"When we look at nature we receive a sort of permission to be alive in this
world." This is a very interesting book, written by a 13-year-old autistic boy
using a cardboard ‘keyboard’. In response to a series of questions, he gives
insights into the usually unreachable world of someone
whose mind is so acutely wired that he is overwhelmed by every impulse and whose
body is the locus of a frustrating interface with the world. Higashida’s writing
and attitude is crystalline and sensitive, and his ability to look directly at
issues most people avoid even glancing at at times produces a mixture of
strangeness and truth that reminded me of some of Kafka's aphorisms. This book
not only intimates the life of an autistic mind, but will enlarge your
understanding of what it is to exist and be human.
"People with autism have
no freedom. The reason is that we are a different kind of human, born with
primeval senses. We are outside the normal flow of time, we can't express
ourselves and our bodies are hurtling us through life. ... We want to go back.
To the distant, distant past. To a primeval era, in fact, before human beings
even existed."
Nov 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment