Shades of Grey

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I quite liked this article, I think it would be a useful read, and something to think about for some.

http://www.thebestbrainpossible.com/shades-of-gray-2

I agree. This is a good read. I have attempted to take this view of the world as well, but it is sometimes difficult.

Of course an impairment is a difference too.

I read the blog post, had an unrelated, awful conversation and got annoyed with how people treat autism and how they treat autistic people.

If you go further than that blog entry does, maybe you'll understand how I ended up with these thoughts crossing my mind today. This isn't new to me, because I never felt that there really one thing called “normal” or that the term means anything more than what I or someone else intends it to mean or that people are truly “the same”.

Still, today frustrated me a little, so I felt like writing my thoughts down to help me decide on something:

I don't understand why anyone would think that an impairment means a person is defective. They can't do something or can't do something as good as someone else can, but they too have their strengths. Likewise, I don't understand why anyone would think that a so-called strength, a special skill makes a person remarkable.

Strength doesn't mean doing better than all the others. A strength can be making people smile even in hard times. If you think about that, I'm sure you'll agree that basically, we could all make people smile.

I don't think being able to do what few others can manage makes someone special or good or anything. I really don't care if someone can do something great and unique. So what? What's it for? Making people envious or awed and telling yourself "oh, I can do this better than anyone, aren't I a useful person?" I mean, there are people who say that or think that, because some people who're not autistic feel better than autistic people for being able to do various things an autistic person can't do in that same way.

The ability to inspire, the ability to spread happiness, the ability to make people have a good feeling at the end of the day are strengths too. Having a talent or being skilled can make people happy too - it sure makes people happy to have their car fixed or their wedding-dress tailored or even that their foreign languages teacher is good at teaching them Spanish.

I never understood why people would call one an exceptional pianist, but not the other, call one a talented writer, but not the other and claim that the exceptional pianist and writer are exceptional people.

An exceptional pianist can bore me or make me smile, a talented writer can weird me out or inspire me. Makes the exceptional pianist not so exceptional anymore if I think he's a bore, doesn't it? A horrid pianist can succeed at making a chill go down my spine or make me laugh with joy and an untalented writer can feel like a waste of my time or still point out a fascinating concept despite poor wording.

Exceptional skills are only great because they add to the variety we get to experience in life and may enjoy depending on what we individual as we are, appreciate. Great skills have no meaning by themselves or simply because someone has them - but neither have great impairments have a meaning by themselves. You can still be a dignified, happy person who is important to others who shares things with them who they appreciate immensely and who makes their lives richer even if you are so strongly impaired that some people will rudely claim that you're just a pitiful, mindless existence.

Who's to judge what is good and desired in life in general - and in turn, whether they intend to or not - define what is bad and undesired?

We all have our opinions, but there really is nothing universal about it after all, right?

Not only my world and their word are different, but our word can also be different from moment to moment. Ten years ago I was a different person than today, and I'm quite sure if I don't screw up I'll be a different person 10 years hence.

So, better accept the gray-scale way of thinking, in practice it goes like you have to accept seemingly strange ideas and new ways of thinking, just memorize them on surface level, and if you've collected enough information, this knew knowledge of yours should "click" sometime in the future. If it won't, no need to worry, no one knows everything in the world, but in the process probably you've already become wiser...

An individual, a group of people, or the whole society each can be a basis for defining. An exceptional talent will always be someone who is regarded as one by one or more of these three. I think it lies in our human nature that we try to acknowledge talented, "normal" and impaired people's efforts equally, even though we know there are differences in the quality of outcome. And yes, because we have different tastes, different backgrounds, and our desire for something from the field of arts (or whatever) greatly varies with time and place, it might easily happen that an "exceptional" piece of art doesn't satisfy us while a less praised one sends us near heaven.


True, the universe doesn't have instructions for what should be considered what. Nothing for what is good or what is bad, what is desired and what is undesired. In reality, the universe doesn't have a sense for arts too, because all the art as we know it is purely Human...

10 years? I don't have to go back that far. My point of view on something changes every day. I'm a different person than I was three weeks ago. Much more different three months ago, and I'm nowhere near the same person I was three years ago.

The only thing that is a universal truth is mathematics. A(X+Y) = AX+AY; there's no grey area about that.