Big dog.

Considering the condition of autism in children:

Difficulty in reading or recognizing facial expressions in others.

Does this mean that they inherently cannot recognize the meaning of words? Can they read poetry and understand its profound impact upon one individual versus another? Do they understand that their words can affect the emotional conditions of others?

NPR reports that kids who grow up with dogs tend to interact more positively with other children, and furthermore, will be able to better interact with adults as they grow. This is due to the fact that a dog will learn to respond to a child’s emotions. When a child is happy, the dog will be happy; if a child is upset, then the dog will learn to comfort that child. 

–> This works both ways. Children see the dog responding to them, so they learn to respond to the needs of that dog. A child who grows up with a dog will be able to recognize sickness, apprehension, tension, etc, within the dog. This, scientists say, transfers to their interactions with people. They are more able to “read” people.

Question: If this is true, then would raising an autistic child further their ability to “read” others? Will they be more likely to understand concepts such as, “If I call you ugly, and you smile about it, does that mean that you are not hurt? Can you harbour feelings that are not shown upon the face?” With proper face-analysis training, combined with the partnership of a dog, will an autistic child be able to understand present and unexhibited emotions together?

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Have you ever read Emily Dickenson? Good. Me neither. I always hated her work. Seems to me like all her poetry can be rewritten into the song, “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” Hate it.

However, today I was thinking about her poem, “I am nobody. Who are you?” The only part of the poem I actually remember is:

“I am nobody.

Who Are you?

Are you nobody too?”

That’s all. Terrible stuff, it is. But the reason why I remember it is because my mother had an illustrated book of Emily Dickenson’s poems. In the poem, she is sitting in her bedroom, speaking to a bird. 

Who are you, anyway, bird?

 

Read. A Book.

So I’m reading Robert Nozick’s The Examined Life. His First chapter is on Death (how quaint!)and the items associated. Actually, now that I think about it, it is quite a nice introduction to a lessly-existential examination of life. Death is a way of ending, but also a way of beginning to examine how one should live.

There is a strange part of the chapter where Nozick attempts to make an equation on how or why should be thrilled for an oncoming train-to-the-face. He states that readiness for death is directly proportional to how much one has done in a lifetime. The young are therefore unprepared for death, which the old, who, assuming they have done and seen much, are more prepared. I’m not sure how this works.

Age :: experience = readiness for train.

What if your experiences have troubled you? Kyle and I watched a movie the other night about credit card debt. A boy’s mother was interviewed, saying her son hung himself after getting into $12,000 of debt. Obviously, he was having a good time while he was using his credit cards. I’m, of course, not sure what he was spending his money on, but I certainly hope it was not college tuition. After the segment, Kyle said, “That’s how I’d want to go. Spend tons of money and go out in style.” This is totally morbid, but do you think that, after this boy’s short yet…expensive life, he was ready to go? 

I’m also being totally two-dimensional and equating money with happiness. But I am also equating money with ability to have experiences that one couldn’t without money.

Anyway, so I’m thinking about regrets. Nozick says that the more regrets one has, the more “untimely” or undesired death may be. In this case, I have to reflect on my regrets. My senior year of highschool, I received a full ride to go to the school of my dreams. I Turned it down, because my boyfriend at the time said if I went to CA, then we could never be together because he wanted to go to CU. So I stayed. He never came. Pitzer was the school of my dreams. Most recently, my ex-boyfriend (who was my current at the time) asked me if I had any regrets. I told him about Pitzer. He replied with: “Yeah, but then you would have never met me!”

–> Granted, my ex smoked weed, ate entire pizzas, had $55,000 of loans, called me worthless, and made me drive him to school every day when it was 3 kilometers away.

I still regretted it. To this day, I am trying to find a substitute for my regret, lying to myself to find a way out of lamenting over ending up in this place. Its kind of working. But still, something just isn’t right. 

Nozick finishes well; I’ll give him that. He, like Proust, both believe in enjoying life and living in a productive, creative manner. He wants us to be positive. Proust once wrote in response to a newspaper question, “What would you do if you found out you only had five days to live?” He stated (I no longer have the exact quote), “Oh! If only people were given the five days to live! How they would enjoy the life they have!” He spoke of visiting the Taj Mahal; kissing the one you love; living out your days with joy. Nozick believes the same: He wants us to live without the promise of eternal existence. The distinction between existing and living must be made; some desire existence, while some people just want to live. I never understand why people get so attached to existence, Christians seem to freak about about it every time one of them dies. It is not about existing, but experience is about living. A part of me feels that after you die, there is some sort of afterlife period where your other “being” gets to sit and reflect on all the things you did or didn’t do during your physical period. It isn’t like being put in the corner when you were a kid, your parents forcing you to sit and “think about what you did (young man!).” Death isn’t a punishment, whether you believe in the afterlife or not. What IS the real punishment is being forced to live with fear of existence. If one is “good” in life and is rewarded by eternal existence in Heaven, then one is restricted from living on Earth. Existence is punishment; living is Heaven.

 

 

This is a picture of my dad. My dad is the best man alive. Seriously. He is the reason I hated men for so long. No man could match the amazingness of my dad.

The second chapter of Nozick’s book s about Parents and Children. I don’t care for the last half of the chapter where Nozick goes through his Libertarian stance on bequeathing things to children. Disinterested. But, the first half is quite wonderful. Almost everyone I know at one point hated their parents. Squid makes it a point that she HATED her parents. 

                                                     This is them now:

Sweet, eh? (Sorry, squid)

Why do we all go through our little adolescent parent-hating phase, followed by going to college and LOVING them again?Nozick explains this nicely, though I’m pretty pissed he published this idea because I have been saying this for ages.

Kids grow up, and the point of absolute maturity comes when we become parents to our parents. We separate from them with great expectations that we can somehow gather the same kind of love from the world that we got from our parents. Quickly, we realize that this is totally impossible. AS I HAVE ALWAYS SAID (and I mean it!), in this world, you must find someone who loves you unconditionally because your parents will die. They will. It is inevitable. Those who leave their parents and do not succumb to the cruelty of the universe will come home with a profound understanding of their parents’ love. When Kyle goes away, I feel the call of my parents’ love. We assume the responsibility for maintaining the physical and emotional relationships we have with our parents. That is how you can tell when someone has truly matured: If they have been able to take the reigns of their precious relationships.

It is why I have only recently (the past 2 years) begun to really LOVE my sister. She is the closest link to my past, my parents. 

I’m bored.