Lit Circles Final Blog

For my lit cirlce I read the book Thinking in Pictures My Life With Autism by Temple Grandin. 

I connected this book with the blog Haley Mooney did on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  When she was explaining her quote I saw many similarities between Deborah in her book and Temple Grandin.  Both characters are willing to challenge the status quo, and met resistance in the process.  I don't know as much about Deborah, but I'm guessing that she also never intended to challenge the status quo, she was just doing what she thought she should.  This reminds me of Temple Grandin because she was just doing what helped her feel better and what helped her function.  Neither one did anything to not be a part of the norm, that was just a secondary result.

Haley also said that the book is about overcoming the original thought or idea people have.  She said that the family needed to overcome their ideas about Skloot's research, which were mostly negative.  Grandin also challenges people's ideas about autism.  She talks about how many incredible capabilities her mind has because of her autism.  Usually people look at autism as such a massive hinderance instead of something that could be an advantage to some people.  Temple Grandin has made enormous strides in the livestock community.  These strides would not have been possible without her autism.  It shows that once you give someone that label of mentally handicapped people will only look at what they can't do, vs. how many amazing things they can do.

Deborah broke the status quo by learning more about what her mother's cells have done.  She doesn't just let the negative feelings about the research take over.  Instead she tries to honor what her mother's cells have done for others.  Like Grandin, Deborah was able to look past the negative and look at what something that was considered bad could do positively.

Lit circles meeting response #4

            In these chapters Temple Grandin discusses why she does not have the capability to think if you go by the standards of many scientists because she thinks in pictures instead of words.  She also talks about how many animals think in the same way she does, creating a possible link between animals and autistic people.  She also talks about the links between famous geniuses and autism.  At the end she discusses religion and how she believes in God, but feels she needs a logical reason to believe in it, and cannot believe in religion just for the sake of believing.

            “For me, searching for the meaning of life has always been an intellectual activity driven by anxiety and fear.  Deep emotional relationships are secondary” (Grandin 212).

            This quote shows again how Grandin’s emotions break the norm.  Most people are more concerned with relationships and are driven more by emotions like love, rather than fear.  This definitely goes against the status quo for most people, or at least for how I see things.  In a philosophy class I’m currently taking I’ve discovered that I definitely place an emphasis on the connections you make with people in your life, vs. thinking through it logically.  Part of this is because Grandin thinks in a different way due to her autism, but she definitely doesn’t think the same way as everyone else with autism. 

Captured Thought: Free Will?

This semester I took a class because I heard the teacher was great.  The class turned out to be one that really made me think hard about the things that I formerly thought I knew the most about.  This class is Issues and Answers: Philosophy.  The class is largely discussion based.  There is no firm curriculum and we can take the subject in any direction within the broad subject we are dealing with.  Even though there is hardly any outside of class work and a low emphasis on getting a good grade, I've taken away more from this class in a short period of time than I have in almost any other class.

One of the things that I've realized from this class is how little we know in general, but mostly how little I know myself.  I've been forced to be really introspective while in Issues because I am able to draw the most from my own experiences.  We began to talk about perceptions, their faulty nature, and how we are shaped by genetics and environment so much.  Because we are shaped so much by our DNA and the influences that we have during our lives, Mr. Zapler brought up the point that we may not (and probably don't) have free will.  It isn't the same thing as predetermination, but both mean we only have the illusions of having control over our lives.  The difference is that everything isn't laid out before us, and we are still making those choices, but we have no control over the reasons we made the choices, meaning that we didn't really choose, but other elements outside of our control did.

This past week I've realized that I don't believe in free will as much as I want or feel I need to.  We really are shaped by things that are outside of our control, and we make choices based off who we are.  I really want to believe in free will; I like believing that I have control over my life, or at least some control.  If we don't have free will it creates a completely different world.  You couldn't blame anybody for their wrong doings because they didn't choose to do anything.  You can't be proud of yourself because of the good choice you made because somebody else's influence caused you to make the choice. 

  I'm going to keep searching for ways that I can, any loop hole I can find, because I really need to believe that I have control.  So until then, I'm going to keep relying on my illusion of free will, not because it is smart or the best thing to do, just because it makes me happier to believe in it.