allowed to perform the basic milestones that marked adulthood in my culture… But I moved on…<br /><br />Eventually autism colored many more parts of my life, if that could be said to be possible. Autism colors virtually every perception and experience, making it a core part of personal identity. However, more of my friends or their family members were diagnosed, my own child was diagnosed. Some among my nieces and nephews were diagnosed. Our lives are marked. But I've moved on, and lived life as fully as I could...<br /><br />Recently this first autistic that I knew suffocated during a seizure. Though I don't have them, seizures are common among autistics. It's a fate that could easily have happened to me or to my children if they had seizures. He's moved on as I will someday as well. Since I am verbal I have the privilege of being better understood through my life and my children will have even better. It's sad to say farewell to one whose identity as an autistic came to be defined in the wave of understanding just before the revolutions in understanding that allowed me to be diagnosed as well. I can only say farewell pioneer, I hope I can be part of the ongoing revolution of better understanding and care that will make the world a better place for people like you and me, and my own children.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-16049490363303135702016-01-29T00:23:00.002-07:002016-01-29T05:29:47.566-07:00Federal Land... its not First Gun First ServeWith the militia takeover in Oregon and a more recent protest in Utah by others sympathetic to their views I've seen a consistent theme of ranchers claiming that the Federal Government doesn't have valid rights to its lands and that as a result the land should belong to the people who work it. As a result, these people feel justified in refusing to pay the grazing fees, ignoring environmental rules, and in the case the Oregon militia they feel entitled to seize federal property for their own use or for the use of anyone nearby they feel might naturally benefit from it. Having grown up as an ultra conservative I think I understand a where they are coming from, but I've learned so much more since then that from my perspective now, these protesters sound like wannabe Marxist revolutionaries.<br />
<br />
If these protesters and anti government militias were trained in the same brand of conservative thinking I was raised with, the idea goes something like this- <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei#section8" target="_blank">Article 1 section 8 of the Constitution</a> includes the clause that congress has the power<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases
whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may,
by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become
the Seat of the Government of the United States, and <b>to exercise like
Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of
the State</b> in which the Same shall be, <b>for the Erection of Forts,
Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful</b> <b>Buildings</b>;</i></blockquote>
<br />
As you'll notice in the sections I bolded, the Federal Government only is described as having lands if it purchases them from the states for the intent to put buildings on them. So the thinking goes that obviously all the land should have been state land originally and that any federal purchase of land for any use other than for building plots is unconstitutional. So obviously by that reasoning national forests, national parks, monuments, or general multi use public lands owned by the federal government are all unconstitutional. If you start from the assumption that the federal government has no valid property right to begin with, its pretty easy to justify not having to obey federal laws regarding that property. But of course this doesn't answer the question of who should get to have the land if not the government. For this, <a href="http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtr05.htm" target="_blank">John Locke provides a very convenient answer</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Sec. 30. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian's who hath
killed it; <b>it is allowed to be his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon it,
though before it was the common right of every one.</b> ... <b>And even amongst us, the hare that any one is
hunting, is thought his who pursues her during the chase: for being a beast
that is still looked upon as common, and no man's private possession; whoever
has employed so much labour about any of that kind, as to find and pursue her,
has thereby removed her from the state of nature, wherein she was common, and
hath begun a property.</b></i><br />
<i>Sec. 31. It will perhaps be objected to this, that if gathering the acorns,
or other fruits of the earth, &c. makes a right to them, then any one may
ingross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not so.... But how far has he given it us? To enjoy. <b>As much as
any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he
may by his Tabour fix a property in: whatever is beyond this, is more than his
share, and belongs to others. Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or
destroy.</b></i></blockquote>
<br />
So in essence, the public lands should be redistributed to anyone who has and can use them without wasting any of it as a result of having too much. So grazing land should belong to ranchers, mining land should belong to mining companies, and nothing should belong to land users who don't do something productive with the land- such as owners who might use land for scenic or conservation values since they would only hold land to allow its productive values go to waste.<br />
<br />
Before I go on to discuss why this argument actually feels downright marxist, lets take a few moments to take apart these arguments. First off, the constitution is actually no where near as narrow regarding land use as section 8 makes it sound. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleiv#section3" target="_blank">Article 4 section 3 states</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The <b>Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules
and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to
the United States</b>; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so
construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any
particular state.</i></blockquote>
<br />
Or in other words, Congress can do whatever it so pleases with federal land and the Constitution can't be read to automatically judge property claims. So the argument that Federal Land other than for buildings is automatically invalid is absurd on its face and I'm embarrassed to say this was the interpretation I grew up believing was true and the interpretation believed by many of my former associates. At the most narrow reading I can imagine as a lay person, the federal government might be restricted in what it can do with lands it purchases from states, but those restrictions wouldn't apply to land that had always belonged to the Federal government in the first place. And that is making an extremely narrow reading of the text. I believe some would accept that reading, but argue that all federal lands originally belonged to the states originally anyways so how could there be any valid federal land from any other source? Well, there is a lot of complicated legal history that would go into answering that fully, but the biggest part of the answer is actually from <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articleii#section2" target="_blank">Article 2, section 2</a> which includes that the President<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>...shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate,
to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur...</i></blockquote>
<br />
Most of the territory of the United States was obtained by treaty, either by outright purchase and/or as the conclusion of a war. Such lands weren't state lands to begin with, they were federal. Later states were created and state lands were granted to the states according to whatever deal was written into the enabling act allowing the creation of that state and according to whatever legislation congress passed to dispose of or keep federal lands in that state. Early in history the attitude was to give away lands as much as possible. Later congress and the country changed their minds and the default position was to keep federal lands federal. Due to many factors including the relative fertility of the land and absurd assumptions about how rainwater worked this meant that the western United States is mostly made up of federal land. While this might feel unfair, it isn't unconstitutional and it isn't a land grab conspiracy. As much as anything, its an accident of history.<br />
<br />
As long as I'm tearing apart the constitutional theory about why Federal land is supposedly unconstitutional, I might as well give a side note regarding John Locke's property theories. The anti government militia in Oregon provide an excellent example as to why John Locke's theory might sound nice on paper but have less to say about real life. The ability to use property throughout history has not been limited by the possibility that excess property would go to waste. Instead the ability to use property is largely determined by your or your ancestors ability to use force to capture and defend that land. Thus, American Indians don't have many land rights even though in a perfect world most of the USA might still belong to them. So while the Oregon militia might have been thinking in terms of high flying theories, in practice they claimed the ability to use the land by force of arms and have lost that ability because they don't have the political or military power to keep what they seized. A labor theory of property ignores the messy history and by default awards property to whoever had more guns in the past.<br />
<br />
In any case, why does it feel like to me as if these protesters are wannabe Marxists? Well, lets trade roles for a moment and see what would happen if I tried to make similar claims about situations in my own life. Lets just say that I decide that the property of my employer should be jointly owned by the sum total of the employees to have made the business productive over the years. So I grab all my weapons and a group of friends and coordinate attacks to seize control of the buildings and property. Because don't you know, the means of production should be owned by the workers not some fat capitalist whose money comes from an unjust system of taxation designed to benefit the rich at the expense of normal people (which is just about as twisted of a half truth as the idea that federal lands are unconstitutional). Then I put out claims on social media asking all of my friends to take over all the local businesses in their area to do the same. Then I start threatening the lives of any local government officer whose official duties might involve disagreeing with me. You wouldn't call me a freedom fighter, you'd call me a communist rebel. But somehow because these protesters talk about the constitution a lot and are scared about how their ranching livelihoods might disappear in a changing economy they portray themselves as freedom fighters fighting for the right to seize government property. Even though I understand a lot of where they are probably coming from, they still sound like wannabe Marxists to me, trying to force ownership of the means of production into the hands of the working class. If they care so much about the constitution, then they need to follow the constitutional process for how changes in government land management are done, that is, through congress. If congress so wishes to gift or sell these lands to them, so be it the Constitution was followed. Refusing to obey the laws regarding your grazing lease, seizing property with guns while wandering around town threatening to burn down the homes of BLM employees, threatening the life of the sheriff's wife and parents, or threatening that all your militia buddies are going to come mow down anyone who opposes you just doesn't count as pro-constitution freedom fighting. It's domestic terrorism.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-45955043503482554282015-11-09T22:52:00.001-07:002015-11-09T22:52:26.227-07:00NeurotribesI've been reading the book Neurotribes. I haven't finished it yet, but I've enjoyed it. Or maybe enjoyed isn't quite the word. I've been haunted by it. I've been frightened by it. I've been powerfully reminded of everything about myself that I grew up being ashamed of. I've been reminded of my strengths. To explain why this book has so much power to me, lets imagine you are reading a choose your own adventure book, where you choose when and where to go in a time machine and learn what kind of life you would have lived in a different time and place.<br />
<br />
Imagine for just a moment, that you choose the time machine switch to learn how it would have been like to have lived several hundred years ago in Colonial America. You step off the time machine, and discover the alternate you who lives in this time line invariably ends up being imprisoned and tortured on the presumption of being demonically possessed. Wow, that ending is scary. Flip back a few pages and now instead turn the dial and try out about 75 years ago in many places in the United States. That should be safer right? Well, instead of being tortured to drive out demons, instead you are imprisoned in a home for the feeble minded and are forcibly castrated to prevent you from spreading mental degeneracy through your presumed sexual perversion which would presumably lead you to father more degenerate perverts like you. Wait, who is defining perversion here? Ok, 75 years can't be all that crazy maybe lets try Europe this time. Oops, landed in Germany. One day your mom drops you off at the local hospital because you're sick and the doctor determines you are life not worthy of life and human ballast to be thrown off the ship of state to allow the noble Aryan workers to have a higher average standard of living. You die of starvation and exposure outside the back of the clinic, are secretly cremated along with hundreds of other "defectives" and then a note is sent home to your parents explaining you died of natural causes and a bill is given to them for your cremation. Ok, so this time machine trip is getting kind of scary. Try again and again and again. Over and over, you are institutionalized, forced to endure absurd medical treatments like an experimental rat, and are abandoned by parents who presume somehow its all their fault and they need to let you go to move on with their lives. Had enough with the choose your own adventure story? Lets zoom back to the present.<br />
<br />
But, you ask, how could that possibly happen to someone as bright and as accomplished as you? Easy. I was a very late talker. Apparently I had such a need for perfection that I practiced talking in normal phrases in what I thought was secret and managed to keep the secret so well that I shocked my parents by moving from speaking no more than one or two words at a time to speaking in full sentences all at once. I was a late reader, not independently reading much of any of the normal children's literature until the 3rd grade, when I immediately picked up the Hobbit, Asimov's Foundation Series, Lloyd Alexander, and C. S. Lewis. I read compulsively from then on. I had strong sensory needs, throwing tantrums if my clothes still had the tags attached, unable to eat foods with mixed textures, or pay attention in class if anything was wrong about my sensory environment such as being too hot or cold or too loud. My special ed instructors and school counselors knew there was something wrong that made it almost impossible for me to hold normal conversations and that my ability to instinctively see things from other points of view was limited. I was the little kid who sat in the same exact spot in the lunchroom every day even if the table was completely empty, which it often was, because I had few or no friends and changing my routine to sit somewhere else would break my established routine. So yeah, the insane asylums with their unique loving brands of torture, castration, experimentation, or, in the case of Germany, euthanasia would have been waiting for me if I had been born in most of the past.<br />
<br />
In the grand scheme of history, the science of autism is only more recently emerging from being a speculative endeavor filled with fads promoted by over sized personalities. It is still semi normal for advocacy organizations supposedly working in my interest to spend time talking about how much better the world would be without people like me because I'm supposedly such a heavy a burden on everyone around me. It's still semi normal to hear of religious leaders trying exorcise the autism out kids It's only recently that I could receive a diagnosis that was terribly specific to my situation at all. It's only recently that technology allowed robust communities to be formed for people like me. It's only recently that those communities have fostered support networks that make it easier to develop any kind of positive self image.<br />
<br />
As I'm getting further into Neruotribes the story keeps becoming more and more positive, with more emphasis of now society has improved. But if a story like what I've ready read through doesn't leave you haunted and at least a little emotionally exhausted, you might not have read it the first time.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-61469399825467805772015-10-21T20:50:00.000-06:002015-10-21T20:50:19.875-06:00Alma MaterPeople who only knew more recently just would know of me as a student and graduate of Utah State University. Those who know me longer or more closely know I am also a graduate of George Wythe University. It is with mixed sadness and a sense of good riddance that I saw the <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/home/3082759-155/small-utah-college-with-big-political?fullpage=1" target="_blank">announcement today in the paper that George Wythe University is closing</a>. George Wythe was an amazing experience engaging with big ideas, big ideals, and big dreams. It was a deep dive immersion in Clean Skousen branded Mormonism, as much Christian Kabbalah mysticism as the DeMille's could push on everyone, and many good books. It is also well described by Connor Boyack in the article above as "in essence, a glorified book club." I might also describe it as almost a survivalist cult that focused on politics instead of on camping and food storage- building leaders not for today, but for after the coming global collapse of the current political order.<br />
<br />
Attending George Wythe University for a time in my life represented the best way I could imagine to pursue the idealism I formed as a teenager. Studying a broad range of subjects including history allowed me to challenge the political and social radicalism I had formed at home. The thoroughness of how ideas were pursued gave me a foundation to re evaluate other beliefs later on in life as well. Although I understand the school often moderated people's political opinions, mine swung from radical conservative to moderate liberal. Truly I can call George Wythe my Alma Mater, or my nourishing mother.<br />
<br />
But in a sense, George Wythe was an abusive mother to my soul as well. If I had known how much they were lying when they claimed accreditation was close I would probably never have attended. My freshman year they claimed all they needed for accreditation was a bigger endowment and that supposedly they had all the donors lined up but the money simply evaporated when the financial crisis hit the nation. Later I found out they weren't even fundraising and hadn't been actively fundraising for quite a long time. I also discovered that the math, science, and language programs were nowhere near the standards for accreditation. The math and science lectures I attended were generally not allowed to even assign homework so as to avoid distracting from other coursework and the language classes, while very intense, even in several years of study didn't make it past what would be considered first semester material in a normal college course. Dr. DeMille once said he didn't even care if we learned the languages we studied, expecting us to become smarter just from trying to learn them. I also discovered they didn't even bother applying for accreditation until my senior year and after applying, failed to continue pursuing the application.<br />
<br />
George Wythe also was abusive in misrepresenting the credentials of their professors and graduates. Oliver DeMille only ever received a bachelors degree that wasn't a life experience or diploma mill degree, despite claiming to have a masters, JD, and PhD. While I was there he represented those credentials as being valid. The school also represented a notable politician as being their graduate when in reality he took no course work from them whatsoever and paid for a diploma mill degree from George Wythe as part of an agreement to promote the school.<br />
<br />
The school was also abusive by engaging in a culture of extreme academic irresponsibility- both in sloppiness and dishonesty on their own part and in failing to teach me the basic academic expectations by which one avoids plagiarism. One of my first experiences with Oliver DeMille was a taped lecture he gave at a homeschooling convention wherein he promoted his concepts of numerology and Kabbalic mysticism. To avoid the embarrassment of saying such things on his own authority he attributed them all to Einstein. As a naive teenager I assumed he was telling the truth; now I know he was telling absurd lies to promote his numerology. Other professors occasionally incorrectly attributed their own ideas to other authors. Once a professor even claimed a book was mistranslated when the text contradicted the professor's beliefs about an idea. Some of these incidents I believe were intentional "white lies" meant to bolster the authority of the professor. Some I think were simply mistakes that are easy to make when there is no expectation to cite your sources in any kind of rigorous manner. When I presented my senior thesis for defense it was one of the only papers I bothered to cite sources because it had never been required of me before. I didn't even know which style guide to use. When I was before the board and I apologized for unintentional sloppiness in my many citations the President of the school told me he wouldn't have bothered with citing sources so much if it were his own paper.<br />
<br />
I'll always remember George Wythe fondly and also with regret. It was the place where I grew incredibly in a very broad but shallow study of an incredible array of subjects and became a much more well balanced person. It was also a school that ate about ten years of my life which I was willing to give them based on extremely misleading claims about who they were and how likely it was that they would have finished the accreditation process by the time I graduated. With how much dishonesty and illegality were commonplace at the institution I believe the school deserved to end this way. But on the other hand, I don't regret the growth I experienced and wish it had truly been the school of statesmen it claimed.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-14401645873787467742015-08-07T21:13:00.001-06:002015-08-07T21:13:25.873-06:00What is hardest about being down to one good leg?My recent leg surgery is the first time in my life that I've gone for a prolonged period without being able to walk normally. Before that the longest I'd ever gone was about 3 days- once after my first 10 mile hike and once after my first 20 mile hike. So I'd never had a reason to use crutches or wheelchairs or anything of that sort before. Around the house I've had to use crutches, though while out and about I might use the courtesy provided powered wheelchair at Walmart or a knee scooter. I thought I'd record some of what were the hardest things for me.<br />
<br />
First- clearing my own walkways. With kids at home- there are always toys and childrens books strewn everywhere. At first I felt I spent about as much time using the crutches to push things out of my way as I did walking anywhere with them.<br />
<br />
Second- getting up in the middle of the night. If I turned on the light, I'd wake up my wife. If I didn't- you don't know what on obstacle course is until you try to hobble to the bathroom in the dark past a variety of laundry baskets, children's toys and books, fallen pillows, dropped or folded clothing, power cords, etc... It might be a small miracle I didn't injure myself trying to go to the bathroom. Looking back I should have just turned on a light- I just didn't want to be a burden in one more way if I could do it myself.<br />
<br />
Third- carrying anything. If your arms are busy holding onto the crutches, carrying anything while walking becomes difficult and depending on the object, impossible. Just the simple act of making a peanut butter sandwich requires getting up from the table, fetching a plate and a knife (if I'm confident enough to carry them both at once), then going back to the counter and getting the peanut butter which I grab carefully with all fingers of one hand except the thumb which is hooked around the crutches handle. Then I repeat the process even more carefully with the jelly jar. Hopefully either the trip for the peanut butter or the jelly also involved grabbing the bread, which I can dangle from the other hand that isn't holding a jar. By then I've hobbled the distance between the table and the cupboard 6 times and it will require another 6 times to put all the items back away again afterwards on my own. By that time I'd just as soon sit down and wait for help.<br />
<br />
Forth- exhaustion. Walking with crutches is very difficult work when your muscles aren't used to it. The twelve trips between the table and the cupboard are exhausting. Much of what I couldn't easily do on my own wasn't I couldn't do it, but because the amount of effort involved was so high. Of course, being tired and dizzy from taking prescription pain medications probably didn't help in this regard.<br />
<br />
Fifth- little boy pounces. My kids feel that a daddy lying down is an open invitation to pounce and play. So all that time I tried to spend lying down to elevate my leg or to recover from walking around the room was largely eaten up being jumped on by little boys. Given how difficult it was to stand up or to move to a new location, it was difficult to make them stop by just getting up and going away like I might normally do if they were being unmanageable. So often I just had to put up with their antics, even if it meant I got very little rest compared to the amount of time I tried to spend resting.<br />
<br />
Sixth- anything that requires standing. Any optional standing becomes easy to throw out the window. Taking a shower? No, too much work if not impossible. How about shaving? Again too much work. Brushing teeth? When I get around to it. When all you really want to do is lie down and elevate your leg, basic hygiene is a lot harder to maintain.<br />
<br />There were a host of other issues as well. How do you go shopping on your own? Can you fit as much groceries in a powered wheel chair as in a normal shopping cart? How do you drive when every bump in the road causes a sharp pain in the leg? How to make the children hold still in church if they just want to play with the knee scooter in the aisle? But those six issues are probably the worst. Even though I'm still very restricted, I'm glad I have a walking cast now that I can use to move around. The end is in sight.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-89321442082570806552015-05-22T23:16:00.000-06:002015-05-22T23:16:26.935-06:00Killing For ConservationJust the other day, I killed a fish. Not because it was going to be anybody's dinner or because it was an inevitable consequence of something else I needed or wanted. In fact, keeping it for dinner would have violated the permit I was operating under. I killed it because it was a human mistake that led to the fish existing in the first place. I killed it as one small act in an larger effort to keep the Bonneville Cutthroat Trout from going extinct.<br />
<br />
It's an uncomfortable act killing just because it is scientifically desirable. People who go into environmental careers do it because at some level, they love wildlife and the outdoors. They want to see nature abound with life. If we considered the fish as an individual with rights, killing an animal to save another just seems by itself like a hollow moral calculus, because western societies have generally decided that the rights of individuals are more fundamental than the rights of the culture you belong to. However, in the pursuit of the preservation of species diversity, scientists value the species over the individual. Killing for conservation is actually quite common. In New Zealand entire islands have all their rats exterminated to allow the reintroduction of native birds and reptiles. In Alaska entire islands have all of their non native foxes exterminated to preserve birds. In South America, entire islands have all of their goats exterminated to halt erosion and favor native plants. If the United States could find a way, it would exterminate all the Brown Tree Snakes in Guam, <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/wild_things/2013/12/04/poison_pill_mice_parachuted_onto_guam_fighting_brown_tree_snakes_with_tylenol.html" target="_blank">even if it meant parachuting in poisoned mice by the thousands</a>.<br />
<br />
Knowing all about it doesn't make it feel any more cozy. I had been excited, it was my first day catching three fish in the trap at the top of the fish ladder instead of just one or even none. I had been taking pictures to show my kids all the fun fish I was working with. The first one I pulled out of my bucket had a reddish stripe on its midline. It was a rainbow-cuthroat hybrid, descended from the short sighted government policy of stocking fertile rainbow trout in areas where they weren't native. Generations and generations of forcing fertile contact between two species which don't interbreed in nature often forces one of them to extinction, its genetic identity swamped out of existence. So, I told the fish that despite the heroic journey swimming upstream to the top of my fish ladder, its journey was at an end. I walked with it to the opening of the fish ladder, squeezed it to death, smashed its head against a metal railing in case it was only stunned, and threw it back in the river. Watching the silvery arc it made against the sky, I wished I didn't have to. It was a mistake the fish ever existed in the first place.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-43568056429489594882015-05-19T01:11:00.000-06:002015-05-19T01:30:41.053-06:00An Ecological Reading of the Sermon on the Mount<div class="tr_bq">
As I have completed my degree in Conservation and Restoration Ecology, some things in life I can simply never see the same way. When I look at forests and fields I typically don't see wilderness. Most often, I see a managed landscape. When I look at a farm, I see the competing social priorities water can be devoted to. When I see a bird, I think about transcontinental migrations. When I see roads and concrete, I think about altered patterns of runoff water. Unsurprisingly, when I read the Sermon on the Mount, I see something different as well. One passage in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205-7" target="_blank">Matthew Chapter 6</a> reads:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span class="text Matt-6-25"><span class="woj">“Therefore I tell you, do not worry
about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what
you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than
clothes?</span></span> <span class="text Matt-6-26" id="en-NIV-23309"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum"> </sup><b>Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.</b> Are you not much more valuable than they?</span></span> <span class="text Matt-6-27" id="en-NIV-23310"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum"> </sup>Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?</span></span></i><br />
<i><span class="text Matt-6-28" id="en-NIV-23311"><span class="woj">“And why do you worry about clothes? <b>See how the flowers of the field grow.</b> <b>They do not labor or spin</b>.</span></span> <span class="text Matt-6-29" id="en-NIV-23312"><span class="woj">Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.</span></span> <span class="text Matt-6-30" id="en-NIV-23313"><span class="woj"><sup></sup>If
that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and
tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you
of little faith?</span></span> <span class="text Matt-6-31" id="en-NIV-23314"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum"> </sup>So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’</span></span> <span class="text Matt-6-32" id="en-NIV-23315"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum"> </sup>For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.</span></span> <span class="text Matt-6-33" id="en-NIV-23316"><span class="woj"><sup></sup>But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.</span></span> <span class="text Matt-6-34" id="en-NIV-23317"><span class="woj"><sup class="versenum"> </sup>Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.</span></span></i></blockquote>
<br />
Growing up, I was taught that this passage suggested that those called by God to live without caring for their financial well being could expect to do so at no ultimate personal sacrifice to their physical well being. As such, the passage was beautiful but mostly irrelevant since I had no expectation that I would ever be called upon to ignore my basic needs. Taking care of my needs was something I viewed as an almost a spiritual obligation. Early in my marriage even I viewed paying off my debts as fulfilling a divine commandment. The whole idea of ignoring my well being while being miraculously and totally supported as I supposed this passage suggested had nothing to do with me.<br />
<br />
Now when I read this passage, I can't help but think about actual birds and actual flowers. The passage reads "<span class="woj">Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them." Clark's Nutcracker actually does sow, reap, and store. They eat the seeds of trees like the Limber pine, storing for the future in seed cache's. If the bird forgets the seed cache or dies before eating it, the seeds are planted. Many of the Limber pines you see were planted by a Clark's Nutcracker. Similarly, the Acorn Woodpecker also stores acorns to eat later, although they couldn't be said to plant them. So, although it may be poetical to consider birds as living an easy going lifestyle with manna from heaven supplying their every want, it is common for birds to participate in the stresses of gathering and storing food- even if only as a fat layer for migration.</span><br />
<span class="woj"><br /></span>
<span class="woj">There is a darker side to the comparison with birds and flowers. It is common among many birds that the parents will drive the young away from their breeding territory to prevent the offspring from competing with the parents for food. Young birds who have not yet learned how to forage often die at this stage of life. Many species drive away their young when the survival rate of those young on their own for the first time is only 50%. Those who survive the withdrawal of parental care may live a long time, considering their small body size, but generally their chance of death is about equal every year as they age until they are much older. As for flowers, you can't learn about the effectiveness of techniques used for reseeding landscapes without realizing that most of the viable seeds you put on a landscape will never survive. They will be eaten by ants, rodents, and fungi and sometimes seedlings are trampled or grow in poor soil. Once they establish they must compete with other plants for light and nutrients. While flowers might look pretty, most seeds never survive to be an adult plant. And while plants may not make clothing for themselves their pretty forms have a cost. Plants must balance their carbon and nutrient budgets in order to both grow and reproduce. In poor conditions, the carbon and nutrient budget available to a plant may be too small for survival. Similarly dark realities could be pointed out in any life form. Such findings prompted Darwin's famous words: </span><br />
<blockquote>
<i>“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” </i></blockquote>
Christ's words seem to take this into account such natural destruction with the comment the <span class="text Matt-6-30" id="en-NIV-23313"><span class="woj">grass is
"tomorrow is thrown into the fire." If our model of God caring for the living things in the world includes the possibility of sudden and seemingly meaningless death just like burned grass, then it makes no sense to argue that this passage means that those authorized by God to neglect their personal well being will suffer little want. While I respect the claims of those who feel they received divine support in a ministry, I don't believe anyone is guaranteed an easy life serving God while neglecting their personal needs. </span></span><span class="text Matt-6-30" id="en-NIV-23313"><span class="woj">Instead, these verses seem to suggest that followers of Christ should take a philosophical view towards their own deprivations. Despite all the nestlings and fledglings that die every year, there is no lack of beautiful birds provided for in the world. Despite all the seeds which never become adult plants, the world has no lack of plants. God cares and knows the needs of all of us, including the hungry and the well fed. </span></span><span class="text Matt-6-30" id="en-NIV-23313"><span class="woj">We can believe that God loves all of creation in all its endless cycle
of destruction and rebirth, wishing and striving to redeem it in
rebirth.</span></span> <span class="text Matt-6-30" id="en-NIV-23313"><span class="woj"> Even if our own needs fall short, the general order of life continues. We should seek first to be part of the Kingdom of God, considering it a priority even over life itself, which will continue (or end) no matter how much we worry about it. Living the good life is more than just having our physical needs met.</span></span><br />
<span class="text Matt-6-30" id="en-NIV-23313"><span class="woj"><br /></span></span>
<span class="text Matt-6-30" id="en-NIV-23313"><span class="woj">The imperative to seek first the Kingdom of God instead of consuming our lives with worrying about our physical needs does not inherently make a virtue of self denial or self care, but rather gives us priorities. We should be willing to lose our life for Christ, in order to gain a life which is meaningful and full of striving for goodness in the world. Worrying about the consequences of choosing to live to make a better world doesn't typically change anything- so don't worry about it and just enjoy living life as you can. This is true no matter how brief or long your life is or how well or poorly fed you are. Believing God loves all of us and wishes our well being but for some reason does not or cannot ensure it perfectly for all of us, we can still carry out that wish of love through our life. Even if life is short and impoverished, in our own way and place we can live to help preserve and beautiful the natural world, care for the sick, feed the hungry, and restore the dignity of the oppressed. Otherwise we risk saving our lives, only to find we lost living the good life.</span></span>CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-79453979551406673732015-04-02T23:19:00.002-06:002015-04-03T11:23:47.791-06:00I speak for myselfThis month is supposedly Autism Awareness month. Believe it or not, I have not been keeping very in touch with the Autism Community over the last few years. I've been very busy with being married and having two kids and being a student. However for several years after being diagnosed, I spent a lot of time participating in the autism community and will always be grateful for the welcome and acceptance I enjoyed there. I could just be me. Of all the books on autism that I've read, those that have helped me the most were written by autistics to share their own experiences and coping strategies. Books written by people like that helped me start the process of rebuilding my sense of self worth and sense of pride in who I was that had taken a terrible beating by growing up undiagnosed and without services.<br />
<br />
One of the things I learned in the autism community was that there was only so much I could trust the parts of society that were supposed to be committed to helping people like me. There are scientists who claimed that the bullying of autistics didn't matter because autistics didn't have feelings. There were doctors who were refusing to refer autistics for services because they believed that no one could be autistic and have emotional attachments to their parents. There is a problem in society of violence committed against autistics by their parents, care givers, and the police. There are members of the public who didn't know the difference between autism and Anti-Social Personality Disorder (ie psychopath murderers and your worst nightmare used car salesmen) and are willing to believe whatever fears pop into their heads about autistics. Finally, there are organizations who dedicate themselves to keeping people like me from ever existing in the first place and use fear mongering and demonization of people like me as a fund raising and lobbying tool. <a href="https://www.autismspeaks.org/news/news-item/autism-speaks-washington-call-action" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">To use an example from just a few years ago, I quote</a>:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"These families are not living. They are existing. Breathing – yes. Eating – yes. Sleeping- maybe. Working- most definitely - 24/7.<b> This is autism.</b> Life is lived moment-to-moment. In anticipation of the child’s next move. In despair. In fear of the future. <b>This is autism." </b>(emphasis in the original)<b></b></blockquote>
</div>
<b><br /></b>
Hopefully it should be obvious where the problems are with this statement, the likes of which Autism Speaks has a repeated history of making. My life and the life of my family may have been more difficult due to autism. The life of my son is already becoming more difficult because of autism. There is a whole spectrum of how severely autism affects the daily life of those who have it. Some need many more services than others. But we, collectively, are not the embodiment of living hell- forcing our families to live as lifeless zombies in total fear and despair of the tragedy that we might perpetrate on them at any moment. I'm actually a husband and a father. I'm an employee in a customer service company. I'm a student. I'm also autistic. Anyone whose perception of autism comes primarily from statements by organizations such as Autism Speaks will be less likely to be willing to associate with me, hire me, or give me or my children a fair shot at life's opportunities because they will be in fear that we will suck them into our own private hell that I and people like me will inflict on the world until people like me stop existing because some cure will be found so that my personality and that of every other autistic person will be erased to the extent their personalities were caused by autism.<br />
<br />
I had been willing to call a truce on criticizing Autism Speak's behaviors because while I participated in the autism community online I saw them make attempts to make outreach to our community and they even hired their first token autistic, John Elder Robison, on a scientific board which in theory should help guide them in their work and public presentation. I figured they were getting better. It turned out, <a href="http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2013/11/i-resign-my-roles-at-autism-speaks.html" target="_blank">after several years of association John Elder Robison resigned because he felt that he could no longer remain associated with them when they continued such behaviour</a>.<br />
<br />
If you want to support Autism this month, support autism acceptance, not simply awareness. Please don't donate to Autism Speaks or help them spread their vision of autism. They are trying to do a good thing and they do some good, but freakishly little of the money donated to them actually is spent on helping actual autistics or their families <a href="https://autisticadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Autism_Speaks_Flyer.pdf" target="_blank">(4% in 2010 for example)</a>. Instead they'd rather <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/aspergers-alive/201311/reporters-guide-the-autism-speaks-debacle" target="_blank">spend money on genetics and causation research</a> (which is useful in the long run, but not to me). They aren't mature enough in how they present their message to avoid doing harm to autistics while doing their advocacy work. They might speak for those whose families lives are worst touched by the difficulty of obtaining services and have particularly harsh expressions of autism, but they don't speak for autism itself, which they'd rather simply didn't exist.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-90837451175331143542015-03-26T21:33:00.000-06:002015-04-03T11:24:18.607-06:00Heart Transplants and EasterOne of the recurrent themes in the Bible is of life created out of sterility or death. With my nephew's transplant operation coming up in just a few hours, it just brings to mind powerfully the way's that we as a society working with modern medicine have worked to be able to perform acts of love to bring life from what otherwise would be only death. That is so much more true in a situation like this- where a heart transplant is the kind of life that can only come tragically from another death. In this season of reflection in preparing for Easter and in this shadow of waiting to see if my nephew will have a new lease on life, a hymn about death and renewed life seems appropriate. Now the Green Blade Riseth is a favorite of mine.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y7uhbiUs6eY" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
In celebrating Easter I hope we can seek not just to celebrate the past, but to find ways to participate in the renewing of life and the world.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-87223160893842084512015-03-14T22:50:00.001-06:002015-04-03T11:23:47.794-06:00It never rains but it pours...Earlier this year our family all came down with the flu. I was disappointed since I normally never get the flu and we all got the flu shots, but this year was just bad luck for the flu shots not working. Ever since we got the flu our youngest son has been acting strangely. At first we just assumed he had some post flu grumpiness or that he wasn't feeling all the way better yet. But the behaviors never went away. He became very clingy, wanting to be held by his mommy all the time. He wouldn't even let me pick him up for a while. He might ask me to pick him up, but the moment I tried to lift him he'd squirm away and go running for mommy as if he were frightened. His behaviour became ritualistic and very concerned with things being the "right way." He developed phobias of pooping in the bathtub (to the point where he didn't want to take baths) and of bees (to the point where he didn't want to go outside). Finally we called the pediatrician and had a basic evaluation appointment. The doctor thinks that either he has just had a regression event into autism or some kind of anxiety class disorder has just popped out of the blue on us. His speech abilities seem unaffected and we don't know whether his socializing abilities are affected yet because he won't go outside to play with other kids these days because of his new found fear of bees. Without knowing if his social behaviors have changed, the doctor isn't sure whether its an anxiety disorder like OCD or if he is autistic like his older brother. We have a family history for both classes of disorders, so either are possibilities at this point.<br />
<br />
I'm not sure what to think or feel about the possibility that I might have passed on being on the autistic spectrum to both of my children. We always knew there was a possibility of this happening, but Taliesin had always seemed like the obvious one where that was playing out- missing communication milestones, ritualistic, shy, and very rule based from the beginning. Lionel was always the easy going communicative one who wasn't shy of anyone. It's painful to see the easy going nature suddenly disappear in favor of a very ritualistic and anxious one where Lionel painfully afraid of situations and things he used to enjoy very much. Hopefully we can remedy much of that with proper intervention.<br />
<br />
The narrative that autism is a state of merely being different rather than broken is easier to accept when the traits simply grow organically in place as the way things have always been. Its easier to accept it that way. You can't imagine things having been different. But when things were different and become decidedly worse in very specific ways over a short period of time, you can imagine both ways. It hurts more. It doesn't make it any less part of the person that you love, but you feel a bigger need to fix it. Striking a balance between providing opportunities for many things in life to not be as hard for him and providing acceptance and a compelling narrative of self worth is difficult at best. We don't know what the future will hold, but at least we know to be looking to know what we can do to help. Life could be easier and I wish so many hard things didn't happen so close together. But that's life...CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-6359542295789782772015-03-11T01:31:00.001-06:002015-04-03T11:24:09.396-06:00Take up your Cross...The cross of Christ's Crucifixion is loaded with meaning. Whether you look on it as a awkward reminder of Christ's pain and death when you'd rather focus on His life or whether you look at it with a focused intensity of claiming religious identity the cross is loaded with meaning. So much of what it means to be Christian focuses on the meaning of what happened on the cross that when people read the familiar passage "take up your cross and follow me" what they take away is a message to work harder at following the ideals and social program of their own Christian community, which is largely a good take away message. But I think it can miss the radical quality of Christ's call. When Christ originally said to disciples to "take up your cross and follow me," Christ hadn't died yet. There wasn't a symbol of an empty cross symbolizing resurrection, there wasn't an idea floating around that someone special would die on a cross and somehow reconcile God and man in some way. The cross was simply a method of death by slow torture reserved for those who opposed to rule of Rome. So to the people who heard it at the time, Christ's call would have sounded like a call to resistance against Roman oppression that could have no reasonable outcome other than death.<br />
<br />
It's no surprise then that according to some interpretations, the Apostles Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot were possibly members of violent extremist political groups opposing Rome- with Zealot referring to a group known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealots_%28Judea%29" target="_blank">Zealots</a> that wanted to drive back Roman Rule and Iscariot possibly referring to a group of assassins known as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicarii" target="_blank">Sicarri</a> who tried to kill Roman officials in Jerusalem. While chronologically its possible these interpretations of the Apostle's personal characters might not be exactly correct, the New Testament is very clear the Apostles thought they were joining what would become a political opposition group. As they state in Luke 24:21 "<span class="text Luke-24-21" id="en-NRSV-26003">But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel."</span><br />
<span class="text Luke-24-21" id="en-NRSV-26003"><br /></span>
<span class="text Luke-24-21" id="en-NRSV-26003">Then, to put Christ's original call as His listeners originally heard it but put in modern terms, outside of the context of Christ's entire life it might have sounded like "Sign up for the firing squad and follow me. We'll rebel against the government." There is a sound of danger, of adventure, and of quixotic idealists itching to die a martyr's death. It even sounds like a religious terrorist organization in the making- with promises of religiously charged glory, chances for martyrdom, and a simple message justifying violent direct action.</span><br />
<span class="text Luke-24-21" id="en-NRSV-26003"><br /></span>
<span class="text Luke-24-21" id="en-NRSV-26003">Living in an area where political extremism can be common, it's not uncommon for me to hear the grumblings of wannabe hero's fantasizing about murdering the US President, wishing that somebody would, or almost gleefully pondering how someone might do so one of these days. At work I've heard idle conversation about how the government deserves to be over thrown. While I feel that such grumblings are misguided to an extreme, I can also recognize that such people are trying to practice their morality the best way they know how, perhaps even similar to Christ's apostles who thought they were joining up to help lead an insurrection. While contemplating or acting on such desires to resist evil can involve a certain type of courage and virtue, they don't fully represent the particular kind of courage Christ specifically called for.</span><span class="text Luke-24-21" id="en-NRSV-26003"> Christ states:</span><br />
<br />
"But I say, do not resist an evil person!" (Matthew 5:39)<br />
and<br />
<br />
"And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also." (Matthew 5:40) which according to a commentary I've seen once, would have <span class="p">left the generous soul completely naked.</span><br />
<span class="p"><br /></span>
<span class="p">In the end, Christ's example show us the timeless "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:24)</span><br />
<span class="p"><br /></span>
<span class="p">Christ cared about Roman oppressions and it showed in kinds of people who joined him. He just cares more about the internal state of the soul that becomes willing to bear anger, violence, or to contemplate evil towards others to resolve these problems. So when we metaphorically "sign up for the firing squad" for Christ, I think we should be willing to be honest about problems that come from outside of us, our community, or our nation. We should be willing to die to resist the evils in our world, but more willing to let the evils within us die. Otherwise we become just one more tragic group of people seeking to save their live's from something external but lose their souls in the process</span><span class="p">.</span><br />
<span class="p"><br /></span>
<span class="p">In the whole, taking up a cross to follow Jesus isn't just a pledge to have certain opinions about Jesus, to deal with suffering with dignity, or to participate in church. Its trying to achieve the delicate balance of pulling moral logs out of our eyes and working against social injustice at the same time. And doing both despite the consequences.</span>CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-20734254072942994772014-10-30T01:20:00.003-06:002015-04-03T11:23:47.786-06:00Diagnosis for TaliesinSo we went to the USU clinic today and got the diagnosis for Taliesin. They apparently had a lot of trouble deciding between selective mutism and autism. There is a lot of inherent overlap in the symptoms between those two so I can understand that. They decided in the end that his pattern of rigid routines etc was not typical for selective mutism and therefore decided to diagnose "autism spectrum disorder with features of selective mutism."<br />
<br />
Part of me is just elated that since we now have an official diagnosis for him I can try to make his life better than mine was. I never received any proper services as a child because at the time the diagnosis didn't really exist in a useful way for me. Another part of me just isn't sure what to think. The doctors dumped a rather large plateful of suggested therapy routes for him on our plates and part of me just wants to push back and say we don't need that much help. Maybe its because for me the process of diagnosis was more about re self discovery and self acceptance but not about getting help from anyone part of me wants it to mean the same thing for him, even though that makes no sense.<br />
<br />
I wish I felt like I could talk to more people about this. Since T essentially inherited this from me I almost feel like I can't talk about it without talking about myself at the same time. And as a general rule I generally don't talk about my own diagnostic situation with just about anyone. Its something I've been loosening up on quite a bit over the last few years, but only so much. I spent so long fearing that people wouldn't believe me if I talked about it or would assume horrible things about me that its just still really difficult to talk about it. But now it seems that I'll have to navigate a new path if I want to act as an advocate for Taliesin. Perhaps that is what scares me the most of anything.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5419859334208041139.post-75825050063508248002014-10-11T00:24:00.000-06:002014-11-22T21:48:56.901-07:00Police shootings and bigotryWithin the last few weeks there has been a good deal of news reporting about a shooting in Utah where a young man was carrying a decorative sword for cosplay while walking around a mall and was shot by police very quickly after they tried to stop him. The police say he lunged at them with the sword, at least some witnesses say he was actually walking away from the police when they shot him. The family says that based on their evidence and autopsy report the police shooting seems unjustified and have suggested that racism somehow played into the police decision to kill their son. The evidence is apparently complicated by at least seemingly contradictory witness reports. I don't have any real knowledge of the case beyond what is in the newspaper, so I don't want to take any sides in the issue. Certainly the case shows that trust in a community between the black community and the police department can break down quickly. But I wanted to discuss the idea of racism more broadly because people seem to react to the issue as if the only possible way for the police to be racist would be for them to be some sort of evil monsters and since the police aren't monsters then they aren't racist. Life just isn't that simple. Racism takes both overt and covert forms and both kinds kill.<br />
<br />
Before I get into that I want to break down a little bit more of why I have sympathy for the police in many situation where they kill someone on accident that they wish afterwards they hadn't. Unfortunately there are many criminals out there who would rather kill a cop than get caught. For whatever reason this desperation and lack of moral proportion comes into existence, it means that police can be killed by people who they have no relationship with and sometimes when, from the police officers perspective, the encounter with the criminal may not give them any obvious warning of impending violence. If a police officer stops a desperate criminal during a routine traffic stop to tell them that their tail light was out the police officer can become a target without warning. Because of this, the rules regarding when you are allowed to kill someone tend to be different for police.<br />
<br />
A normal citizen in many jurisdictions has to be fairly certain that they need to kill someone to defend themselves before they are legally justified. A normal citizen may be required to try to de escalate the situation or flee. A normal citizen might be required to not use deadly force if only their property is in danger but not their physical well being. Just guessing that you might be in danger because someone might be drawing a weapon isn't enough of a reason to kill them. But that is often how it works for the police. Subject to many training routines and rules and regulations police are often trained to kill people with little provocation just based on the risk that a suspect might be about to attack them. All of that risk is calculated in split second decisions. Therefore, tragic mistakes happen on a semi routine basis. Its part of the reason why cap guns have orange tips on them these days. With the old ones it was too easy for cops to kill little kids because the cap guns looked like the real thing. Its a little bit like when someone with PTSD has a violent episode- the fear reactions in the brain can take over resulting in tragedies that are hard to understand afterwards.<br />
<br />
Now lets get back to racism. There are two kinds. One is overt racism, where the racist individual is openly hateful or disdainful of different racial group and isn't particularly ashamed of it. These kinds of people can become violent and oppressive just because they are that filled with hate. There is another kind of racism where the racist individual is conscious that open racism is a bad thing, but still treats people of other ethnic groups poorly based on the assumption that the other group is just inherently bad in some way. An example would be a judge a few years back that denied giving an interracial couple a marriage license because he "knew" that inter racial marriages were inherently short lived. This covert racism probably exists in almost every single person who grows up in a culture with a history of racism. I can still remember the two incidents that helped me became aware of it in myself.<br />
<br />
I was with my family and we were walking around the Washington DC area at in the evening or at night. A group of beggars lined the sidewalk- all black men. My father gave some change to one of them as he briskly walked past and then mentioned how he was fairly certain he smelled alcohol on the man's breath. Its been so long I can't remember for sure but I think my parents may have even coached us before we walked past that we were in a potentially dangerous situation. Fast forward years from then when our family was visiting England and were walking around in the city streets. We walked past a group of black boys or men and I felt my mind preparing to be afraid of them as potential criminals, but then something about the atmosphere- perhaps their refined sounding British accents- that threw off my sub-mental triggers and I didn't have the fear response I was accustomed to. I suddenly realized that I had been experiencing a racist fear of black men. I had never intended to be afraid, it was just part of the cultural world I inherited. Covert racism poisons your mind when you are trying to be a good person. Practically anyone who lives in a culture where racism is part of the history is going to have a certain amount of this poison in their system. Without intentionally trying to become aware of it and get rid of it this racism poison won't go anywhere just because you have good intentions. So I openly acknowledge that to my shame I've got a little bit of the racist in me. Now that I'm aware of it I try to root it out of myself whenever I can identify it.<br />
<br />
Now lets flip back to the perspective of any cop facing a black man. Psychologically, I've read, carrying a gun is a good way to fool yourself into thinking the people around you are also carrying guns. Cops, because they carry guns, are likely to mistakenly think that others around them are carrying too. Once they make that mistake, police have to decide in a split second how dangerous they think a suspect is based on their behavior. And, most police officers in America are going to likely have irrational fears about black men being inherently dangerous. As a result- we can expect that in tragic situations police can kill unarmed black men based on mistakes of perception of whether a black man is armed and aggressive. These mistakes of perception can happen in just split seconds, leading to a dead man on the ground a few moments later. And the police officers don't have to be evil monsters to make that sort of mistake. They just have to be human. Granted, some evil monsters do manage to become police officers and act out intentional violence on the community around them. But in a society that condemns open racism, the accidental or "covert" racism will be more common by far and still kill people just as dead as if they were lynched by the KKK. So the next time that you hear speculation on whether or not a police shooting was motivated by racism- realize that it might be true even if it wasn't intentional. That being said, the police are supposed to be trained to minimize accidental killings and if they let their fears overwhelm their training they should be held responsible. But these situations are frequently anything but black and white.CrouchingOwlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11487490296599614185noreply@blogger.com0