My riposte to the situation outlined in the Curious Incident (no, children, not Haddon's book)
I've never been afraid to think differently and act differently.
But then, my life has never been seriously threatened. Yet!
I live in a world where lots of freedom has been acknowledged and given me. And I give freedom too. I think I'm a net giver of freedom.
A 9-year-old boy running around naked with total freedom is enviable in our society.
I grew up with Victor of Averyon.
For many years longer than our current civilisation nudity has been an important part of who and what we are. I am sure we evolved to be happy nude, children and adults alike.
Society is only a group of individuals and it is the sum of what these individuals think and feel.
I feel very sorry for individuals who have never been able to think or feel on their own, whether they have a defined neurological condition or not.
Here, neurology is the least of the obstacles.
Social constructs are very often nothing but traps, as I have learnt over the past few years especially.
So, not only let him be, but see if you can join him and enjoy it, or just be yourself without clothes on.
Personally I think the clothes-wearers are the crazy ones, and the ones who impose conformity without knowing what they're doing. Or knowing exactly why they're doing it and not being able/willing to brook another point of view, or respect another lifestyle choice.
Not to make a choice, in the end, is still making a choice.
I want to make choices that will break paths and tracks even when I don't know I'm doing so.
I want to make choices that have freedom and hope for all people.
When clothes cause so much unhappiness and division - there is sense in dropping them altogether.
I called you children because we are all children in an importance sense - we are still learning.
May we continue to learn and not shut down our hearts and minds.
Is there a test for tolerance? People have remarked directly and otherwise on my unusual tolerance. Obviously I have come a long way from the girl who wrote a pivotal scene with a nude child. I was so Puritan back then, with religious grandparents. I knew I was doing it only to shock, but shock is the only way some people - including my own classmates and teachers - would learn anything decent and worthwhile.
A shock to the system is the best one I know, so I continue to give it when I see and feel that it is warranted.
I think we learn a lot about ourselves by how we deal with difference. If we continue to resist change and insist on sameness, then we make ourselves the laughing stocks of society. And we will hang, draw and quarter ourselves.
Let's all work to make our societies a bit more tolerant and accepting. We will reap the rewards here on earth.
Tolerance is - and always has been for me - much much more than just putting up with.
If it were just putting up with I would have given up years ago. I would have paid for it dearly with my life. And I would not have blessed my friends and family with the potential of my example. In a real sense I was just beginning to warm up. I did not yet have the life experiences to make my perspectives clear and true. They were academic and abstract once what I live so cheerfully and honestly now.
I have not the heart to go out naked in public. Not yet! But I will someday. And I will pay the piper's tune. Happily. It would make a good breach experiment for those who are brave and wise enough to go with the flow.
I will most likely do it when I am an old woman and my inhibitions are slipped away as they will do with age.
A good system will survive and endure shocks and become better. I don't mean better at what systems do. That would be detrimental and destructive and something to fear more than to love. A lot of people would be so unhappy and sorrowful if this happened, because they would feel very betrayed. And once you've been betrayed by society in such a personal way, are you going to give back to it? I wouldn't do so, I don't think. But that of course is a product of my personality, character and experiences.
I do wish I was braver. My bravery comes very much in the form of crazy-brave.
As I have become more tolerant, I have become much more courageous. I have to risk, every day, things that I think valuable, and put them to the test of life and of opinions which are very very different from mine. I cannot know whether I have yet passed or failed. I don't believe in Judgement Day and I wish I were happier with the open-ended, spontaneous side of life which this indicates. Others are very good at it and I admire them and try to imitate them, and think about what would work for me in such-and-such a case. Then I generalise my hypotheses and work merrily from there. Unless I am feeling especially anxious and depressed - these are the wages of risk, I feel. This is the cost of my exposure to an unaccepting world.
I do feel the world is much kinder and accepting than it generally lets itself be.
And the blog Curious Incident is a great example of that. The writer talks about her acquaintance Jake in a way I'd never yet dared to talk about anybody in my personal life. And I'm not going to, as it wouldn't achieve anything.
But then, my life has never been seriously threatened. Yet!
I live in a world where lots of freedom has been acknowledged and given me. And I give freedom too. I think I'm a net giver of freedom.
A 9-year-old boy running around naked with total freedom is enviable in our society.
I grew up with Victor of Averyon.
For many years longer than our current civilisation nudity has been an important part of who and what we are. I am sure we evolved to be happy nude, children and adults alike.
Society is only a group of individuals and it is the sum of what these individuals think and feel.
I feel very sorry for individuals who have never been able to think or feel on their own, whether they have a defined neurological condition or not.
Here, neurology is the least of the obstacles.
Social constructs are very often nothing but traps, as I have learnt over the past few years especially.
So, not only let him be, but see if you can join him and enjoy it, or just be yourself without clothes on.
Personally I think the clothes-wearers are the crazy ones, and the ones who impose conformity without knowing what they're doing. Or knowing exactly why they're doing it and not being able/willing to brook another point of view, or respect another lifestyle choice.
Not to make a choice, in the end, is still making a choice.
I want to make choices that will break paths and tracks even when I don't know I'm doing so.
I want to make choices that have freedom and hope for all people.
When clothes cause so much unhappiness and division - there is sense in dropping them altogether.
I called you children because we are all children in an importance sense - we are still learning.
May we continue to learn and not shut down our hearts and minds.
Is there a test for tolerance? People have remarked directly and otherwise on my unusual tolerance. Obviously I have come a long way from the girl who wrote a pivotal scene with a nude child. I was so Puritan back then, with religious grandparents. I knew I was doing it only to shock, but shock is the only way some people - including my own classmates and teachers - would learn anything decent and worthwhile.
A shock to the system is the best one I know, so I continue to give it when I see and feel that it is warranted.
I think we learn a lot about ourselves by how we deal with difference. If we continue to resist change and insist on sameness, then we make ourselves the laughing stocks of society. And we will hang, draw and quarter ourselves.
Let's all work to make our societies a bit more tolerant and accepting. We will reap the rewards here on earth.
Tolerance is - and always has been for me - much much more than just putting up with.
If it were just putting up with I would have given up years ago. I would have paid for it dearly with my life. And I would not have blessed my friends and family with the potential of my example. In a real sense I was just beginning to warm up. I did not yet have the life experiences to make my perspectives clear and true. They were academic and abstract once what I live so cheerfully and honestly now.
I have not the heart to go out naked in public. Not yet! But I will someday. And I will pay the piper's tune. Happily. It would make a good breach experiment for those who are brave and wise enough to go with the flow.
I will most likely do it when I am an old woman and my inhibitions are slipped away as they will do with age.
A good system will survive and endure shocks and become better. I don't mean better at what systems do. That would be detrimental and destructive and something to fear more than to love. A lot of people would be so unhappy and sorrowful if this happened, because they would feel very betrayed. And once you've been betrayed by society in such a personal way, are you going to give back to it? I wouldn't do so, I don't think. But that of course is a product of my personality, character and experiences.
I do wish I was braver. My bravery comes very much in the form of crazy-brave.
As I have become more tolerant, I have become much more courageous. I have to risk, every day, things that I think valuable, and put them to the test of life and of opinions which are very very different from mine. I cannot know whether I have yet passed or failed. I don't believe in Judgement Day and I wish I were happier with the open-ended, spontaneous side of life which this indicates. Others are very good at it and I admire them and try to imitate them, and think about what would work for me in such-and-such a case. Then I generalise my hypotheses and work merrily from there. Unless I am feeling especially anxious and depressed - these are the wages of risk, I feel. This is the cost of my exposure to an unaccepting world.
I do feel the world is much kinder and accepting than it generally lets itself be.
And the blog Curious Incident is a great example of that. The writer talks about her acquaintance Jake in a way I'd never yet dared to talk about anybody in my personal life. And I'm not going to, as it wouldn't achieve anything.