Maxus wrote:If my experiences in NY and Chicago were any indication of what 'real' cities were like, I think I'll pass on that and stay around here. Once I get my degree, I can help look for oil out in the Gulf in exchange for obscene amounts of cash and amazing job security, and, what's more, I can get real sweet tea at restaurants.
Jersey kids flood my state for cheap education, but bitch about how "south" they are. They sneer, cold-shoulder, and whine.
So, if the Jerseyian invaders are any indication of how possibly rude, presumptive, bitter, and caustic New Jersey is, my advice is to not use it as method for judging city life.
My advice: Try New York City. You might like it... but don't do SoHo after dark.
UmaroVI wrote:
Huh? There's no evidence at all to suggest Lovecraft was autistic, other than the mistaken notion that he was some sort of recluse who communicated only by mail (propagated because we still have most of his letters). He had a number of friends and traveled frequently.
Well of course he didn't stay in his room in all daylight hours, writing privately like Emily Dickinson. Most of our view of him is through his stories, descriptions by others, photos, and letters. That's pretty sparse, really.
In his life he fell in love, went to war, and kept contact with friends, but of course that's all possible. I'm not stating that he's a paranoid and withdrawn individual.
However, he might have had difficulty in social expression and understanding, as evident in his writing and behavior.
Based on what I've collected of him in the last 12 years of Lovecraft fandom, therefore I
think Lovecraft was a high-functioning autistic, and I
assume so, but I have neither psychology degree nor empyrical evidence to
prove so.
Seriously, when I write "autistic" I want the term accepted in a general sense and not to be used in black-an-white extremes.
While many moderately-social, intelligent-yet-quirky individuals could be of "Asperger's syndrome", technically the method of thinking and behavior falls under the huge category of Broader Autistic Phenotype.
BAP describes a collection of specific behaviors but one could possibly express some of the behaviors to be considered autistic, not all of them.
For an individually competent human to be autistic does not guarantee that they behave like Sean Penn in
I Am Sam.
I've seen this misconception evident previously here on TGD, but I was shocked that responses were no different from the common reaction in the world at large. To claim that a person, dead or living, has a 'disability' is sadly taken as an insult to integrity, but the error of far too many that high-functioning autism is an insult reveals even more faults of ones own character than the claim of autism.
It's not an issue that can be informed forcefully (such as, unfortunately, the popular myth lately that mercury causes low-functioning autism) due to stiff resistance by deep-set cultural or individual assumptions.
Disclaimer: No emotion was expended in writing this rant. However it is a subject I encounter, and challenge, all too often.
