thinking thursday.
mind
- Thanks to Pamela for sharing this article about Understanding Asperger’s. I recognized in reading this article about adults with Asperger’s, I am mostly concerned for Tess as an adult, certainly after John and I are no longer alive to be supports for her. How can we create those supports for her?
- I’m interested in the ways in which common metaphors influence thought. Here’s one example: “As a casual misnomer, the misuse of schizophrenia would be of little interest. But metaphors invite their logical extensions, and these entailments can seamlessly influence thought. In this case, such entailments—’He could erupt any minute’—skew the ongoing discussion of the role of mental illness in violence. According to a 2003 report by a presidential commission on mental health, an alarming ’61 percent of Americans think that people with schizophrenia are likely to be dangerous to others.’ The report continues: ‘However, in reality, these individuals are rarely violent. If they are violent, the violence is usually tied to substance abuse.’ Why is there this disparity between the perceived and the believed?”
body
- My Vision Board for 2013 is taking shape, and I am beginning to see what is important to me this year. Simplicity wins so far. Here’s one take on how to live more simply.
- And another.
- I have deeply (and I mean deeply) decluttered my closet.
- Dang it, but this is so delicious. I know I’ve mentioned it before. I will mention it again, I’m sure. Thanks to my friend Lila for pointing me to this awesomeness by making it for us one day.
- Mexican pumpkin soup and garlicky greens. Yes, please.
- I’m eating raw until dinner. And for dinner, I’m in a soup phase. Thai vegetable stew, be still my heart, I’m trying you this week.
- Why someone put mirrored closet doors in a house that had been built in 1903, I will never know. Perhaps they were drunk on life in the 1980s and just couldn’t resist. But the doors have left me with this very question.
soul
- A beautiful series of photos of holy men. Click through to see them. Thanks to Susan Piver for pointing me to this moving collection.
- I think Mr Rogers had it going on. Dude was kind and he was wise. Here’s what he had to say about disabilities, something I have focused on a lot in my work and life:
“Part of the problem with the word ‘disabilities’ is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can’t feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren’t able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.” -Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
word
“I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of the power I possessed. Not magical power, but real power. The power simply to go on, the power to endure, that is power enough, but I felt I had also the power to create, to add, to delight, to amaze and to transform.” -Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot
[Image from here]
