Paternal preconceptions and normality as apathic behavior

As some of you may be aware, I am a dad (still working on making it Dad with capital D, but it's all in the cards).

My son is the most wonderful gift I have been given, and quite an example for me of interest, growth and self drive, he does however have certain "particulars" which make it hard for him to relate to other kids, and adults alike.

Years ago we found out that he had, what at the time was diagnosed as "Asperger's Syndrome", back then, it was considered by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, as a separate Syndrome, now it's just part of the Autistic Spectrum Disorder and is qualified as one of many areas on the severity scale.

In simple terms, he has a hard time socializing and interacting.

So, we take good care of what he does, and how he reacts, a few days ago, he came home with a note, he punched somebody and bloodied their lip.

Of course, as concerned parents we worried about the situation, he told us that yes he had punched them and that was about it.
So we apologized to the kid's parent's and told the teacher about our work-plan to make it better.

Yesterday at therapy we took up the subject again with the Therapist (lovely woman that I recommend highly), and I expanded on it from what Jr told me had happened, apparently he punched the kid because they were teasing and otherwise mistreating another infant.

The therapist said "that's totally expected, kid's with this type of syndrome, do not deal well with injustice, and they will react explosively".

That made me think hard, and well, should we ALL not react the same way?  You know maybe not punching people, but interfering and acting so that the action, injustice or otherwise abuse is stopped?

We're dealing with Jr's acts a step at a time, but really, is standing by and letting others be trampled on, and abused the norm now?  Are we so far disconnected from our fellow people that it's "normal" to let them be?

In my case, I rather not walk away, and do something, I remember my grand-dad telling me we should always step in and act fairly and ensure that others are not oppressed or abused, that the little ones, be them children or defenseless people, NEED us to step in.

I was reminded of course of a passage in "Ender's Game", where Ender is bullied and reacts accordingly.  As kids are about to gang up on him, he makes a decision to fight in such a way and defend himself so that others will really think long and hard before bullying him again:

  Can't think of anything to answer. Anything I say will make it worse. So will saying nothing.
 
  "Hey, Third, hey, turd, you flunked out, huh? Thought you were better than us, but you lost your little birdie, Thirdie, got a bandaid on your neck."
 
  "Are you going to let me through?" Ender asked.
 
  "Are we going to let him through? Should we let him through?" They all laughed. "Sure we'll let you through. First we'll let your arm through, then your butt through, then maybe a piece of your knee."
 
  The others chimed in now. "Lost your birdie, Thirdie.  Lost your birdie, Thirdie."
 
  Stilson began pushing him with one hand, someone behind him then pushed him toward Stilson.
 
  "See-saw, marjorie daw," somebody said.
 
  "Tennis!"
 
  "Ping-pong!"
 
  This would not have a happy ending. So Ender decided that he'd rather not be the unhappiest at the end. The next time Stilson's arm came out to push him, Ender grabbed at it. He missed.
 
  "Oh, gonna fight me, huh? Gonna fight me, Thirdie?"
 
  The people behind Ender grabbed at him, to hold him.
 
  Ender did not feel like laughing, but he laughed. "You mean it takes this many of you to fight one Third?"
 
  "We're people, not Thirds, turd face. You're about as strong as a fart!"
 
  But they let go of him. And as soon as they did, Ender kicked out high and hard, catching Stilson square in the breastbone. He dropped. It took Ender by surprise he hadn't thought to put Stilson on the ground with one kick. It didn't occur to him that Stilson didn't take a fight like this seriously, that he wasn't prepared for a truly desperate blow.
 
  For a moment, the others backed away and Stilson lay motionless. They were all wondering if he was dead. Ender, however, was trying to figure out a way to forestall vengeance. To keep them from taking him in a pack tomorrow. I have to win this now, and for all time, or I'll fight it every day and it will get worse and worse.

I am sure the execution wasn't the best possible scenario, we will definitely make sure that he tones it down accordingly, but I can't really fault Jr for stepping in, maybe if we all did, life would be different for those being bullied.

Presidential Postulates and Pricing in the Periphery.

So, as I posted on FB a few Days ago, election season and political fever have invaded my usually peaceful neck of the universe.

In the tiniest part of the spiral Galaxy I live in, people's fervor towards certain rituals is unregulated and spontaneous, mostly because "freedom", so everyone has an opinion (mostly the same as a lot of others, but NEVER call them sheeple) and the sanctimonious impetus they have when sharing it is deafening at times.

Just like astrology, finding the best political candidate takes a lot of guesswork (it really shouldn't but you would not be able to see this from the way some people react and apply their feelings into what, should be a mathematical postulate at times (not always though).

So, from my limited stay on this here third rock, I have come to identify various ways in which people choose a candidate of their liking:

• Hereditary, these are the people that just vote for whoever their parent's taught them to vote
• Utterly and illogically biased, these are those that have no clue who to vote for, yet decide to exercise the right to select the next president of the country based on "he's cute", "she's a woman", "he's the one with the TV show" etc.
• Gut feeling, having never really studied politics, these wondrous and adventurous individuals just trust their gut "feels right" is something you hear a lot here
• Self identification, the candidate reminds me of something I once liked in the past and I'll just go with that
• Scholarly voters are pretty much people that DO NOT adhere to a single party, but will study, review, understand and SELECT the choice that best applies to what they believe the future of the country should be

There may be one or two more categories, but I feel those above cover most of what I've seen.

People in Latin America like a 'people' person, we're very outgoing (mostly), talkative (sometimes), grounded (this is really being eroded lately) and having someone that feels like he's "people" and not just a figure head is what a lot of the citizens want.

So, it's not surprising when two days ago, a lot of the opinions towards the selection of the next president seems to be based off knowing or not, how much groceries cost in the open market.

I read a story once, Assimov's "The Franchise".  In the FAR FAR away future of 2008, indirect voting was taken to the extreme, you had a "Voter of the Year", and ONE person decided who the president would be.

From Wikipedia:

In the future, the United States has converted to an "electronic democracy" where the computer Multivac selects a single person to answer a number of questions. Multivac will then use the answers and other data to determine what the results of an election would be, avoiding the need for an actual election to be held.

I left those links there in case anyone wants to learn more about democracy and elections.

The funny part is, the actual questions that Norman Answers, have to do with cost of food, cost of living, and stuff like that, but the this one stuck to me pretty solidly, as it was well, here's the line from the book:

"The one question Norman could remember at the moment was an incongruously gossipy: "What do you think of the price of eggs?""

 

That's precisely what a lot of people are basing decisions on, if a candidate knew or not the price of groceries.

 

There being millions of factors you could abide by to choose a person to lead the country, the biggest news now, is basically Gossip.

 

I am not defending the ignorance of any particular candidate (most didn't know and one decided NOT to answer a single question), but seriously?  This is what a lot of people want for our country's future?  

 

We have, at the moment a female president and  NO ONE is asking out there why there are no female candidates at this point.

 

We do have a younger candidate, among the miriad of rehashed past hopefuls, and one or two newcomers that were dropped into the position after a circus fanfare to rival Roman Coliseums shows.

 

But we really are not looking for a proper president, we seem to be looking for whether or not he's "one of us".

 

 

Turn, turn, turn... Or how people don't live the moment but await the date.

When I was an itty-bitty baby, like 3 or so, my mom took me to the amusement park.  She took me lots of times afterwards but THIS one stuck on my mind (and 30 years is quite a memory marker), so I want to share with all of you.

So, we're at the Amusement Park, and we go through the gate, this is not like Disney World or anything, back then it was like (for you outside CR) a VERY big state fair that never went away.  EVER.

So, they had all these rides for children and some for grown ups, it was (back then) mostly for the kids.

So again I go through the gate to this magical place and I see for the first time ever, all these rides, it was just amazing.

We had a Ferris Wheel, we had little "lady-bug" rides, a carrousel, a rollercoaster that was SCARY (the scariest thing is it is still running), and a whole bunch of other rides.

So I jumped in on the first one, and while I was riding the carrousel, I was looking at the next ride, joyfully awaiting the moment the carrousel stopped and I was able to run and queue up for the bumper cars; once on the bumper cars, same thing, I wanted to just finish fast so I could go to the ride-boats.

My mom took me aside of course (mostly because she didn't want to run from ride to ride, but also to give me one of the greatest lessons ever) and said "You aren't really enjoying yourself on the rides because you are waiting to jump on the next one, you're missing the MOMENT!"

Back then it really didn't mean much to me, it was just a "OK slow down and enjoy THIS ride, once off, I'll figure out what comes next", but little by little her words started to sink in and give me more context.

These days, I extrapolate a bit more.  Maybe it's just because I've grown older, but I highly doubt it.  Lately I see people (not just commerce) RUSHING towards the holidays, and by holidays I mean Christmas.

As far back as August I saw people on Facebook asking if it's too soon to start putting up ornaments because they "JUST LOVE Christmas". 

AUGUST guys, AUGUST.  FOUR months ahead. 

I've even heard of people Caroling already, you know singing Christmas Songs, in OCTOBER.

I hear some say that it's because in Latin America, we don't really have holidays between September and December (that said most of Central America Celebrates independence in September but I digress), but damn it people, by the time December comes your tree will be wilted, you will seriously want to murder someone for singing Carols, and the gifts will have probably got up and found a different family to be delivered to.

Yes, I LIKE Christmas, I enjoy Christmas, but things have a time, a place and a proper setting.

Enjoy your moments people, they don't come back, and once you fast forward to the places you "love" and miss those "less special", you are the only one to blame when you fail to grow from experiences, living ahead of your time, and enjoying none of it and this is precisely what you pass down to your children, a feeling of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and not living IT.