Volume 1. No. 4 |
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May 6, 2015 |
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Abstract: One of the aims of Autonomy is to include a previously
published article from the internet, that is in
danger of being lost in cyberspace. Freestone Wilson, in what was originally a usenet post in response to the question Is autism on
the increase advanced an argument that conditions such as autism are more
prevalent today (or at least diagnosed as such) because of the technological
progress and pace of civilization that renders it difficult for those faced
with atypical neurology to cope. Freestone Wilson maintains a current blog and active
Twitter account. In the interests of adapting what was originally a post to
article format I have made a few corrections to spelling, added
capitalization at the beginning of the sentences and adjusted the line
lengths to a new format. I have otherwise left Freestones own style of
punctuation and emphasis Original date 4/4/00 alt.support.autism
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Miners Canary
By Freestone Wilson
Yes hello everyone!!
I read ... too .... that
autism is on the increase, that more and more people seem to be diagnosed,
today. There is ONE reason, I think, why this is so,. only one reason, out of many.
I spent the last five years in my home town of 600 people, it was a time warp
back to 1950, or even
before ... not a fast food franchise for 20 miles ... the one cafe is owned by
a human being. There was a small factory, right in a storefront, across the
street from this caf, one of the workers, who lived ten houses away ... he
would often come in for lunch. The same people would come for coffee at the
same time each and every day. There would be 10 to 15 people in there, at 6 AM ....
how amazing to walk into this cafe at 6 AM and see not a single car on the
street or road ... for the TWO miles each way in and out of town! The side
streets are lined with maple trees, there
are no leafblowers or lawn maintenance people's
noises ... only a small lawnmower can be heard!
Church is the center of social life: marriage is the goal of every lady.
Today, I live in a city of 150,000, this last weekend I went to their wonderful
... "springtime Tallahassee" parade and festival
.... never again, the sensory overload was to to too much!! 50,000 people to watch a parade ... the
numbers of human beings were so so great, on the
streets, in the tent craft show area ... that i never
DID even see what was IN those tents, let alone enter one of them!!
W-e-l-l .... in
the 1950s, the slow pace of these little ole towns that had farming or industry
to support them, why the PACE of living was much much
slower, people got up and went to work at the same time each and every day,
"routines" were the way of life, and slow at that. In my home town, a
man was a bank teller for over 40 years ... I once met a man who worked in the
very same small building for about 60 years and he lived next door, and still
does after he retired, same time to bed ... to eat ... to arise .... a small universe.
Today???
Well ..... ADD and HYPERACTIVITY is a MUST, a strength! Why ... I had a lady tell me, once, how
impressed she was with another lady at the checkout counter at the supermarket!
this clerk lady was ...
AT THE SAME TIME
-- totalling up some person's groceries.
--- talking on the phone.
--- giving someone directions.
--- talking to a salesman about some product.
--- talking with the manager.
All at the very same moment!!
I once went to a Ithaca ny
super super supermarket with my aunt, "wegman's superstore" I think.
oh it was a wonderful store...but i was
"psychotic" for hours afterward ... my aunt wondered about my sanity
as i rode back home with her...the sense overload in
that store was too tooo much...the bright lights, the
buzzing of all the clerks...noise, lights, hummms ...
and the psychedelics splat of 90,734 colors of can goods and vegies!
My POINT is, folks .... that
back in the slower days of the 1950s, or thereabouts, a High level autistic
person could COPE!! The pace of life was such that a sheltered niche could be
found, and no one would ever know that person is autistic. Why even the
"shadow of autistic" person might not EVEN KNOW there was a brain
problem at all, to his life! He would naturally gravitate to a sheltered way of
life in a little town where all his relatives live and he would work at some
low key industry job ... maybe for 30 or more years! Why ... both of my aunts
still live in their houses that they bought back in the early 1950s!! Imagine,
folks ... 40 years sitting at the same kitchen window at the breakfast
table...the same view out of that window! These days....anyone with even a
"touch" of autism is UTTERLY behind the curve of adaptions to the
pace of our stress-filled life ways!! I mean ... on the cell phone in traffic;
I see it from the bus window everyday ... --- when a cereal company puts out 24
flavors of POPTARTS, as who actually has the TIME to l-a-b-o-i-o-u-s-l-y pour milk into a bowl of cereal, these days:
why they cram the warm poptart into their mouths,
direct from toaster, as they RUN from the kitchen with briefcase in hand, to
jump into their car for that 30 mile power-commute at 6 am!! Gotta talk that cell phone on the Commuter train with
laptop next to ya with the wall street Journal on the
seat, open, the sensory overload that is becoming the norm, for this society,
why that overload could even cause a "normal" person to have a kind
of "nervious breakdown" --immediately
during a super-stress period, like when i was in that
supermarket, above ... --- or after a period of time, after months and years at
some stress-filled job! And one of the ways a brain comes apart?? ... Why that
could very well be in autistic symptoms ... especally
in a person with a genetic predisposition to autism.
And this begins at a VERY early age, this sense bombardment. kids
in school...why the tv way of life
demands that each tv-image only is on the screen for
about one second. yes...ADD and autism...
since even sports are not played for "fun" anymore...even they are high
exTreme and Competitive,
even in the early grades...there is no more nice "recess" slow time
for kids of a different pace.
"Miners canaries"
This is a term used sometimes for how some
people react to food additives and chemicals in our
environments ... a warning to us all about what our way of life is doing to our
bodies .... they are a
prophetic warning to us all. Well .... this could hold for
our minds and our SOULS too!
ADD and Autism...could be a miners canary for what our
way of living is doing to us in our minds and in our souls! [take
a modern teen-ager and take him to that peacefull
heaven after death and he will be bored to spouting in .004 seconds as there IS
nothing going on there --- only "peace and traquillity"
is there!!]
So we autistics are at the tail end of
those 700 joggers at the "springtime Marathon Run".
--- the "run" that the people at the
forefront DEFINE as winners, those people at the front...the winners must be
the type of fitness that wins the race. They define what constitutes a winner, of course... all other types of fitnesses
do not count, here, in this "run"! --- just
about the only race in town, nowadays!!
Thus ... I think that this is why there are more autistic people today! The way
of live of this age is ever more demanding of a certain way of living that is
the WORST case of livings, for many autistic people, and there are fewer and
fewer places to hide, to be sheltered from the media Storms .... And even the
"normal" kid may become mind-fractured into Autism ... under all the
sense stress and overloads!
[feel free to quote or pass this article on to others!!]
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