Autism Awareness Day

Earlier, I read on Facebook that today - April 2nd - was Autism Awareness Day, which I had completely forgotten. I was excited to hear, though, that people are wearing the color blue to raise awareness since I was already wearing a blue dress shirt.

It can still be difficult for me to tell other people that I am on the autism spectrum, although I have been more open about my condition...condition? Is that the word I want to use?

While living as a person on the autism spectrum definitely isn't a "lifestyle choice" (relax, this is a joke)*, it does seem quite absurd for me to use such impersonal, almost dehumanizing language like "condition" to describe something that has had such an impact on my life so far.

*Would I have to say that so explicitly if I were someone else? (I don't even say "normal", because no one really is "normal", but everyone has problems and quirks that change who they are.)

On that note, I choose to describe myself as a "professional human being". I've spent an often disconcerting amount of time parsing the nuances of the behavior of other people, not to mention my own actions.

When I was younger, I knew less about the world and felt far more sensitive to my own shortcomings. When I had difficult interactions with others, I always assumed that it was my fault, because I was the one who stuck out from the crowd.

Yes, I do make my fair share of mistakes -- but so does everyone else. No one has a monopoly on making or not making a social faux pas.

In some ways, having so much trouble with understanding certain things about the world for so long has helped me. I have more patience for uncertainty, more tolerance of ambiguity, and a greater willingness to see things from the perspectives of other people.

From ignorance, wisdom. And the last shall be among the first.

So that's something. Everywhere I go, people still insistently ask me "where I'm from" because "I have an accent". I usually don't tell them that I probably sound unusual to them because I have Asperger's Syndrome. I want people to believe that I'm really a male counterpart to Anna Chapman, sent as a representative of a foreign country to live undercover in the United States of America, and that my apparent accent and pedestrian background betray my ulterior motives. At least, I hope that's what people think, because that's cool as hell.

Now I just need to practice a Russian accent:

"My name is Teleprompter. I am a professional human being. I am from suburbia, USA, from somewhere you've never heard of, like a good American..."

Up All Night: Eternal Meaning

I've had many debates with one of my closest friends on the subjects of politics and religion, those twin goblins of good graces in conversation. Recently, he shared his opinion on the differences between a secular and (his) Christian view, when one compares how the differing views perceive the meaningfulness of human actions over time.

My Christian friend notes that the reasons I give to establish the meaning of my life - as a non-religious person who doesn't believe in an afterlife - are fleeting, brief, ephemeral. A Christian has eternal meaning, he said. Eternal meaning? Let us examine this eternal meaning.

The very language which I'm using to speak to you is deeply and hopelessly flawed, if you accept my friend's interpretation of Christianity. I'm speaking in early 21st century American English, in case you couldn't tell, my brave future anthropological readers. English has evolved at a very high frequency for hundreds of years, yet I am writing this paragraph and you (wise future interpreters of ancient English!) somehow manage to read my thoughts. Despite undergoing extensive change, my words are somehow...not meaningless!

When you're reading my words, do you understand what I say? How is that possible? People who lived hundreds of years ago would not be able to understand, yet their words gave birth to mine. If people exist in hundreds of years, I'm sure they will barely comprehend my present speech, even though my words will have made their own possible. Yet this change has absolutely no point of relevance to our current conversation. Past and future changes in meaning have no impact upon our current meaning. This present moment is fully meaningful, just by itself. If you want eternal meaning, stick with mathematics:

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Do you see what I've just written? I wrote a series of zeroes. I wrote eternity. Eternity continues for an uncountable number of years...if we tried to count the time, it would begin with a one, and conclude with some combination such as:

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Eventually, the weight of zeroes eclipses the relevance of all which existed before its passage. Memory is another important example to demonstrate how present meaning is more relevant than any possible eternal meaning. Let's assume someone is currently reading this text: are you going to remember every word I've uttered? No. Does your inability to remember much of what I've said strip my words of purpose? No. The purpose of my words is not directly related to your ability to remember everything I've said. The purpose of my words is related to the immediate and to the long-terms effect they unleash on you, the reader. These effects occur on a finite basis, but they are meaningful and they are important.

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

This focus on the zeroes, and the focus on eternity, just doesn't matter. Now matters. I defend the present, the temporary, the things that deteriorate, the things we forget, and the things we lose. Why? Because those are things that truly matter in our lives. How we treat each other at this instant determines the kind of world we have, because in

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

years we won't have a world - if we do have one, it will cease to resemble the world we have now, and it will be entirely foreign to us in such a profound degree that it will cease to be our world at all. That's why we need to concern ourselves with the present, with all its fleeting, brief, ephemeral warts and worries. Now is the only time that's truly important, because now is the only time we truly own.

Frustrations Of an Old Soul: The Internet

I'm a product of the Internet Age, yet I am still not used to living in an Internet-centric world, one which provides me a constant stream of information. I haven't fully accepted the immensity of knowledge I can access on my own, nor have I realized the implications of my access to such staggering data.

Numerous times in the past few weeks, I have asked some of my friends to send me advice, only to find my efforts redirected to Google or other corners of the Internet. This derailing upsets me. Yes, I am fully aware that I can find the information I want on my own. Is it unacceptable that I still consider human input more valuable? 

Maybe I'm upset because it's how I was raised. My father is a reference librarian. He's a member of a seemingly antiquated profession, one which still holds that actual human beings can help one another in their quest to more effectively find information. 

The Internet is so vast and impersonal. Is it wrong that I trust my friends to help me discover answers that are more meaningful and more personally relevant? Further, I'm annoyed that the social default among my friends is to trust the Internet for all queries. Even if using the Internet is more efficient, does relying so much on technology degrade friendships and relationships with contemporaries? I have believed in the past that the Internet has potential to bring people together - are we instead increasing the isolation between us?

*****

For my second Internet-related complaint of the day, I'd like to disembowel (or, more helpfully, disemvowel) one of the most particularly aggravating instances of Internet-speak. 

I keep hearing the phrase "I'm jelly" or "Are you mad jelly?". People say "jelly" instead of "jealous". As a writer, a poet, and a lover of words -- I am greatly offended by the vulgarity and inelegance of this usage. Consider the sound of "jelly" and its connotations:

1) It sounds weak, lame, juvenile, petty

2) It makes me think of actual jelly (as in, what goes well with peanut butter): soggy, sticky, gloppy -- saying "jealous" this way takes all the power out of the word - consider again:

JEALOUS

ZEALOUS

RIGHTEOUS

^These are all undeniably powerful, awe-some (in the original sense) words. "Jelly" renders "jealous" as a shell of its former self, and mashes a thumping, spirited, aggressive word down to a mushy pulp that's barely recognizable and hardly worth the same meaning. 

What would it sound like if we used the same pattern for zealous and righteous that Internet dwellers favor for jealous?

Imagine reading about the apostle of Jesus, Simon the Zelly. Imagine Samuel L. Jackson in "Pulp Fiction" -- remember that badass speech he gives before he shoots someone? Try to imagine Samuel L. Jackson furiously, feverishly intoning the "righty" wrath of his god. Doesn't sound so fearsome, does it? 

The sound and meaning of words are important. Now, I'm acutely aware that language and its usage evolves over time. I'm mocked Samuel Johnson for decrying the use of "chicken" as a singular noun in the English language. In this instance, though, when we consider the advantages and disadvantages of using "jelly" or "jealous", I hope I've convinced you that "jealous" is the clearly superior option.