The mind of an aspergian socially

          You walk up to your best friend very angry with your test grade. An F. You know your parents are going to be very angry and even you are really mad at yourself. You come up to him scowling all over with your eyebrows pushed down in anger. Im so angry you mutter to him as you pass him by. He glimpses back at you for a second and asks why. You reply  "I got a stupid F on my test and my parents are going to kill me". He starts to smile on the corner of his face and as he turns to look at you it gets broader and broader. For a second you wonder why he's smiling but the next thing you know you're covered with anger. "WHATS YOUR PROBLEM" you yell at him as you walk away in anger. Sadly this interaction is happening without people having the knowledge about people diagnosed with Aspergers and stopping it in it's tracks. The truth is the person who would smile in this situation with asperger syndrome is doing nothing wrong and just simply acting on his brains judgement. Because Asperger syndrome effects the way people think this choice of smiling in this situation would be totally normal to them and has deeper meaning.

             In the situation I described instead of the aspergian just acting rude or mean they really are almost doing the opposite but the normal world can't seem to figure that out. In this situation like the one i read in my book the person may just be smiling because they are happy that there friend isn't mad at them and is  just mad at school. The aspergian is honestly just worried about their friendship with the person. The book goes on to tell me (which you probably can infer by now) that Aspergians (people diagnosed with Asbergers) have a very hard time reacting well to and noticing small emotions. As quoted in the book "I knew enough to run if a guy came yelling and screaming at me with a baseball bat but a girl with a subtle expression on her face...as she smiling at me? Laughing?Quizzical and curios?.I had no idea" on page 99.

             All in all I find this type of thinking very interesting. I think it's very important to know all this stuff if you know someone barely or even have a friend diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. I think that this way of thinking even helps me "understand" my parents a little better even though they definitely don't have this syndrome. I hope that someday everyone will come to understand that we all react differently to things being introduced to us. People should know not to get angry or even creeped out if someone acts differently than we expected because we are all different inside.

           

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Be different No really be unique Blog post

              Im currently re reading a book called Be Different by John Elder Robins.  Even at my first pages of this book i'm already immersed into a complex way of thinking that is very amazing to me. I feel like I need to give a brief introduction about the book so I will continue to do that. Basically the book is about the life of a person that has and is diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. For a quick explanation Asperger's effect's your brain by making you think much differently. For example someone with Asperger's might find solving math problems and finding theories very easy because there brain works more systematically almost like a robot. In a sense the brain want's to find the rule for solving an equation (life or math) and then finds the answer and moves on. All this may seem like a lot of great traits to have but it comes in a bundle with some other bad traits. Some of these problems associated with this syndrome can be having a very hard time with socializing whether it involves talking to a friend or asking out a girl etc etc. Be different goes very closely into the positive traits of Asperger's syndrome.
          
    
           I really want to go into the topic of the positive traits of Asperger's.  Like i mentioned before Asperger's syndrome can really corrupt your social life but it can also enhance other things. The author explained that he had an incredibly hard time socializing with his classmates for along time. He also was very rude at times to other's because the different brain type he had. He recalled on one chapter that he started getting happy when someone came up to him looking sad and said that there grandfather had died. His reasoning was that he didn't want the person to be sad and he was happy because he was glad tht the person wasn't mad at him. Event's like this would happen to him all the time and yet in his later years he managed to save someone from a burning car with a second's reaction and tie a tourniquet to save the person from bleeding.


           I can kind of connect with this type of thinking because my grandfather and possibly my dad have Asperger's. I might even have a small case of it myself. This book has really kind of helped me to help understand my grandfathers and dad's behavior. They anger me a lot sometimes but know I can really help understand where they are coming from. As much as they might act very different sometimes they honestly are just going along with there differently developed brain. I now know that some of the smartest people in the world have this syndrome and if i do have it im proud too have it.

The Gift Conspiracy of society

Im still currently reading Linchpins by Seth Godin and I have come to the end of the book. This part of the book is mainly on gifts. This may seem like an unrelated topic for this book but really its not as your about to read.A gift can range from a christmas present to holding the door for someone to spending extra hours for someone. As defined in the book a gift is something extra you do for someone without expecting something else from someone. As the book goes on to tell you is that gifts a long time ago where a way showing your wealth without wanting something in return. During caveman times as stated in the book the rich people would give lots of gifts to everyone. Now in society we are much different we expect something in return for our gifts and we don't give gifts as much and rather wait for gifts to be given to us.We only give gifts for a "reason". We even give gifts to "show love" for someone else. I personally think that all these things are very messed up.

I want to really, first explore this concept of expecting something in return. I think that this is a very bad way of thinking about gifts. Since gifts are supposed to be something that you give without expecting anything from it giving back defeats the purpose. The gift giving than seems to almost turn into an exchange 1 dollar for four quarters, a quarter for a gumball. I can understand the feeling of wanting to give back because the gift really changed you What I really don't like and can't understand is this big problem. The big problem is that I feel like people feel like you have to give back because if you don't you will be in debt with the person. They may not even want to give a gift back but are afraid of being "in debt" of the person. The person giving the gift may not even care if they receive something else. The next thing I want to explore is only giving gifts when you have to. This is like only holding the door for someone on their birthday or only working hard for your boss on the day before your paid break. This is very bad I think also. The thing people don't tell you is that gifts are used primarily for they themselves nowadays. Not for the people they are giving it too or the store they bought it from. but them. While they are giving you for example an ipod (at least for some people) they are gifting themselves relief that there work on your behalf is over. again some people are different than this but there are numerous people that fit this category perfectly.The last thing I want to talk about is giving because you want to show your love. This definitely is an arguable matter because it can be good but in certain occasions it's bad. For example if you really don't love someone but "show your love of them" by buying them a 10,000 dollar ruby necklace, thats no way to show your love.

In conclusion gifts have really become a very unjust trend (for certain people). Even I have experienced this and can really connect with the people who have experienced it. Heres the story:My sisters friend bought my sister something without even thinking about what my sister wanted for christmas. She probably had hoped that my sister would get her something she wanted and that's just what happened.In the end sadly the people looking for an exchange win. The last thing I want to leave my reader with is the idea that gifts have become to commercial and seem to be about how much money it is. I hope that this blog post changed you in some way for good. If you want to read more about this concept may sure to read Linchpin by Seth Godin.

The Resistance holding us back from where we want to be since day 1

Im still currently reading Linchpin by Seth Godin. I think that i've moved on to the part about how we are born creative. We live in a creative manor until someone tells us that it's not good and then we lose it. Seth gave an example of a 5 year old that wanders around a plane looking at everything curiously. They are pushing to find out more/everything about there surroundings until there parents tell them to sit down and that theres nothing to see. This is really a true example of the resistance. All in all I really agree that we are doing something wrong and that we have to stop it. After an experience like the one that this 5 year old has in the example he may be forever changed.

I think that this resistance character is really the main one that is keeping away our creativity. This type of made up character really wants everyone to be normal or the same as everyone else and so when someone isn't the same as everyone else they try to change that person (like the 5 year old). Seth Godin also introduces a concept called the Lizard Brain.This basically is a way that your brain thinks where it's purpose is to generate your survival as long as possible. This "Lizard Brain" is afraid constantly and wants to fit in/camoflauge to stay safe from the resistance. This is why people choose not to share great ideas with other people because they're afraid that they wont fit in with everyone else. This is a very terrible habit because it prevent's you from sharing your worth with the world and going foreword with ideas that could be worldchanging.

All in all I really think that this fear of the resistance is holding lots of people back from great things. Since from the creation of homo sapiens we've trained ourselves to do everything in our ability to stay alive and survive anything seeming different can blow our cover/ attract bad attention causing us to be afraid of acting creatively. This may seem like a big asset for us that helps incredibly to keep us safe and yet it's probably one of our worse habits. I can even connect to this problem an i'm sure lots of other people throughout the world can. When i make a Youtube video or even maybe post something on Facebook that seems different sometimes i'm hesitant of it. Sometimes I get over this fear and go for it and other times i'm afraid of something about it and can pull through. Sadly this fear is almost generated by school i think because some schools do everything in there hands to make sure that everything stays the same.

Linchpins the strange but true concept

Im currently reading a book called Linchpins by Seth Godin. This book has really opened up a new corner of my brain. It has also led me into believing a whole new concept. Even though i'm not finished with this book in fact only around 70 pages into it i've still salvaged numerous ideas. It's fair to say that this book has, for this period of my life, changed the way i look at the world. I think this is just what a book's purpose is so i definitely believe that this book has done a valid job. Linchpins is basically a book that changes the way we look at things. Im putting almost a spoiler here warning everyone who doesn't want to know these changes considering the fact that it talks about the problems with the things that normal everyday people do. Anyway's Linchpins is a book about how most of society isn't wanting us to give are real value as a human. The book argues that school's are just putting you in a position to get a job that requires no creativity and robot-like focus. On the other hand a Linchpin is much different than these robot-like functioning humans. A Linchpin has the ability to use creativity and brain to make something that is worth lot's. A linchpin in this way can be indispensable or needed in some way.

I personally want to elaborate on how school's seem to be killing these so called Linchpins. I think one major factor that should be changed is rules. Of course rules about safety and disciplinary issues/ dangerous situations should be kept but what about the other type of rules. Rules on test's, rules on homework even rules for writing. I can understand these type of rules are needed but i think that student's should get some space when coping with these rules. For example say someone tells you to write their heading on ten pieces of paper. What there guessing is that you will take the time to write the heading for each one. A linchpin in this situation might make a neat copy of there heading on the first page and staple it to the other pieces of paper, therefore saving time and energy to use somewhere else. The teacher on the other hand might take points off for this "blunder". It seem's to me that schools have really not helped you to think but showed you how to think. This can be good in some ways but in others it's not and has a very damaging effect. It prevents creativity and churns out lot's of people that wait for orders and are similar to everyone else. This prevent any new leaders from coming. It also stops linchpins in there tracks when there out of the box, time saving thinking results in bad grades.

In conclusion we need to change our school system a lot. It rewards the rule followers but punishes the real creative people who's talents may lead them to far better carriers than the rule followers. We need to really reconsider this whole idea that showing someone how to think only kills creativity and prevents there chance of learning things without guidance. All in all i'm very happy to be reading this book where so much logic is packed into. If you're interested about this topic i highly recommend reading this book.

Blog post 4 The Kite Runner

This is my 3rd and last blog post on The Kite Runner. Throughout the end of this book i think that a lot of information just jumps right out at you at once . This is a mix of micro and macro details forged together. Some of these details are explicitly explained in the book and some of them aren't. For these details you have to make a guess and infer for them. Some examples of all these details are Sohrab's real whereabouts and Hassan's real father.There's is a lot more detail other than just including this also.I think that the writer of the Kite Runner throws all this information at us in the last second to keep us thinking about the book. If we were to stop thinking so much about the book we might not take in everything that the book has too offer us.

One example of a very implicit detail is what had happened to Sohrab when he was staying in the Taliban house with Assef after being taken from the orphanage. After leaving the house with Amir he keeps saying that he thinks of himself as being "dirty". He also says that they did bad things to him when he was at this house. This part just makes me feel really terrible for Sohrab because of all the things he had to go through. The even worse part about this is that Sohrab almost acts or possibly thinks in a way like it had been his own fault that all the atrocities had occurred. Im guessing that Sohran might have been sexually harassed in a way by the Taliban. This detail just goes to show that in areas like the one Sohrab lives in make and break there own rules without getting in trouble while citizens would get into a great amount of trouble for breaking a small rule.

Another example of a detail thrown at you in the end is that Hassan is actually the son of Baba. This detail is so important throughout the book because Amir is always trying to get Baba to like him more than Hassan and he does this by setting Hassan up to look like he did something wrong and also by saying untrue terrible things about Hassan. Whenever he does this Baba always gets mad at Amir for doing it. When just Baba and Amir are separated from Hassan in California , Baba says "i wish that Hassan could be here". Because of thee secret kept that Baba is the father of Hassan Amir is always getting his feelings hurt because he feels that Baba loves the servant more than he loves his actual son.This makes him feel like he is doing something wrong and makes him do even more things wrong to get Baba to like him more. This detail is introduced relatively fast over the book in about 3 pages. These three pages pretty control Amir's actions throughout the end of the book.