Around seven months ago I thought I was pretty much done with going to Asperger group meetings, mostly because I wasn’t seeing them as being as leisurely as getting together for pizza or a hike. Maybe that was because the gatherings are almost always at the same place and indoors?

Somehow I ended up gradually re-attending more often, but not quite yet to every meeting like I was doing for a long time. Our group has become fairly small, but the quality of our characters outweighs the quantity. At today’s meeting, I was pleasantly surprised to see Jesse Saperstein join us. I first met him at a GRASP meeting in Manhattan and then again at the annual walk for Autism last spring.

It never ceases to amaze me how extremely judgmental and harsh the neurotypical world is towards Aspies. I was especially reminded of that hearing about Jesse’s life experiences and I still have not read his book yet (first I must finish those I do have)! Speaking of his book, it’s recent on the market and selling very well. The title of it is Atypical: Life with Asperger’s in 20 1/3 Chapters.

Jesse’s sense of humor made my day. I’ve been very stressed lately and God knows I’ve needed to relax with some laughs. I think over time, our group will grow back to the size it once was. When it does, it will be better than it’s ever been. We still go by the name Aspies of the Round Table.

For those who may be curious to hear Jesse speak, there is a brief video clip of him being interviewed for a television news station covering the topic of Aspergers.

In Atypical: Life with Asperger’s in 20 1/3 Chapters, Jesse shares his unique perspective on:

• Overcoming bullying and chronic rejection (you think you had a few awkward years)
• Coping with compulsions and making peace with ritualistic obsessions (including an enduring love of the postal system)
• The bizarre habits of neurotypicals (why don’t they just say what they mean?)
• The mysteries of dating and sex (“New York City harbors more Jewish women than the entire nation of Israel. All of them have rejected me.”)
• Finding purpose and strength (hiking the Appalachian Trail, working with teenagers living with HIV/AIDS, and inspiring others with his popular speeches to neurotypical and Asperger’s students)

Jesse Saperstein puts a human face on Asperger’s – and makes readers laugh, empathize, and better understand, what it means to see the world through the prism of autism.

Asperger individuals often times go through similar tribulations as Christians. Persecutions aren’t quite the same as they were many years ago, but that still doesn’t mean unjust bullying, getting played for a fool, and being lied about, no longer happens.

God promises better things, but only for those of us who love Him and are the called according to His purpose.

“. . . for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” — 1 Samuel 16:7

“And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment:

They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented;

(Of whom the world was not worthy) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:

God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect [teleioo; complete].” — Hebrews 11:36-40

I can’t remember when it began to happen that whenever I have two nights in a row of somewhat okay sleep the third night ends up being without any sleep whatsoever. What scares me is that instead of no sleep on the third night it could become no sleep on the second night; then comes no sleep ever again.

It can’t be possible that I spent all of last night fully awake because of what I wrote yesterday in Chronic Insomnia is Deadly. I wish I documented information about what patterns revolve around the nights when I get no sleep. Most of the time the reasons for not sleeping are obvious to me, but the one for last night I can only guess.

It seems like when I come closer to feeling less tired my brain is then incapable of becoming sleepy at night. It’s as if I’m supposed to remain in a perpetual state of exhaustion. The strange thing is that I don’t remember experiencing this when I went on vacation kayaking and camping. Sometimes I wonder if maybe being in my house for as long as I’ve been isn’t somehow causing me to lose my mind.

This much I know → I’m tired of researching for the latest information about insomnia.

I have struggled with long-term issues of insomnia for over 27 years now. Only recently have I seriously examined the pattern between the times my sleep is more healthful versus when it goes awry. The unusual amount of stress I’ve had in the last four weeks has taken its toll on my ability to sleep. In one way, increased insomnia is my fault. But then in another way, it isn’t.

Chronic insomnia appears to be a catch-22 situation. Scientific studies are revealing to researchers² and reporting in articles³ that, “Chronic insomniacs losing out on sleep may also be missing brain matter. For the first time, brain imaging has linked chronic insomnia to lower gray matter density in areas that regulate the brain’s ability to make decisions and to rest.”

Reduced orbitofrontal and parietal gray matter in chronic insomnia affects areas in decision-making and stimulus processing. It’s also this same area where we learn about the pleasantness of stimuli that tells us how much we like something; also known as the “stress sensitive” region, which involves memory formation. Diminished gray matter here can cause a person to lose interest in his hobbies and interests.

The grey matter density of these brain regions is what helps us to evaluate pleasant stimuli (i.e., that which helps us get to sleep!), as well as in regions related to the brain’s “resting state” (i.e., sleep!).

People under chronic and severely stressful situations or those with post-traumatic stress disorder or depression are at most risk for this type of smaller brain volume. Is it any wonder why it is so critical to find out the root cause of chronic insomnia?

People commonly assume that someone who doesn’t get enough sleep looks tired. What they don’t realize is that adrenaline can prevent this appearance from occurring. For me, I’m just starting to be more aware of when adrenaline is in my system preventing me from being able to stay asleep or get back to sleep. Falling asleep isn’t usually an obstacle, even though it might take me a half hour or more to do so.

Besides insufficient rest, adrenal fatigue adds strain into the equation. As of today, I finally exited out of the adrenal fatigue range (not by much, but at least I’m out of it!). I slept for two nights in a row (not without waking up periodically, but enough rest non-the-less). On days when I regain an enhanced ability to think (after having been exhausted for an extraordinary length of time), it feels weird until I get used to it again.

Chronic insomnia may cut a life short. Researchers say people who struggle to sleep appear to be at higher risk for early death. Findings show that overall mortality is three times higher among people with chronic insomnia than among people who do not have insomnia.

People with chronic insomnia require increased brain activation to maintain normal daily function. The article states that those with chronic primary insomnia may have to work, concentrate, and attend more to tasks than people who sleep well. I would think that would be obvious, no?

¹That leads to the belief that all a person with chronic insomnia needs to do is think he has no problem with sleeping and then the insomnia will end.

²Reduced Orbitofrontal and Parietal Gray Matter in Chronic Insomnia: A Voxel-Based Morphometric Study by Ellemarije Altenaab, Hugo Vrenkene, Ysbrand D. Van Der Werfacd, Odile A. van den Heuvelfg, and Eus J.W. Van Somerenabcd [Biological Psychiatry] on August 4, 2009.

³Does Insomnia Shrink Your Brain? by Cristen Conger [Discovery News] on February 16, 2010; Sleep Loss, Brain Loss by Michael J. Breus, PhD [The Sleep Doctor] on February 09, 2010; Does insomnia lead to brain loss? by David Braun [National Geographic] on January 28, 2010.

Postscript added the next day → I was unable to sleep even for a minute on the night after writing this post. The next morning I wrote Three Can’t Be?

It’s ironic that our society has so many professionals in the mental health industry but yet has an obviously high failure rate. Most criminals repeatedly return to correctional facilities, drug addicts usually end up back at rehabilitation centers sooner or later, clients of therapists typically remain permanently dependent on their programs, and self-help groups all too often end up being an individual’s home away from home. Those are the externally visible examples of dysfunctional behavior.

On a smaller scale (but yet equally important) are beliefs and behaviors hidden within immediate family relationships. Unhealthy patterns within these groups continue because of the inability to see things the way they are and not having to do so. Whenever direct consequences for decisions are able to be severed from those who made unwise choices, the outcome ends up being immaturity. This is the way non-grown-up adults become trained by their children in the way to go.

Growing up means making your own decisions and having to live with the consequences of them. A codependent person lacks the balance that comes from interdependence. A codependent makes less decisions for him/herself by sacrificing too much and/or too long for others. Individual boundaries decrease over time, because structure becomes non-existent. It’s only logical considering that irresponsible behavior is rewarded.

Why would anyone want to change the way s/he is as long as s/he can continue a self-gratifying pattern? On the outside, it may look like a codependent person is suffering silently inside. It would seem like it has to be unpleasant to forgo things for yourself (like maybe someday having a new car, vacation, improved home, etc.) in order to ‘help’ others in ‘need.’ However, if that was truly the case, then a codependent person wouldn’t continue to spend the rest of his or her life behaving in the same dysfunctional and unhealthy way.

Ultimately, no one does what they don’t want to do. We all do what we do because we want to do it and we will do it no matter what the consequences are. It’s the reasons behind our choices that can be deceptive.

Parents who truly love their children do not enable them to remain immature adults. Parents who continuously believe that their adult children need their help, especially if that help eliminates the direct consequences of their childrens’ foolish and irresponsible behavior, are not being loving parents at all. Those self-deluded parents end up being trained by their own children in the way to go.

Parents can deceive themselves into thinking that they are doing the right thing by supporting all the decisions their children make (e.g., how their children raise the next family’s generation, etc.). Parents refusing to establish their own limits (i.e., boundaries) as to what they’ll cooperate with is a sign that something is wrong. Every household has the right to determine it’s own set of values of what is acceptable versus unacceptable.

An adult that hasn’t grown up will not respect the rights of his or her parent(s) if the same beliefs are not held. Rebellion will be inevitable and the codependent parent knows this. An interdependent parent has enough strength, courage, and love to separate himself or herself from whatever childish behavior may come from his or her child(ren)’s stubborn refusal to accept how every human being has to grow up into being a responsible mature adult. A codependent parent can be manipulated into feeling guilty for doing the absolute right thing when s/he believes the wrong is what’s right.

Being codependent means making other person’s decisions for him (or her) and making another person’s problems your problem. There are two ways of making decisions for other people. We’re all familiar with the active way, but how many realize there is a passive way? By letting our adult children decide for us in the way we should go, we unknowingly are passively and non-verbally deciding to tell that child s/he has to remain immature. In fact, at the same time, that codependent behavior is what prevents parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. from being the role model of maturity.

Becoming more immature over time and increasingly codependent is a catch-22 situation. A society can even fall prey to becoming deluded over its existence within its own realm. As government power grows, citizens actually end up getting less by becoming more dependent instead of interdependent. Getting something for nothing (in the end) costs way more than having to earn and pay for something. The way to know when an individual has become fooled is when s/he is unable to comprehend the inevitable outcome of a defective program. This inability to comprehend arises because of preferring to remain childish as much as possible. It’s scary to grow up, but becoming mature has benefits that far exceed the difficulties which come from the challenge.

Families are the micro-organisms of society. When households practice dysfunctional patterns, it’s only to be expected that society will be a magnification of the same product. How can society not become more immature and codependent over time? It has to start with each individual learning the meaning of wisdom.

Reinhold Niebuhr touched upon wisdom his prayer —

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

God sums up wisdom perfectly in Psalm 111:10 —

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.

Multiple new thoughts, for me, mean that decisions undergo fluctuation as new information requires continuous readjustments. Maybe in that way I’m not much unlike the stock market? I won’t crash, but I did come close to putting my blogs into the trash. Someday they will be gone… just like all of us.

The dark¹ corner feeling comes from hitting my best level at small talk. If I dig at the conversation to bring it deeper, then sooner or later it seems I’m buried under dirt. This isn’t what usually happens when  I’m communicating with another Aspie. I’ve observed enough Aspie-to-Aspie conversations to see that there is a huge difference between Aspies relating versus NTs. For me (and most other Aspies), there is no guess work involved in understanding what’s being communicated by either party when only Aspies are involved.

From what I’ve seen about how NTs handle communicating with me, they’re either assertive or avoidant. Compared to those two opposites, I’m somewhere in the middle — except for online (which typically is Aspie turf anyhow) and/or snail mail — too often too much like Charlie Brown, as displayed in this conversation done in a strip back on December 31, 1965:

Charlie Brown: Next year I’m going to be a changed person!
Lucy: That’s a laugh, Charlie Brown.
Charlie Brown: I mean it! I’m going to be strong and firm.
Lucy: Forget it. You’ll always be wishy-washy.
Charlie Brown: Why can’t I change just a little bit? I’ll be wishy one day and washy the next!

Charlie Brown is much like how I am. Charles Monroe Schulz (a classic Asperger individual) portrayed himself in his comic’s character, Charlie Brown. However, in some ways I have changed since childhood. In the comic strip, Charlie Brown never grew up. Oh how I’d love to continue the Peanuts comic strip where Schulz left off, depicting Charlie Brown through adolescence, young adulthood, middle-age, and then as a grandfather. It could still be funny overall, but (for it to be accurate) it would have to have some serious sections.

Take for example the Peanuts strip from January 21, 1968:

Lucy to Charlie Brown (at her psychiatric booth, explaining why people take advantage of him by talking too much:) It’s your own fault! You’re just too wishy-washy! People who talk too much² deserve to be insulted! They deserve to have other people walk away from them! Talking too much is an unforgivable social sin – absolutely unforgivable! The only way to deal with people who talk too much is to let them know just how boring they really are. You can’t waste your time with them, no, sir! Why should you sit and waste your valuable time while some bore talks on and on about nothing? Life is too short to waste it listening to some person who doesn’t know when to shut up! Time is too valuable! Time is…

How many times can a person endure having injustices done against him, especially when its twisted around to have him feeling like he is to blame? Charlie Brown’s worst ‘flaw’ is his repeatedly trusting others and longing to be accepted as the others are in the Peanuts gang.

Just because I learned how to be strong and firm sometimes (in order to protect myself), being leery is what causes wishy-washiness. Kids don’t mind ‘playing’ with someone as if he’s a toy without feelings. There are too many adults who haven’t matured past that stage. They’re just more experienced and able to be subtler than when they were younger.

Most adults, especially old acquaintances and/or relatives, hopefully want to work as hard as I do at finding a way to communicate that constructively works for everyone. Yesterday, I received a surprise phone call from someone back in high school. The last time I saw her was about 15 years ago. We talked for hours and we both seemed to enjoy it.³ I went through the same thing last year with a close relative I hadn’t spoke to for 15 years, except she surprisingly showed up at my house instead of calling. I have no idea if either of them are as confused as I now am.

I wasn’t given any contact information (like a phone number, email, or snail mail address) before yesterday’s phone conversation ended. I have to hope she merely forgot and maybe she will read this post and call me again. I also hope that maybe the relative who I saw last year for a couple of hours will read this post and contact me to help eliminate some of my (or our?) confusion. I can’t help but wonder if she hasn’t written to me for the same reason I haven’t written to her… that maybe she is as confused as I am?

I can’t shake the feeling that people might struggle over why I’m highly reluctant to use emails, especially when for them it’s much easier than putting a stamp on an addressed envelope once a season and having to wait longer for the gratification a response brings.

I thought having a contact page is a good compromise. I would receive the message and respond via snail mail and would be willing to send my skype name (only to those who I know very well). Skype provides many options for communicating, even sending an SMS (text message). After what I’ve been through with AOL’s programs, skype’s instant messaging is a relief. My mac handles the newest version of skype beautifully. However, if I were to install it on windows xp, I’d probably download the old version 3.8.0.188. Unfortunately, not everything that’s new is improved. (I do digress, no?)

My guess is that some people might have a hard time to understand why someone like me would never create a facebook account. It’s frustrating for me to know there are people I care about who have a facebook site, but facebook doesn’t allow a person access to it unless s/he  subjects her/himself to facebook’s insanity.

In the beginning of this past February, a woman contacted me who saw me periodically during my childhood. She acted excited to have found me and I thought we’d stay in touch, instead of sharing only a couple of emails. I hope that she too might read this post and let me know at least why I haven’t heard from her again.

Before that, another person from high school (no, not a boyfriend) said he had been trying to find me for 27 years. He wanted us to be friends and he called a few times to briefly chit chat. I thought we’d actually visit in person, especially since he was close by in the area. Again, I’m left perplexed as to what all that polite small talk was about when it led nowhere.

Even going as far back as 45 years, a neighbor from that long ago dropped in unexpectedly to visit me in 1983 (without any contact in all those years) for about 10 minutes. Then, that was it. I never heard from her again (even though I remembered her birthday and mailed her a card afterward).

I’ve either said enough to explain why communicating with NTs makes me leery or I’ve said too much. No matter what, the way I look at it is, “How can you lose something that you don’t have?”

If Charlie Brown had an identical twin sister, I’d be her. Good grief!

¹It’s dark because I can’t see where I’m going with my conversation in regard to what the NT is planning to do about it.
²This includes people who brazenly trespass against you and would do so repeatedly if given the chance. Its not the size of the offense as much as it is the wrong spirit.
³What isn’t enjoyable is how much my muscles ache from being so tense while talking. Even though nothing bad happened, it’s kind of like almost having an accident in the sense that you can’t help but automatically brace yourself in case there is a collision.

Why does this remind me of Napoleon Dynamite and the subtler versions?

About two percent of adults experience recurring nightmares¹ at least once a week. Nightmares diminish greatly before adolescence. Those who spend most of their sleeping life having nightmares learn to not be bothered by them.

Headway seems to have been made over the years as to why nightmares occur, but since new information often times disproves the old, it’s important to remember what’s new for today might someday be outdated.

Research in areas difficult (if not impossible) to prove seem much like mystery novels. A brilliant author can keep the reader guessing as to who is to blame. It’s much easier to rule out possibilities than it is to be sure without a reasonable doubt. Contemporary experts in the same field of study don’t have consistent data much of the time.

When it comes to nightmares, what seems to agree with most of the recent studies is that people with thick boundaries don’t have nightmares. Adults with frequent nightmares have been found to share the characteristic of having thin boundaries. Thin boundary people are open (not only towards others, but also towards their own unconscious processes) and are prone to enter into personal relationships quickly. They also are more: vulnerable, aware, creative, sensitive, artistic, fragile, easily hurt, complex, intelligent, unusual, resourceful, empathetic, and defenseless.

Thinner boundaries enable greater creativity and may be why artists are referred to as the “mine canaries” of civilization. I go along with the theory that it’s possible for a person to have the same kind of receptor for magnetic fields that enable birds to use the information for guidance in traveling, provided that his boundaries are permeable. Such abilities can be both a blessing and a curse. Not getting lost is good, but along with heightened sensitivity in multiple areas can come an intense awareness of all the potential dangers around. The saying, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you” is intended for things which have already happened. If it’s something that hasn’t happened yet, not knowing could hurt you because being unaware leaves you vulnerable. It requires greater inner strength from an individual to keep emotions balanced when being hyper-aware than it does to live life at a ‘normal’ level where things aren’t felt ‘too’ intensely.

How’s that for ironic? Being extraordinarily aware causes the sensation of feeling vulnerable, but yet being less aware is what actually makes a person vulnerable.

Information I’ve gathered from multiple sources say it’s always the self that is under attack in a nightmare, but beyond that researchers seem to be relying more upon speculation than anything else. The other basic observation they agree on is that nightmares do not involve projecting onto others one’s own angry impulses.

Dr. Ernest Hartmann (Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and Director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton-Wellesley Hospital and well known for his research on nightmares) states,

Nightmare sufferers are not persons with an excess of aggressive drive or of hostility, but rather persons with thin boundaries such that normal fears and angers “get through” more and become more vivid and frightening for them than for most of us.

Dr. Patrick McNamara (The neurocognitive scientist and associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine who has spent ten years researching and writing about nightmares) states,

Instead, nightmares appear to be about the strength of the ego, the “I,” the self. It is always the self that is under attack in a nightmare. It appears that people who suffer frequent nightmares have more fragile egos than the rest of us, but when you look deeper, these people very likely have the strongest egos, or sense of self, on the planet. Nightmare images haunt our awareness for days. Frequent nightmare sufferers cope with this stuff on a regular basis. They are very strong individuals.

I did think about doing a series of posts on the topic of nightmares. It’s certainly a subject full of unending avenues to explore, but the deeper the investigations go, the less reliable and more conflicting the information becomes. Just ask any canary how far down a mine it would like to travel. Life is better where the sun shines and the air is clear. Dark places are for nightmares.

¹They do not recur in the sense that the same scene is replayed night after night, but the individual does experience frequent nightmares. Post-traumatic nightmares, on the other hand, do recur with the same scene, with minor variations, replayed over and over.

Do not encourage someone with Asperger’s to behave in an inappropriate manner. Doing so will likely cause them to behave in the inappropriate manner more often. Pretty soon they’re doing it all the time. This is a bad thing.

I agree there can be some behaviors an Aspie might do which would be construed as inappropriate, but not all of them are a bad thing to practice. What I find somewhat inappropriate is the incongruity of the last tip that’s listed right above the warning section of this same article:

Never talk down to someone with Asperger’s Syndrome, or talk to them like you would to a child. It is deeply offensive and can cause someone with AS to doubt themselves and reinforce/cause depression. How would you like it if someone treated you like a child?

When I read this article, it makes me feel like I’m being treated like a child. If a similar one was written for Aspies on How to Relate to Someone who Has Neurotypical Syndrome, I’m pretty sure most NTs would also feel as if they’re being talked down to and being treated like a child.

Anyhow, the point I want to bring up for people to think about is to exercise caution before making the assumption that unexpected behavior, which is different from what’s normally seen by society, is inappropriate and bad. Erroneous conclusions are usually derived because of insufficient insight into what’s going on and why. When that’s the case, it’s best to just trust that Aspies (along with some Christians) usually have a good reason to behave different from what’s typically seen.

If you’re not an Aspie, you’re not going to be able to think like one either. What’s one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. That’s one reason to not analyze what or why certain behaviors are done by Aspies. Logical things don’t require it… but therein lies the problem! When you have a smaller percentage of the population containing the higher levels of logic, you end up with the greater portion suffering a handicap. If that’s not bad enough, add to that — the majority in a society (comprised mostly of sheeples) twist subjective values into objective claims. I have a news flash for those who don’t realize this → the less you’re able to think logically, the less you’re able to be aware of how much you lack this ability. I hope enough people can understand what kind of mess this can create.

Many years ago, I heard a report summarizing the common denominator found among the entire world for longevity. It wasn’t diet and it wasn’t exercise, although they do affect health (focusing only on those two things are the cause of inconsistent statistics over time). It was the ability to go with the flow. That makes sense, because if you’re reacting, you’re not taking action. Action is both passive and active. It is passive when you’re accepting things you can’t change and it’s active when you’re changing what you can. Going with the flow is natural, but it takes wisdom for humans to practice it. In contrast, (for example) tectonic plates can’t be foolish like people can, so they can’t do anything but go with the flow.

Imagine if mankind came up with a way to lock up fault lines in an attempt to prevent anymore earthquakes. Without the power to control forces originating in a radioactive, solid iron inner core, I doubt it would take long before something even worse than the earthquakes would happen. Going a step further, imagine the consequences of messing with the earth’s core! While you’re at it, why not mess with it’s creator too? I digress again… sorry (today is one of those days).

We can learn a lot from nature, because it’s scientific. Human behavior is not reliably scientific. Therefore, it’s ultimately foolish as a source of education, if it’s not measured against a higher standard.

The bible tells us what’s appropriate versus inappropriate. To ignore God’s word and rely solely upon the mental health industry’s mutating versions of their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders filled with code numbers and psychobabble jargon that they don’t even agree on and/or understand enough of the time, but yet can fatten their wallet regardless of whether or not their services actually help clients/patients (eee gads, I’m being straightforward!), is begging for an eventual world-wide mental meltdown at the very core it stems from (psychiatrists and psychologists). It can only get worse now that more and more psychologists can prescribe medication after consultation with a psychiatrists. If you don’t get the whole picture of what’s eventually coming down the pike here, let me just say it’s not light at the end of that tunnel.

(Everyone has an opinion they’re entitled to speak freely about, so if you don’t like mine, there are plenty of others to form a bond with.)

Christy Fix gives the most recent example I can recall of what most people label inappropriate behavior. So it’s bad to eat when you’re hungry, while others have no appetite, just because they don’t think like you do? If you read her post Well THAT was inappropriate!, meditate upon her two insightful statements:

“I knew there was nothing I could do…” and “What happened happened. I couldn’t change that,…”

These remarks sum up what it’s like when you exercise passive action to go with the flow. Those without the appetite, didn’t have one because they were reacting to the flow. Reacting to life is foolish and can be harmful to your health.

To differentiate between what reacting looks like as compared to taking action, the fictitious example set by Aspie Moss in the 2 1/2 minute video clip from The IT Crowd – Series 1 – Episode 2: Fire! may be helpful. Even though this clip is a bit ridiculous, it serves as a good illustration of what I’m talking about. You can see Jen walking past Moss to go out the door. She isn’t running frantically, but she is subtly reacting and is not going with the flow as well as Moss is. The fine line has to do with emotion. When emotions stay stuck to the stimulus, it triggers a chemical response within the body that accelerates aging.

The absolute best example (and my favorite!) I’ve seen of someone going with the flow is Aunt Sylvie in the movie from the novel Housekeeping. It’s quickly noticeable in this two minute trailer. The book adds more detail than the movie (without altering any of the plot), but the movie (in my opinion) is more fun thanks to how perfectly Christine Lahti suits Sylvie’s character. Why she goes unnoticed as as Aspie woman, played in this film, doesn’t surprise me. People typically mistaken her as being schizophrenic, which I can understand why that’s hastily done. To comprehend a character that’s as complex and unique as Sylvie requires innovative thinking.¹

Reactions are what cause such things as unforgiveness and revenge. The movie Amish Grace displays how the Amish community goes with the flow.

You can have a strong ability to employ logic for solving problems, like The Monty Hall Problem for example.² But, that doesn’t necessarily mean you also have Godly wisdom. If you have His wisdom, it also doesn’t necessarily mean you can solve problems which require logic.

Whether you’re strongly logical in thinking, or have a reservoir of Godly wisdom accumulated, or both, you’re likely to exhibit behaviors on occasion that today’s society perceives as being inappropriate. For example, because so few non-Amish (including many professing to be following Christ) can understand the Amish community’s ways (including the ways of some non-Amish Christians), they’re also unable to comprehend the consistency between shunning and forgiveness.³ When incorrect judgments are made, behavior can get labeled as being bad.

If we fear how others judge us, we won’t fear how God judges us and vice versa.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.” — Psalm 111:10

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” — Proverbs 1:7

To not fear the LORD is to not respect and honor God and what He says. Having faith in God’s word may seem foolish and illogical to the world, but that’s only logical and to be expected, considering how the world basically has little-to-no desire in giving God the glory for all things.

¹If you’re interested in a little more about the film, I mentioned some of my thoughts on it in What you see is what you get.

²[Don't read this footnote, unless you want to skip the problem and get faced with the answer.] If you look at the situation logically, you’ll realize: 1.) What is physically behind the doors never changes. 2.) You can’t apply mathematical “logic” after the reveal and call it a 50-50 chance. 3.) The prize goes behind one door at the start. Either it’s behind the door you choose first, or it isn’t. What happens with the reveal doesn’t physically change that by making it more or less likely. If you’re experienced with logic, you’ll know that thinking it’s a 50-50 chance is taking a “logical” approach to a “different” situation. You’ll also know that if you were to put a prize behind one of two doors, it would indeed give a 50-50 chance of being behind either door. In the case of this problem, it’s not what happened. The prize is already in position “before” you come to the point where two boxes are left.

³Isaiah 55:8 — For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.