Link between autism and individualism?

[Bill Brenne]

First, I have to explain where I come from. I grew up in western Oregon in a secluded environment. My dad was extremely withdrawn, and my mom more or less went along with that. To a kid, though, that meant that opportunities for friendships even at school might as well not exist. This further created worsening neuroses--distinguishing between what belonged to my parents and what I could touch, and working it's way to pondering how I was going to compensate my parents for their having raised me.

They weren't bad parents. I think maybe they thought that, beyond basic needs (and lavishing us with gifts at Christmastime and birthdays and taking us on road trips in the summers), that kids basically raised themselves without need of their personal involvement. It was also deathly quiet at meal times.

When the time came when kids would ordinarily leave home, I was left to rot on the property instead. This went on for months, until, one day, I knew that there were no contingencies for me to leave home, and I then dropped the outside world as being not just irrelevant, but non-existent, for all practical purposes. Maybe contrary to popular opinion, there was no loss as such that day, so much as an alteration. Instead of going through the socialization process to be acclimated to the collective, I went with the only thing I knew at the time, which was myself. I couldn't have put this into words at the time. That would take the bulk of my life to get around to.

In the meantime, I didnt have control of my emotions, since noone had taught me how to. The obvious solution to this problem was to investigate this myself. And since Daniel Goleman's, "Emotional Intelligence" was the "in-thing" to the head of the psychology department at Oregon State, and Goleman had nothing to say about what emotions are and what their for in everyday life, I knew I was on my own. 20+ years later, I found that emotions are predator-prey relations in human form, which was helpful. But I still hadn't addressed what to do about the disconnect I felt with society. That had to wait until the last five years or so. I understand now that, just as among fish there is a school and there are stragglers, so, too, there are human collectivists and individualists--those who either favor group-protection or self-protection, respectively.

But how this was to translate into how I was to make a life for myself was another matter. After a life in behind-the-scenes jobs in Oregon, and going to a new state in which I was promptly micromanaged and lasted three weeks in a job that I had expected to maintain indefinitely, I was made aware for the first time that I had taken the jobs I had in Oregon for granted, and that I could no longer do that. In fact, I started envisioning getting and losing job after job, and could see only one outcome of that--suicide. I've since put society in its place, but am still left with the nagging question as to how I can still even just technically find employment in a world that apparently favors talk over work.

Which brings me to my current thinking. I've had it suggested to me that I'm autistic. After a period of time having discounted that as a possibility regarding myself, and picking up on some basic descriptions of autistic behavior, I find myself identifying with some very real common autistic behavior patterns, while at the same time, I'm developing a strong suspicion that the mindset favoring self-protection (over group-protection) is related to my own experience of dropping collectivism and becoming attached to individualism. Is there in fact a connection between the two? You tell me. As it is, I'm not sure that it's a coincidence that women in times past had and/or were forced to a similar breaking point where society lost value and individualism ruled the day for them. Before women's liberation.

 

[Tom]

I am intimidated by walls of text, so didn't read all, but found the part on individualism. From personnal observation I would spectulate people on the spectrum are markedly more individualistic on average, and less prone to group think naturely. Though we might expend a large ammount of energy masking so as to appear the same as others and avoid the negative aspects of difference.

On valuing individual goals over group ones, I am not sure. I do think our 'otherness' tends to push us towards a self defensive mode of operation as you mention. But on the other hand feel that if we do believe a group goal important that we can become ardent supporters of such.

 

[Bill Brenne]

I'm glad I'm not the only one to think that there may be a connection between autism and individualism. And I'm glad you brought up the tendency that even those with autism can have to want to appear to be the same as others so as to hopefully avoid the stigma of difference. I should have mentioned that myself. Between individualism and this wanting to appear to be the same, it makes me wonder what would happen if these factors were isolated out--what would autism look like then? And I, too would like to believe that we all could get on board with one or the other causes that find a home in the collective arena.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Individualism and autism: Is this an association or a causation? I think we can have quite a conversation on this topic. I will make some points here.

1. I will often say that I feel like a visiting alien observing the world. I can observe and imitate, but am still recognized as that alien. Never really fitting in. Always on the periphery.

2. I have a difficult time with interpersonal communication and relationships. I get along just fine with people, but relationships are limited to friendly acquaintances. I don't miss people. I don't get lonely. I don't think of other people. I am not anti-social, per se, I just don't need social interaction. I have a difficult time getting my ideas across using verbal language. I have "mind-blindness",...I have no idea what people are thinking in the moment and I find that communication can be an emotional "mine field" that can take me by surprise.

3. I have an insatiable need for knowledge. I need to be intellectually stimulated. If not, I shut down, much like a computer going to sleep,...and I will go take a nap. I have had a very long list of special interests. I take deep dives into the literature,...down to the molecular level.

4. I like to observe people and their behavior. I am quite happy to sit and watch people and analyze. I do the same with the media. Thought patterns. I study the biological and social reasons for neurotypical behavior. If people knew what I was thinking while sitting around the break table at work. People are a curiosity.

5. As I have aged, I have become less and less of an emotional thinker. Very logical. I don't understand "group think", politics, or then need to be part of a religion or any other group. I am not a follower. I break things down to "first principles" and do a lot of "reverse engineering". I don't understand the need to be a "troll" on social media. I am an "out-of-the-box" thinker. I have a difficult time understanding things like racism and discrimination.

Basically, things like this can marginalize someone. I am not part of the neurotypical world even though I am immersed in it. I am very much an individual.

 

[Bill Brenne]

May I share some thoughts on this? I've been where you are (or have been, whichever is more accurate). Being not of society, but without any clear backup for that is a trying and oppressive experience, I know. I went over and over this like a going over a missing tooth with my tongue until I felt that I had gotten a handle on things. The alternative to me was suicide, and I knew it, so I was highly motivated. My first clue was Beneduct Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, effing a villain without provocation, and then loudly declaring, "I am a high-functioning sociopath!". What this triggered was the question, "If a person is against society, then what exactly is he or she FOR?"
Later, I saw a connection with the forces of nature. The consensus in science is that the forces we know today--Gravity, Electromagnetism, and the Strong & the Weak Nuclear forces--were once a unified "Superforce", which broke apart at the moment of the Big Bang (if you are a believer in this--the jury is out on that, to me). Anyway, the resulting state of affairs is called a "broken symmetry". It could be said that a similar event happened with human beings (in a relative fashion) when population levels rose to the point where tribal life became infeasible and society roughly as we know it took over. As a result, there had to have been an intensifying discontinuity between individualism and collectivism. There have been times when society tamps down individuality to the breaking point, like it did in the 60s and 70s, and again in these days. What's going on in politics and such is mere surface lather, concealing the underlying break with society going on right now. Like in the 60s and 70s, there will be a new equilibrium and the radicals will be re-absorbed into the new equilibrium. Fish congregate in schools, but there are still stragglers to these schools, and no reason to think the same isnt true of any species that forms collective groups. The instinctive biological rebellion against the collective today is irrationally based, because its participants were caught off guard, having formerly virtually sold their souls to the collective. So all they know to do is oppose anything and everything that the status quo is deemed to stand for. Unfortunately, that includes the reality of the virus and the necessity of vaccines. That's not to say that those promoting disinformation shouldnt be prosecuted as complicit with mass manslaughter, but I speculate that when the culprits wake up there is going to be a wave of suicides at the enormity of their crimes.
I also rest on the assurance that a healthy dose of individuality is wanted and needed by every denizen of society, however much these denizens may protest the monleywrench being thrown into their machinery.
Five years ago I was thrown into crisis mode, because I saw that getting and losing job after job because I dont (and cant) play the game would lead inevitably to suicide. Now I see that society is only one side of the coin, and that I have a responsibility to represent the other side of the coin.
On that note, it's seeming to me that it cant possibly be a coincidence that autistic behavior--or a healthy chunk of it, anyway--looks so similar to how true individualists are likely to behave in a world where the majority are virtually off-limits to them. And not only that, but inability to participate in greater society also means not being able to be a full adult, since adulthood requires immersion into the world of people.

 

[Magna]

Given the way you were raised, basically by yourself in a remote area and having no chance to develop social skills, it's also possible that you're not autistic at all and instead developed anti-social behavior and/or some other personality disorder. You mentioned you identify with some traits ascribed to autistic people. Have you looked at the criteria for autism diagnoses in the current DSM V? That might help you to narrow your search. Not everyone who is shy around others or has difficulty with social interaction is autistic by a long shot.

To your question about individualism, yes I personally am individualistic. This is primarily, I would assume, for a few reasons:

• I had to survive and figure out life on my own. I didn't have a cadre of people or a support network of others coaching, guiding and mentoring me.
• I'm an observer. I've seen how the hierarchical social system of humans works. I've accomplished more on my own than I likely would have being "another brick in the wall".
• Groupthink and the absence of critical thinking that goes with it are deleterious.

I've thought of it this way before:

If I was stranded on an island or remote area (e.g. plane crash, etc) with a large group of people I didn't know, I'd likely head into the woods on my own to try and survive. I'd come back to the group at some later point to see if my involvement with them would be mutually beneficial (f they were still around and had been able to coexist peaceably with each other). If they ended up destroying each other instead, I'd poke through the remnants of their failed smoldering attempts at getting along, I'd take what I needed from that and I'd whistle back to my hut thinking of all the things I'd do that day, week, month, year, etc.

 

[Bill Brenne]

I'm a very nuts-and-bolts kind of guy. Five years ago, I hit the brick wall of the world outside of the jobs I had been given in Oregon, and went into a tailspin, considering that those jobs in Oregon may very likely have been employers' versions of charity-work for someone they saw was different, and that, in all likelihood, based on my new surroundings and beginning experience with those surroundings, the jobs most available to me would turn out to be jobs involving N more than work--involving some form of PR and public interfacing, which I had no use for. If that was the case--as I suspected it was--then I believed I should expect to get and lose job after job and be forced to commit suicide in the end.
Over the last five years, I built a solid case for myself and anyone else, clearly showing that collective society is and can only be ONE side of the coin, the other side of the coin being a true individualist's approach to life (technically, in my belief, a person is going to favor one or the other: group-protection or self-protection (though not to the complete exclusion of the other, of course)). The collectivist and individualist sides are both perfectly valid, even if the majority of collectivists have a hard time with there being another side of the coin.
So my panic and fear subsided, and I got to the point where I could easily see that it isnt like collectivists dont understand that there are jobs that favor work over talk (the center of collective existence). And then I took a step back and realized that having the original emotional trauma fade WASN'T the same as saying that I couldn't expect to run into collectivist interference in even straightforward work. I mean, if poor people are the primary inhabitants of the labor job market, they still want to socialize, too, and I've already had my share of even physically abusive opposition to my not going along with the crowd, and then it isnt impossible to consider that those who have labor jobs also play the collectivist game after all. In short, I couldn't count on a peaceful existence in jobs that emphasize labor, even.
Over time, I've started to notice that descriptions of typical autistic behavior appear to correspond pretty well with what I would describe as the likely behavior patterns of individualists. I couldn't really accept that I'm autistic, myself, but then I had to wonder how many supposed autistic people are maybe more accurately simply individualists like me(?). And if there are work resources for those people, then why not for me as well? I dont want to fool myself into thinking that simply going for labor jobs would ir will solve my problems, turn around and be greatly disappointed that I was still not in a position to make a life for myself. If there are appropriate job resources for me courtesy of a community of people that isnt fully understood to this day, then I could see the potential to find a way forward that way, or, failing that, at least check one option of the list as non-viable in reality and set my sights on labor jobs again or something.

 

[Alexej]

Welcome Bill

Do hang around here, read other's experiences, consider how this fits with you and see if how other people experience life rings any bells with you. If it does great, if not great too. There are so many ways that autism manifests, and it is a spectrum after all (a multidimensional spectrum)

[small point - but putting more space between your paragraphs makes it easier to read your posts]

 

[Bill Brenne]

Thank you, and point taken.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

May I share some thoughts on this? I've been where you are (or have been, whichever is more accurate). Being not of society, but without any clear backup for that is a trying and oppressive experience, I know. I went over and over this like a going over a missing tooth with my tongue until I felt that I had gotten a handle on things. The alternative to me was suicide, and I knew it, so I was highly motivated. My first clue was Beneduct Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes, effing a villain without provocation, and then loudly declaring, "I am a high-functioning sociopath!". What this triggered was the question, "If a person is against society, then what exactly is he or she FOR?"
Later, I saw a connection with the forces of nature. The consensus in science is that the forces we know today--Gravity, Electromagnetism, and the Strong & the Weak Nuclear forces--were once a unified "Superforce", which broke apart at the moment of the Big Bang (if you are a believer in this--the jury is out on that, to me). Anyway, the resulting state of affairs is called a "broken symmetry". It could be said that a similar event happened with human beings (in a relative fashion) when population levels rose to the point where tribal life became infeasible and society roughly as we know it took over. As a result, there had to have been an intensifying discontinuity between individualism and collectivism. There have been times when society tamps down individuality to the breaking point, like it did in the 60s and 70s, and again in these days. What's going on in politics and such is mere surface lather, concealing the underlying break with society going on right now. Like in the 60s and 70s, there will be a new equilibrium and the radicals will be re-absorbed into the new equilibrium. Fish congregate in schools, but there are still stragglers to these schools, and no reason to think the same isnt true of any species that forms collective groups. The instinctive biological rebellion against the collective today is irrationally based, because its participants were caught off guard, having formerly virtually sold their souls to the collective. So all they know to do is oppose anything and everything that the status quo is deemed to stand for. Unfortunately, that includes the reality of the virus and the necessity of vaccines. That's not to say that those promoting disinformation shouldnt be prosecuted as complicit with mass manslaughter, but I speculate that when the culprits wake up there is going to be a wave of suicides at the enormity of their crimes.
I also rest on the assurance that a healthy dose of individuality is wanted and needed by every denizen of society, however much these denizens may protest the monleywrench being thrown into their machinery.
Five years ago I was thrown into crisis mode, because I saw that getting and losing job after job because I dont (and cant) play the game would lead inevitably to suicide. Now I see that society is only one side of the coin, and that I have a responsibility to represent the other side of the coin.
On that note, it's seeming to me that it cant possibly be a coincidence that autistic behavior--or a healthy chunk of it, anyway--looks so similar to how true individualists are likely to behave in a world where the majority are virtually off-limits to them. And not only that, but inability to participate in greater society also means not being able to be a full adult, since adulthood requires immersion into the world of people.

My first thoughts reading all of this for the first time: "I LOVE this forum!!"

My second thoughts were that there needs to be opposites, the "Ying and Yang", the light and the dark, love and hate, and so on. Without spectrums, without opposites, our ability to compare things, our social structures, our need to seek something better, our intellectual need for knowledge,...pretty much everything that our life is about would eventually creep to a halt. Yet, there is a strong element within the neurotypical world that embraces sameness, from every guideline, policy and procedure, laws, cultural practices, racism and discrimination, bullying, teasing,...a significant amount of what society tends to embrace,...yet condemn. It blows my mind. Just cruise through someone's Facebook account and look at all the memes, the jokes, the comments,...you will quickly see the world for what it is. Interestingly, this whole phenomenon also tends to be triggered by an underlying anxiety and fear of something different or unpredictable, or that some harm might be done if we do not conform to a strict set of conduct. Change is a scary thing to many people,...they want predictability.

That said, individualism is a blessing and a curse. At NO point in human history has anyone contributed anything transformative to the human experience by doing something the same as everyone else. Someone, somewhere, at some time,...an individual,...with an "out-of-the-box" idea,...created something that pushed mankind forward. Likely, an autistic. It is a blessing because at key points in our history, individualism was, for a moment allowed to be accepted,...only because it benefited the masses in some way. On the other hand, almost without exception, these ideas were met with staunch resistance when first presented. It took a strong person with strong convictions to keep moving forward and let the idea come to fruition.

 

[Bill Brenne]

I'll take that as a compliment.
Without structure in the human, biological and physical world, there would be little incentive for working things out--and that includes for practical as well as profitable purposes, of course.
I was minded by your response, to propose that individualism and collectivism actually do play a part in a very important structure that governs our lives--that of emotions. Along with everything else I had to rethink for myself, I had good reason to get to the bottom of emotions, because I hadn't been taught how to understand and handle them before I left home. The Dean of the Psychology Department at OSU (Oregon), told me in no uncertain terms that Daniel Goleman's, "Emotional Intelligence", is the "in-thing" where emotions are concerned. Goleman doesn't talk about what emotions are and what they're for in everyday life, however, so I knew right then that I was on my own. I spent a great portion of my life in behind-the-scenes work, which gave me an ideal opportunity to watch and listen to myself and others and think about what I saw and heard. It was the ideal duck-blind--in plain sight.
To try to make a long story short, the Ancient Greeks dividing a human being into a set of four "humours", or bodily fluids thought to affect or influence behavior--Sanguine (blood), Phlegmatic (phlegm or mucus), Melancholic ("black bile"--whatever THAT is) and Choleric ("bile"), gave me a good starting point, for reasons that I wont go into here; suffice it to say that i couldn't accept this classification as a guide to personality types--both because it so clearly and simply pointed to emotions instead, and because personality-type systems are pretty good with descriptions, and yet utterly fail at explanations.
The value of this set of four is mainly in its offering the implied conclusion that there are four basic emotions--Happy, Indifferent, Sad and Angry, respectively. From there (after being fixated on trying to shoehorn in concepts of human dignity into the mix), I arrived at the following: Emotions are predator-prey relations in human form. The connection of Anger with Fighting/Attacking is obvious--the others, not so much. Yet I nevertheless worked out that when a person is Sad, he or she is defending him- or herself against attack (the woman who wins the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes Prize is NOT shedding tears of joy as PC requires, but instead imagining others wanting the money and her having to defend herself for keeping it out of fear of being ostracized); that when a person is Happy (bouncing off the walls, great big grin, laughter/sense of humor), what's actually going on is that this person is intent--at least in his or her imagination--on weakening or destabilizing others in order to make them easier prey (in general terms, harassing others, and this in the natural context of a predator chasing its prey); and finally, when a person is Indifferent, he or she is doing the human equivalent of running away and hiding (I mean, how could human beings in a well-populated world simply literally chase, attack, defend against attack, or run away and hide from others? So we do the next best thing.
What I want to additionally point out here is that there are things that characterize human beings that actually fit perfectly into this structure. For example, those who are characteristically Happy and Angry are acting in a predatory mode, while those who are Indifferent and Sad are acting in a "prey" mode. Those in the former category will tend to be dominant and have "high-self-esteem", while those in the latter category will tend to be submissive and have "low self-esteem", correspondingly. This is not to say that anyone is locked into any of these things--it's only to observe that there are readily observable patterns in human behavior and to put those patterns in context. How a human being behaves moment-by-moment is another matter entirely.
The thing I want most to point out by way of this essay is that it may truly be said that those who favor the collective will also tend to favor predatory behavior--Happy and Angry--and those who favor their own individuality will also tend to favor prey behavior--Indifferent and Sad.

 

[Suzette]

Bill Brenne, I think your essay is interesting but in humans "preditor -prey" only works if one is invested in that model as a whole.
This goes back to individualisim. The person who is not dependant on social status or need for validation, very often is indifferent to the the challenges issued by aggressive people and unmoved by others need for intristic validation.
In fictional literature this person us represented by Aragorn of Lord of the Rings, various representations of monks, Albus Dumbledore of Harry Potter, of course there are many more.

 

[Bill Brenne]

I have to be straight with you: How much of your picture of those who are Indifferent is simply informed by the culture? As for me, the truth of the cultural depiction of Indifferent people would be tested if an Indifferent person and an aggressive person were locked in a room together.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

I would like to propose another dynamic,...the calm, assertive, dominant personality,...and the insecure, aggressive personality. This dynamic occurs, I suspect, every day, all the time, somewhere in the healthcare system. The example being the calm, assertive, dominant physician interacting with the insecure, fearful, but aggressive family member of a sick loved one. I have even seen this dynamic with my own dog interacting with aggressive dogs. My dog will walk right up to an aggressive, snapping, barking dog,...calm as anything, no hackles up, no wagging of the tail, head up, hold his ground, not make a sound,...the aggressive dog always backed down. I don't know how he does it, but he's always been that way.

Indifference, in my experience, should not be mistaken for weakness or being subordinate. Some people come off as indifferent in certain situations for the simple fact they aren't motivationally triggered to be committed to one decision or the other. In this scenario, the insecure, weak, but aggressive personality may appear to "win" the interaction for no other reason than the calm, dominant person allowed it to happen,...so who actually "won" the interaction?

 

[watersprite]

With the conflicts and occasional misery that occurs for me in this life of living in an over-populated world of humans,
I have come to read the Stoic literature which (for me) presents a way forward.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

I think that being an aspie has made me very independent. I was out of the house very young. And I've always had a very moral right/wrong ethic, and done things my way instead of what everyone else was doing.

 

[Suzette]

I have to be straight with you: How much of your picture of those who are Indifferent is simply informed by the culture? As for me, the truth of the cultural depiction of Indifferent people would be tested if an Indifferent person and an aggressive person were locked in a room together.

My husband is one!
But truly rational people aren't around others who just make asses of themselves. You don't have to fight the dog to prove you are a man. Wits for the win.

 

[Suzette]

I would like to propose another dynamic,...the calm, assertive, dominant personality,...and the insecure, aggressive personality. This dynamic occurs, I suspect, every day, all the time, somewhere in the healthcare system. The example being the calm, assertive, dominant physician interacting with the insecure, fearful, but aggressive family member of a sick loved one. I have even seen this dynamic with my own dog interacting with aggressive dogs. My dog will walk right up to an aggressive, snapping, barking dog,...calm as anything, no hackles up, no wagging of the tail, head up, hold his ground, not make a sound,...the aggressive dog always backed down. I don't know how he does it, but he's always been that way.

Indifference, in my experience, should not be mistaken for weakness or being subordinate. Some people come off as indifferent in certain situations for the simple fact they aren't motivationally triggered to be committed to one decision or the other. In this scenario, the insecure, weak, but aggressive personality may appear to "win" the interaction for no other reason than the calm, dominant person allowed it to happen,...so who actually "won" the interaction?

Exactly!

 

[Bill Brenne]

Okay, from the top: Indifference is the most chronically misunderstood state that is found in human beings, as even the word, "Indifference" suggests. That word is a "man-made" label attached to this state, betraying the biases of the humans who coined it.
Let's take your first case: Indifference confronted by aggression. Common sense practically screams that aggression ALWAYS wins. With the nurse and the dog, neither of these is showing aggression in return, which let's the aggressor know that he or she is not being challenged. Meanwhile, especially with the nurse, the nurse is recognized by the aggressor as performing a vital "support" function. Unless the aggressor is dirt-stupid, he or she knows that the nurse must be allowed to perform her function, because lives are literally on the line.
Now then, let's address another common misconception: "Indifference" is not to be taken as representing lack of motivation or indecision--it represents an active purpose and function--just in a way that's unfamiliar to the average person unless they stop and think about it. If people really had an "off-switch" (which is the implication of your understanding--at least with regards to motivational triggers and indecision), then the Indifferent person would literally "cease to function". Human beings do not cease to function until they die. That's the real truth of the matter.
And another thing: You havent stated this yourself, but there are those who confuse Indifference with Anger. Again, not so. Anger is Anger, and Indifference is Indifference. The evidence plainly indicates two entirely different and distinct states of human functioning, which have nothing directly to do with each other.
Finally, you indicate that you have a thing for stoicism. You aren't the only one--history has its share of such adherents. But popular conceptions aren't the same as true conceptions. One of the major fallacies taught in basic logic classes--called "argumentum and populum" (or "appeal to the people")-- claims that whatever the people believe is right and true is what's right and true. Suppose the people believe that the moon is made of green cheese. It's not true, so the people would be wrong to up and believe it. Neither is the earth flat, etc.
You have a hankering for ethics. So do I-in spades. I claim that society cannot believe in such things because society is self-referential, rather than being ground-based. And in fact, the very movement towards collectivism practically guarantees unethical behavior for the simple reason that people learn through the socialization process to pose and pretend--posture--in order to get what they want from others. Such behavior ranges anywhere from deliberate attempts to "benefit from" others to outright manipulation and exploitation of others for personal gain. The purpose of each society is to decide which form of behavior is acceptable and which is not acceptable in the context of the collective.
I want to leave you with one final thought: If you are an individualist--"independent" (which is not the same as having power over one's situation or neighbors--it might as well be thought of as being more like severance and self-sufficiency than having anything at all to do with others)--if you are of that frame of mind, then you surely relate, as I do, to fundamental ethically and morality. What that means to me, put simply, is that I believe that we are to be real in our words and our actions. Collectivists are unable to embrace this, as I indicated. For me, the world and universe is a Tapestry that unfolds moment-by-moment at the Hand of God. That means that becoming in sync with God simply means becoming real. So I'm right there with you on that. Please dont stick your head in the stoic sand like an ostrich, okay?

 

[Bill Brenne]

My husband is one!
But truly rational people aren't around others who just make asses of themselves. You don't have to fight the dog to prove you are a man. Wits for the win.

I was providing a silly picture to try to clarify the point that aggression ALWAYS wins. There's no two ways about this. I understand that there are situations, like in a hospital, where a nurse calmly deals with an angry and aggressive person and then subsides, and that this is interpreted to mean that the nurse was in the superior position with respect to the aggressive person. Nothing of the sort is playing out in this dynamic. Instead, the aggressive person calms down simply because he or she isnt being challenged, and he or she then retains his or her "top-of-the-heap" status. Meanwhile, unless the aggressive person is dirt stupid, he or she is forced to recognize that the nurse performs a vital and valuable "support" position, and interference with that risks people's lives. There is no "win" going on here by the nurse over the aggressive person at all.