Today…I let my CRAZZY out…
After a wild day Friday with PanKwake’s Easter party…including two little girls with Pathological Demand Avoidance…I skipped blogging, cleaned my house…and vegetated with my favorite movies…including X-Men: Days of Future Past.
For me watching those movies is a spiritual experience…a reminder of my purpose…and my vision of AWEtism!
PanKwake is a MUTANT!
A X-(Wo)Man!
A REAL life Jean Grey!
She and mutants like her are the HOPE and FUTURE of mankind!
Because as we have seen and explored…we have screwed this world up…BIG time…
And as Einstein said…
Professor Xavier said something similar in Days of Future Past…
The future: a dark, desolate world. A world of war, suffering, loss on both sides. Mutants, and the humans who dared to help them, fighting an enemy we cannot defeat. Are we destined down this path, destined to destroy ourselves like so many species before us? Or can we evolve fast enough to change ourselves… change our fate? Is the future truly set?
Homo-AWE-tistica!
That is what I have named them. The next jump in human evolution. Our future. Our hope. Perhaps even…our last chance. That is MY paradigm! And you may think I am Crazzy…I even admit it. But…
I believe that locked inside the AWEtistic minds…their brilliant but different brains…are the answers we need…as a society…and a species.
But like the mutants in X-Men they are shunned…experimented upon…even feared.
And when you see that as a parent…or a teacher…or just their advocate…then you have a choice to make…
Are you Professor Xavier or are you Magneto?
Do you believe that you and your child can ‘fit in’…be accepted? Or do you feel that revolution is the only path?
I’ll be honest…I usually identify more with Magneto. What I have experienced of ‘experts’ and society does NOT make me hopeful. And more than once I have taken the stance…
Peace was never an option.
Yet something inside of me WANTS to believe that Charles Xavier is right…
So I continue to struggle as Magneto does. And honestly as Charles himself does…he is not perfect. He too has his moments…except where Magneto reacts with anger…Charles withdraws…he becomes hopeless…he loses his vision for a better world…a world where mutant and homosapien live in peace and cooperation.
In Days of Future Past, Magneto accuses him…
Where were you, Charles? We were supposed to protect them! Where were you when your own people needed you? Hiding! You and Hank! Pretending to be something you’re not!
I see lots of Magnetos…and Charleses…among the community of autism parents…and adults. Anger and apathy…two sides of the same coin. And neither particularly useful to our children or ourselves.
But honestly, I am more the woman that is torn between these two powerful men…
There is so much I could say about those movies…and I keep coming back to them time and time again…from The Cure (X-Men 3) to First Class to Days of Future Past…I believe that it lies out for us…parents and those on the spectrum our choices…so let me just leave you with a couple of thoughts…Besides…GO and watch those movies with your child in mind!
Charles Xavier: Is this what becomes of us? Erik was right. Humanity does this to us.
Professor X: Not if we show them a better path.
Charles Xavier: You still believe?
Professor X: Just because someone stumbles and loses their path, doesn’t mean they’re lost forever. Sometimes, we all need a little help.
Charles Xavier: I’m not the man I was. I open my mind up and it almost overwhelms me.
Professor X: You’re afraid. And Cerebro knows it.
Charles Xavier: All those voices… so much PAIN.
Professor X: It’s not their pain you’re afraid of. It’s yours, Charles. And as frightening as it can be, that pain will make you stronger. If you allow yourself to feel it, embrace it, .it will make you more powerful than you ever imagined. It’s the greatest gift we have: to bear their pain without breaking. And it comes from the most human part of us: hope. Charles, we need you to hope again.
To bear their pain without breaking!
That is the true calling of every parent of every child on the autistic spectrum…
And we need to find that hope again…that perfect place between rage and serenity. To look deep inside of us…past the pain, the anger and the apathy…
So that we do not become that Charles who let’s them down when they need us the most. Or the Erik whose anger and hate can hurt them as much as it helps them.
The good news is…
A world of endless possibilities and infinite outcomes. Countless choices define our fate: each choice, each moment, a moment in the ripple of time. Enough ripple, and you change the tide… for the future is never truly set.
I believe that…I have hope for the future…for PanKwake’s…for others with Homo-AWE-tistica…and even for mankind…homosapiens.
Self-Directed Learning & Neurodiversity 