your dreams will be reduced down to breathing, and you will be grateful

Posted in featured, Society

The thing about not-being-a-person is:

They will say those people and the price of being a person is to nod and agree that yes, those people aren’t people at all.

They will have no idea who they are talking to.
You yourself will start to forget, too.
They will say a million small things that sow the seeds for violence done against you, and you will smile and let them.

You will do math, constantly.

How much do I want to be a person today? How much do I want this …

...[Read More]

on 03/5/12 | 2 Comments | Read More

Revenge of the Nerd: Cause of Autism #1

There are many ways to kill a dragon. I counted several hundred strong-man dragon interventions in the almost one hundred books I read when I was snake-charmed by the subject. Courage, strength and cl[Read More]

on 10/1/09 | 1 Comment | Read More

Everyone Has Autism

By William Stillman Reprinted with permission of the author for one-time usage only. Ever awaken in the middle of the night and realize your arm is “asleep” from the elbow down?  It is a common s[Read More]

on 09/29/09 | 1 Comment | Read More

Superstition and Obsession

It crossed my mind awhile back that individuals with autism are less likely to be superstitious. This conclusion would also suggest that autistics are not magical thinkers. If this generalization has [Read More]

on 09/28/09 | 1 Comment | Read More

The Internet and the Iceberg Whole

Item:  Ensign James “Peewee” Cobb, at 5’6”, 124 pounds, and 23 years old—in Pat Frank’s 1959 Cold War thriller Alas, Babylon—distinguishes himself as the only pilot in Fighting Forty-Fo[Read More]

on 09/25/09 | No Comments | Read More

Enhanced Gaydar

I have friends with gaydar. Usually women, these friends can conclude a guy is gay after a brief conversation. I don’t think it’s the way they dress or the way they talk. It’s a childlike aspect[Read More]

on 09/24/09 | No Comments | Read More

The World Needs Autism

The world needs autism. Of this, I am convinced. The world needs autism now more than ever. Don’t believe me? Look around…look closely and carefully. Contemplate a global awareness. Cons[Read More]

on 09/22/09 | 2 Comments | Read More

Neurodiversity Not So Funny

I started talking when I was three.  My first memory is potato-on-the-spoon relay races in nursery school.  I felt humiliated and appalled at my lack of spoon/potato acumen. Grown-up humor I remembe[Read More]

on 09/21/09 | 2 Comments | Read More

Neurodiversity, Hidden Knowledge and Hidden Talent

Anything that is understood or known consciously is understood or known unconsciously first. I can’t imagine how the reverse would be true. Knowledge has to come from somewhere, right? I often know [Read More]

on 09/19/09 | 2 Comments | Read More

Just So Story

Autism is a social condition. Rather, in the way that loud, rhythmic music is a symptom of puberty, the sudden rise in autism is a manifestation of extreme societal change. Both transitions are charac[Read More]

on 09/17/09 | 2 Comments | Read More

Calling the Children Home

As a white boy in the Chicago suburbs who devoured every jazz biography I could get my hands on, my first encounter with the idea of “calling the children home” was a snippet from Nat Shapiro and [Read More]

on 09/15/09 | No Comments | Read More

Emergence

On the autism rights and neurodiversity blogs in July last year, fury erupted around the radio show host Michael Savage’s comments that autistic kids were brats. Savage said that autism was a “fra[Read More]

on 08/31/09 | No Comments | Read More

Chills

I can’t exactly remember when the chills first started. When I was in summer camp when five or six, I remember concentrating on placing my right hand over my left side to be able to say the Ple[Read More]

on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More

They Call Me Quiet, But I’m A Riot

Ebulliently defiant on your car radio, Katie White—no matter what friendly guess or nickname she’s offered—is all sass and holding her ground: that’s not her name. Performing live, though, a[Read More]

on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More

paradox of words

Of the seemingly infinite number of paradoxes that go with being human, there is the one where we find ourselves experiencing experience as an individual, a separate being, often alone while seeking t[Read More]

on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More

Neurodiversity: A Pre-emptive Reply

Hello, there. I’ve been expecting you. While the focus here at Shift Journal may be a good bit more broad than that found at, say, Ballastexistenz, aspie rhetor, Whose Planet Is It Anyway?, or Asp[Read More]

on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More

Tail Swallower

“The snake is life force, a seminal symbol, epitome of the worship of life on this earth. It is not the body of the snake that was sacred, but the energy exuded by this spiraling or coiling creature[Read More]

on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More

Notes on Five Spectrums

I. Intelligence Intelligence, as most everyone will cheerfully agree, is distributed unevenly; some people have more of it, some have less.  Rare, though, are those who will identify themselves as ha[Read More]

on 08/28/09 | 1 Comment | Read More

Evolution and Succession of Obsessions

My father was a collector. He maintained a stamp and coin collection. He also had a large collection of tools, including the various gadgets and accoutrements targeted to achieving something useful [Read More]

on 08/28/09 | No Comments | Read More

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