I was given an analogy a week or so ago that has had a profound effect on my world view. Just want to share it in the event that it might help someone else.

Just a little background: I have always felt the outsider - that everyone else around me was part of the "normal" club that had some kind of inside information or manual that I didn't get. Perhaps there was a secret list somewhere of who is IN and who is OUT. Or perhaps I was an alien - that would explain a lot. Anyhow, at 40+ years old I am still baffled by the people around me and have no idea what they're thinking - so I still group them together as "THEM" (the "normal" people), and then there's "ME" (abnormal, of course).

Ok, so here's the analogy - imagine that all of humanity are fruits growing on a great tree from which life springs. I prefer to think of that tree as God, but it can be whatever you want - the process through which people are created. Now imagine that every single fruit on the tree is different from every other. All the different colors, textures, sizes, flavors, fragrances .....bright, dark, sweet, sour, spiky, smooth, huge, small, sun-loving, shade-loving, etc...... there IS no normal. You can't even determine an "average" in that case - the concepts become irrelevant. How silly is it then for one fruit to aspire to be another?

Suddenly I no longer feel it is ME and THEM. Sure, I still don't understand other people - but suddenly I am allowed and free to just be the "fruit" that I am (yeah, I know that sounds funny). I've never taken the time to discover what that even is, so it feels like a bit of an adventure. Mostly, it feels like freedom.

That's a great revelation, and a great way to think about it, Busy. I am sure you will have some fun in this new adventure! :-)

all of humanity are fruits growing on a great tree:-)
--- totally ---

with the only additional comment that the process which we have observed over the last 10,000 years -
- has involved the larger - heavier fruits - being discarded
falling

(falling from the tree under their own unsupportable weight)

- their own burden upon our collective
... the tree
- too burdensome for the tree
--- deformation

to grow to perfect symmetry -

--- unsupported --- unsupportable ---
no support

burdens unsupported and discarded under overarching paradigm

and that only when individual weights operate within bounds of elegant collective infrastructure
- will freedom for all
like freedom
be our reality
feels

Although it is a cliche, I find this fits everyone, not just us "outsiders":

"Normal is a setting on the washing machine."

If you think about it, nobody is normal. Everyone has little idiosyncrasies and habits that make them fear they're different from the "norm". And they are correct. They just hide it better than some of us.

Very interesting....& by coincidence I found an artile last night that speakes on various sides of this very type of Social View toward ADD. It begins with a reference to the movie "A Clockwork Orange" It is long but interesting. Check it out if you have not already.

http://dialogues.rutgers.edu/vol_04/pdf_files/x_shi.pdf

Burgess contends that the human condition is defined as an enduring balancing act between individual expression and the interests of societynonADDer society
|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| <- FLIMSY RELATIVE TO BELOW

->-

ADDer society
|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| <- ROBUST RELATIVE TO BELOW

via

-1-

|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-| ->- |-| | |-|-|-|-|-|
<- clockwork orange fits in here
(passion is the keyword)

-2-

|-| | |-|-|-|-|-|->- |-| |-| |-|-|| |-|

-3-

|-| |-| |-|-|| |-| ->- +ADDF+ ->- |-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|

passion is great
without passion one might as well be a passion fruity analogy.

:-)


ahhh!
memories -
- the net has it allA Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess) 1990 Royal Shakespeare Company (Barbican)

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Intro from the Author

A. Burgess


--- / ---


Ron Daniels and his talented actors and musicians, as well as myself, are gently suggesting that politics is not everything.



That, in a way, was the whole point of the book. Young Alex and his friends speak a mixture of the two major political languages of the world – Anglo-American and Russian – and this is meant to be ironical, for their activities are totally outside the world of politics.



The problems of our age relate not to economic or political organization but to what used to be called ‘the old Adam’. Original sin, if you wish. Acquisitiveness. Greed. Selfishness.



Above all, aggression for its own sake.

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‘the old Adam’
==
evol psycho

evolutionary
psychology

There is a relatively new conceptual frame-work out there that embraces your insight. Try Googling "neurodiversity"...

This is kinda how I've been seeing the world lately. We're all part of it, we're all important, everybody's unique.

Yin and Yang.

I loved the tree analogy! Definitely insightful and clever!

And in Clockwork Orange..Alex 'improved' but he did come full circle in life having to experience what he did to others..and eventually ended up on the other end. Kind of a weird vigalanti justice but it ended in balance.

It's been awhile since I have seen that movie

ADDF::Stabile signature

and

Wyatt EarpThere's no such thing as a "normal" life...There's just life

Re: There IS no "normal". A fruity analogy...


and it's citrus fresh.

Wyatt Earp Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">There's no such thing as a "normal" life...There's just life </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Didn't Doc Holiday say that TO Wyatt??? ;) Sorry...favorie movie....
Doc Holliday (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000174/): What do you want Wyatt?
Wyatt Earp (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000621/): Just to live a normal life.
Doc Holliday (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000174/): There is no normal life, Wyatt, there's just life, ya live it.
Wyatt Earp (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000621/): I don't know how.

Wait, wait....I assumed you were talking about Tombstone! There is like a million Earp Movies!