<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<p>Brains aren't identical in so many ways, but the varietals are
identifiable, and autism is a spectrum. Aspberger's a variation. <br>
</p>
<p>The incredible varieties have to fight limbic impulses to
function in a civil world. Some can be taught and might learn.
Others, the sociopaths and psycopaths feel no guilt or love at
all, but share other human traits. <br>
</p>
<p>Those in the autism spectrum also not a member of the class of
socio/psycopaths/narcissists, can have other mental
health-functionality issues, too.... like depression,
schizophrenia, bipolar manifestations and more. They can also have
mixtures of all of the aforementioned just like the rest of the
population. Luckily, my brother functions well in these regards.<br>
</p>
<p>Stating these facts isn't to apologize for them, merely to
understand where they come from, and how those in the spectrum are
able to function in a world that's changing for them, and for us.
<br>
</p>
<p>In my grandfathers' era, both were of the white privileged class,
and women didn't work, had no real rights, and were subjugated--
treated as chattel, along with anyone else who wasn't white and
privileged. One grandfather was a defender of this class, while
the other, despite his own privilege and difficulties, became a
believer in social justice, perhaps in the extreme. The extreme is
far closer to the center of the currently-labeled progressive
movement. Both sides had members with symptoms of autism and yes,
the other maladies mentioned above. <br>
</p>
<p>Today, my daughter's a scientist and my son is a social worker.
Time changes things, including many metrics. Sometimes it also
changes behaviors and situational dynamics to the benefit of the
core of humanity. And every day is a battle for that core as the
world evolves.</p>
<p>My brother was so entirely different, i wondered when I was young
if they had made an accidental switch at the hospital. Kindly and
steadfastly, my mother convinced me that I was wrong. She was
right, of course. Embracing his strangeness, his deviation from
what I thought was the norm, has been life-changing for me. This
said, he's a wonderful guy and where he has chasms, you cannot see
the bottom of the chasm with the most powerful binoculars on
earth. The barriers in my mind are different than his; mine are
ultimately flexible and his, where found, are intransigent in the
extreme. I'm lucky he's trainable and forgivable for his
strangenesses are comparatively innocuous. My great fear is that
he'll act out one day, and some hapless public safety officer will
misidentify a very rare (non-violent but possible) tantrum and
fill him full of 9mm slugs. It's for this reason that we've
carefully constructed boundaries for him to allow him to live
somewhat alone.<br>
</p>
<p>Tom</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/23/19 10:41 AM, Tara Calishain via
Ipg-smz wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CALr9bAWsL5wGJ3FHY9iFjgbhvkwM5ouZTKJH=AFPtL-fXnxsyw@mail.gmail.com">
<div dir="ltr">"Every day I deal with my autistic brother's
shenanigans. He is built, <br>
how he's built.; in the 1960s it was rare to even get a
diagnosis and <br>
few knew what to do with autistim diagnoses. He's trainable.
Graduated <br>
high school. But moving outside of his own context is nigh
impossible. "<br>
<br>
Oh my word. This. So this. My brother was not diagnosed with
Aspberger's until 2003, when he was almost 40. (He has other
health problems that might have inhibited an earlier
diagnosis.)
<div><br>
</div>
<div>He has done things that have made me want to crawl in a
hole and pull it in after myself. But I will give him this: if
he does something ridiculous, my mother explains that it was
ridiculous and not to do it again, and he doesn't. And I have
never seen him be intentionally cruel or mean. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>(He's also the only one of the three of us who graduated
from high school, so he also gets props for that.) </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 11:24
AM Tom Henderson via Ipg-smz <<a
href="mailto:ipg-smz@netpress.org" moz-do-not-send="true">ipg-smz@netpress.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote">Fellow Guilders,<br>
<br>
I go way back in Linux. Long ago, the Linux Business Expo was
part of <br>
COMDEX, and I was one of many functionaries in the greater
spheres of <br>
COMDEX program development. Lots of interesting characters
evolved Linux <br>
for a variety of motivations.<br>
<br>
Stallman was the anti-Microsoft. The pillar of free. I'm not a
licensed <br>
medical/health/psych practitioner in any jurisdiction, but
Stallman had <br>
brains, perhaps some autisim, and thought things through. He
cared not <br>
one whit about his personal appearance or scent. Clue #1.<br>
<br>
He had boundaries in the philosophy of Free. They were
well-developed <br>
and thought through. Much of his hard work in finishing the
utilities <br>
that make the operating system we know as Linux were at his
hands, or <br>
one step-away.<br>
<br>
His lip flatulence was notorious, as is/was/were many in the
early <br>
free/open source movement. Many of them had a gripe with the
sheer <br>
mendacity of Microsoft and its minions. SJV-N believes
Microsoft has <br>
changed. I'm not sure if I share that believe, but as an
researcher, I <br>
continue to observe.<br>
<br>
Stallman is a member of a wider body of men that think within
their own <br>
context. It's difficult to shift outside of that personal
context for <br>
them. I'm not excusing their behavior, just observing it.<br>
<br>
Nor am I forgiving it, and history shouldn't, either. The
object that <br>
we'll look backwards upon 100yrs from now, should have that
stain <br>
mentioned, not just the bullet-point of: founder of "free" as
a <br>
construction and architectural concept. He was also: a dick.<br>
<br>
Can he help being a dick? I'll leave that to others. Too many
men follow <br>
their hormones rather than something evolved in the
pre-frontal cortex. <br>
Is being a dick part of autism? Does it being autism make it
forgivable? <br>
No, is my answer-- it's a quality that doesn't offset the
fetid scent.<br>
<br>
Every day I deal with my autistic brother's shenanigans. He is
built, <br>
how he's built.; in the 1960s it was rare to even get a
diagnosis and <br>
few knew what to do with autistim diagnoses. He's trainable.
Graduated <br>
high school. But moving outside of his own context is nigh
impossible. <br>
Change comes after daunting repetition. Only then. Trust me:
only then. <br>
My late mother had him queued in a very Pavlovian way, and was
<br>
successful, but my brother doesn't live with me. I've
developed a <br>
support network for him. At a family event, he will blurt the
most <br>
insane stuff, not understanding how a poop joke might not go
over well <br>
with his aging aunt. Clueless. There are many clueless in the
world. <br>
Their population doesn't forgive the cluelessness, just makes
us work <br>
harder at inculcating manners. Like most of us, he wants to be
loved.<br>
<br>
And so, atop the object that we might describe about others,
their <br>
incredible accomplishments but their amazing lip flatulence
and even <br>
more morbid felonies: some were built to not recognize the
emotive <br>
response of other humans. It's just the way things are.<br>
<br>
There are many "Aspie" and autistic people somehow in my
immediate <br>
circle of people, or perhaps, one step away. Here in the
university town <br>
where I live, it's like the aforementioned Mensa meeting,
where people <br>
came to study, and unable to live in the real world, became
academics, <br>
or failing that, became "townies" with IQs in excess of 145
joining <br>
their peers. They never succeed in any recognizable way, but
they fit <br>
into a rag-tag bunch of intellectual misfits which in turn,
becomes a <br>
subculture of snorters. Nothing inherently wrong with
snorters. And a <br>
common denominator of humanity is: Misfit, if of differing
cultures and <br>
acumen.<br>
<br>
To address therefore Dana's "everyone is eventually forgiven"
comment, <br>
my answer is no, that's not quite correct. Like most things,
it's more <br>
complicated than that. Some will want to understand the
complexity, <br>
while others just want to ascribe to The Winning Team or
soundbite.<br>
<br>
Tom<br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Tom Henderson<br>
ExtremeLabs, Inc.<br>
+1 317 250 4646<br>
Twitter: @extremelabs<br>
Skype: extremelabsinc<br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Ipg-smz mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Ipg-smz@netpress.org" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">Ipg-smz@netpress.org</a><br>
<a
href="http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://netpress.org/mailman/listinfo/ipg-smz_netpress.org</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Tom Henderson
ExtremeLabs, Inc.
+1 317 250 4646
Twitter: @extremelabs
Skype: extremelabsinc</pre>
</body>
</html>