(The following is an edited excerpt of Chapter 19 of Barb’s new
book, Neurodiversity: A Humorous and Practical Guide
to Living with ADHD, Anxiety, Autism, Dyslexia, Homosexuality and Everyone Else.)
Life is a balance
of two B’s:
1 Just being.
2 Being just.
I
n I Might Be You: An Exploration of Autism and
Connection, I wrote much of the bounty of
just being. Here is an excerpt sharing how
just being can connect you with another without
language: “We are not hiding. You search with
limited senses and, therefore our humanity is
camouflaged to you. Be still. Be quiet. Be. We
notice you on the glacier. We observe you completely. Language presentation is the barrier
to our friendship–not sentience or intellect. We
do not speak your language, but you can speak
ours. Be still. Be quiet. Be. And now be with us.
Our silent and invisible language is that easy
to learn. Feel it? Welcome. Our friendship has
begun.”
I have always been good at just being. I know
now that to fully “be,” one must also “do.” This
truth comes with the added bonus that doing
can be a real calorie burner. But wait, there is
more.
Those who are good at just being are fully present and see justly that change is often needed to
be just. (That may read more clearly when held
up to a mirror.)
Change is always a chain reaction. Google tells
us a chain reaction is “a chemical reaction or
other process in which the products themselves
promote or spread the reaction, which under
certain conditions may accelerate dramatically.”
If you seek change, make your move. Humanity
needs exactly you.
B y : B arb R entenbach
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ZOOM Autism through Many Lenses
Consider, for example, Buddhist monk Quang
Duc’s self-immolation on a Saigon street in
June 1963 that led to the November 1963 overthrow of the Diem regime in South Vietnam, a
government that infamously persecuted Buddhists, thus ending the “Buddhist crisis.” Fellow
monk and prolific author Thich Nhat Hanh, in
ZOOM Autism through Many Lenses
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