Filed under: asperger's syndrome, autism, Health, personal development, social media, Steampunk, Technology, Travel, Writing | Tags: #asylumsteampunk, #SHAWhands2017, #SteampunkHands, Airship Ambassador, Glasgow Ubiquitous E Steampunk Society, Making Life Better, Music City Steampunk Consortium, SHAW 2017
February is Steampunk Hands Around the World month hosted by the Airship Ambassador. The theme this year is Making Life Better. I have chosen the category ‘Personal Issues’ because Steampunk has added so much to my personal enjoyment of life.
“You should come along, you’ve got the glasses for it!” said my friend Brian as he informed me that the Glasgow Ubiquitous E. Steampunk Society was going to participate in the Glasgow (Scotland) Style Mile Winter Parade. I hadn’t heard of the Style Mile and the existence of Steampunk as a thing had escaped me. A little explanation left me wondering how it had escaped me. I had the glasses, I also had a long association with waistcoats, cravats, bow-ties, hats and other sartorial eccentricities. I was at school when William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton were ‘The Doctor’. My school reading tended to be HG Wells, Kipling, H. Rider Haggard and Michael Moorcock as well as The Eagle and the Rover and Wizard. I loved the cartoons of Charles Addams and Heath Robinson. The school film club brought us films like The Time Machine, 2000 Leagues Under The Sea and Journey To The Centre of the Earth. However Steampunk had never impinged upon my consciousness.
I had accidentally retired early when I was made redundant at the age of sixty. I had time on my hands and so I wrapped a top hat in holly, put on my naval greatcoat, picked up my carved Indian walking stick and joined GUESS on the parade. I was unprepared for just how much fun I would have and how much entertainment we would give the public just by walking among them. I was easily persuaded to attend RaiCon a few weeks later, I had never considered going to a Comic Con previously and I had a marvellous time. Cosplay is another concept that had largely escaped my notice, but what a lovely welcoming group of young (well compared to me) people they are and they seemed delighted to have a bunch of Steampunks wandering around the Con.
The Society’s annual general meeting came around and inevitably I went along and left at its end, the ‘Chief Engineer’ (Club Secretary) of the Glasgow Ubiquitous E. Steampunk Society. No longer just a pensioner, but a pensioner with a purpose (besides my writing that is). As a representative of Steampunkery and of the Society I threw myself into Steampunk. I had been up until that point an E Bay virgin, but building a Steampunk wardrobe for every occasion can prove costly and I was on a small pension. I not only learned to use E Bay, but became a frequenter of charity shops and antique shops. I was forced to become creative and gradually more adventurous. I began by camouflaging with cogs, burn holes in a used Morning Coat. It was not too long before I had sewn myself a leather coachman’s hat from a bag of scraps bought online. I learned, as I went round charity shops, to look at things differently; I learned to see things not as they were, but as what they could be. Sometimes I bought things merely because they looked as if they could become something amazing even if I could not yet see it. I have even been on a workshop to learn how to use a sewing machine!
I went online seeking ideas and inspiration on You Tube, Facebook and Google Plus, there are so many of us in cyberspace! Steampunks are very helpful and encouraging and some I call my friends even though we may not yet have met, and some I have. I was amazed to discover how large a community we are and how widely dispersed around the world. I was delighted to discover that many are ̶ like myself ̶ on the autism spectrum, finding in Steampunk an ideal outlet for their imaginations. I find Steampunk is a wonderful vehicle for communicating with the world and building a web of relationships. I now edit a quarterly (ish) online newsletter for the Glasgow Ubiquitous E. Steampunk Society. From the last issue we have started to produce it in association with the Music City Steampunk Consortium of Nashville, Tennessee and hope to have increased participation from them as time goes on.
There is something magical and inspiring about the internationalism of Steampunk. I went alone to the Asylum Steampunk Festival in Lincoln last year and had no problem communicating with complete strangers from all around the world. Those who understand Aspergers will appreciate how important that is. However I did not feel as if I were among strangers, I felt very much at home (in the evenings I was staying with my brother outside Lincoln which probably helped too).
There is so much to discover in Steampunk, culture, fashion, art, music, literature, amazing events. My days are never dull despite retirement. Also it opens the door to so many other new interests. In Glasgow we have the Britannia Panopticon Music Hall, the world’s oldest operating music hall and I have become a volunteer in its struggle to preserve a unique cultural institution. I used to study medieval history when I was younger, now I find myself looking at the history of the Georgians, Victorians and Edwardians to inform my Steampunkery and of late I’ve been looking at the American West in the Nineteenth Century in a way I never did before (Bass Reeves…wow!)
Here I am in my sixties, on the Spectrum, with a whole new and exciting life open to me. I had expected, once the work dried up, to spend my time at home reading and writing and growing old. Now I’m like a child in some sort of brass and copper built Disneyland with a new wonder around every corner, a new adventure over the brow of every hill. Someday I may die by chronological inevitability, but I doubt if I shall ever grow old!
Filed under: asperger's syndrome, autism, Health, Justice, Parenting, personal development, Poetry, Politics, Religion, social media, success, Writing | Tags: Bible, Corinthians, est training, friendship, Landmark Education, love, St Paul
Taj Mahal: Love Endures
While much of the time I find Facebook intensely irritating I do find its reminders of what I posted last year or three or four years ago very enjoyable. I suspect others do too. Today a friend of mine posted a photo taken of him, his wife and two friends outside a bar in Corfu several years ago. I wasn’t there, I don’t know the bar, but I do know all the four people in it. I haven’t seen three of them for many years, although I encounter them on Facebook, and it reminded me of how much I enjoyed their company when we moved in the same circles.
This weekend my wife and I had been hoping to get to a celebration of the life of a friend who died recently. I knew him when I was a student, my wife knew him through his daughter. It would have been nice to meet her again, we haven’t seen her since she stayed with her two young children. Then the younger was in nappies now he’s recently become engaged.
Sometimes it amazes me how quickly time flies by. At a family gathering recently I found myself reflecting on how recently the adults around the table had been the children served first so they could play while their parents enjoyed their own dinner. Now they sat with us as their children played.
However love pays no heed to the passage of time and the people we let into our hearts tend to remain there while many others we meet fail to find a lodgement and pass out of memory. The photograph of my friends showed me that I feel as warmly about them now as I did when we were all involved with the work of Landmark Education. My happy memories of skiing with them in Italy when my daughter was small are undiminished. It is funny how they remain so alive in my memory while so many others have faded. Of course one of the joys of that photograph is that it unlocked all my memories of them. “The mind is a complete multi-sensory record of successive moments of Now.” I learned in my Est training and it stuck with me. My friends faces allowed me access to every memory I have connected with them and it brightened up my whole day.
It is a shame that it is impractical to get to the memorial event at the weekend. However merely knowing about it and thinking about the people involved, just as my friends’ photograph did, brings up a feast of memories and in this case valuable lessons learned. Lessons that go back over forty years. A good lesson is as valuable now as even a couple of thousand years ago. One of those lessons of which the photo and the celebration I will miss remind me is that love never ends.
I generally dislike St. Paul for all the usual reasons: misogeny, twisting Jesus to fit a dodgy theology etc., but sometimes he wrote something good, sometimes beautiful. I had thought to quote one verse of 1 Corinthians 13, but the whole piece is too beautiful to cherry pick. (I personally would usually use the KJV, but the RSV is probably easier to grasp so here it is.)
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Filed under: asperger's syndrome, autism, Health, Parenting, personal development, Politics, social media, Technology | Tags: Brexit, information, information overload, information processing, Labour Party, news, Nice attack, technology, television, Turket coup
Last night there was an attempted coup in Turkey, the night before that an evil man drove an lorry into crowds of innocent revellers including women and children in Nice. In less than three weeks since the English voted to drag the UK out of the EU events have preceded at a terrifying pace. The Prime Minister resigned, his party had a leadership contest (almost) and appointed a new Prime Minister who then conducted the most ruthless cabinet reshuffle that anyone can remember, certainly since MacMillan. In the meantime a group of careerist MPs in the Labour Party, hoping to protect their elite position in the party mounted a rebellion against their own leader. Now it seems that everyday brings a new attack on democracy from the Blairite wing of the party, not so much New Labour as Neo-Stalinism. I almost forgot that the Chilcot Report has finally been published, but there’s just so much happening so fast it’s easy to miss something. I am sacred that if I fall asleep at night I’ll wake up in a world I don’t recognise and I won’t have seen it happening.
My wife made a remark at one point to the effect that the speed of change has made the print media obsolete. It is certainly true that even the broadcast media seem to be struggling to keep up with events. We seem to have a need for twenty four hour live streaming of news and commentary. Sixty years ago the Six O’ Clock News signalled the end of ‘Children’s Hour’ and that it was time for bed. The News was on at Six and at Nine, but I was in bed long before nine knowing that the next morning things would be much as they were when I went to bed. Nothing was instant, even the television took an eternity for the valves to warm up before the picture appeared, so did the radio although its pictures were painted in words. No email, no internet, no cable, no satellite television. Everything was slower except the traffic, given a good road cars were not tied to a seventy miles per hour upper limit.
We can’t go back to those times. To be honest I don’t think I would want to. However painful the pace of modern life, the technological innovations that make that pace possible have brought great benefits and scientific advances. In many ways all our lives have improved. I do worry about the urgency that drives us though. I can appreciate that up to date information is essential in business and military decision making. For the most part we do not need to rush. Facebook and Twitter feed into the immediacy of our lives, but most of what they feed us we don’t need and most of what we do need we don’t need immediately. I know people who are addicted to immediate information and spend an inordinate amount of time glued to a screen. We need to learn to filter our information better. I use the BBC Parliament Channel to review information that is often days old, I never watch PMQs live. When it comes to Question Time I tend to wait until I see the comments it has provoked before deciding whether to watch it. I love ‘catch up’ services like I Player, my wife downloads podcasts of radio programs. Obtaining most of the information we need in our lives can be fitted in to suit our schedules and yet too many of us instead try to accommodate our lives to the constant barrage of information.
I don’t believe my mind nor anyone else’s mind is designed to process a constant stream of fast moving information, that way lies madness, at least for me. If information is a constantly flowing river rather than swim in it and risk drowning, I prefer to sit on the bank and periodically dip my beaker into the flow and sample it. Most of the time I only need a little taste to know whether I need to try more. One thing I have learned is that it is inadvisable to just swallow anything one pulls from the stream.
Filed under: asperger's syndrome, autism, Health, Politics, Religion | Tags: Brexit, Christianity, Chronicles, genealogy, Guinness, hinduism, Irish ancestry, Mormons, sunyas, Who Do You Think You Are?
Oh dear when it comes to the Bible’s boring bits the early bits of Chronicles take some beating! I don’t find long lists of the generations of the tribes of Israel from Adam onwards particularly interesting, although if we took the Bible as a historical account I suppose it means that all the violence in the Middle East is nothing more than a nasty family squabble. Personally I find these lists as boring as all the begetting and begotting at the start of some gospels intent on proving Jesus to be descended from David, and I take those with a pinch of salt as well, a big pinch.
Genealogy is a source of fascination to some people. I suppose everyone wants to know who they are and how they fit into the overall scheme of things, why else would the BBC program ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ be so popular. It feeds ordinary people’s fascination with celebrity and fantasies of possibly being special, if not in themselves then by heredity. Many Indian families like my wives have family records kept by hereditary priests in Haridwar or Rishikesh in the Himalayas on the banks of the Ganga which help to preserve people’s place in society.
The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints are very assiduous about genealogy because of their belief (which is found in the letters of St Paul) that the living can participate in ceremonies like baptism on behalf of their ancestors.
Genealogy has a role in health care as so many conditions or the tendency to contract them can be hereditary and it helps to be aware of ones ancestors health problems. It can be vital in matters of inheritance, kingdoms have been lost over disputed ancestry. In time gone by it was not unusual for kings to have constructed genealogies to demonstrate their right to the throne.
I have never been excessively concerned about my own heredity. However it still came as a slight disappointment to learn from my cousin that I was a descendant of the Dublin gunsmith Richard Guinness and not, as I had always believed the brewer Arthur Guinness. I can still say that two sorts of Guinness flow through my veins.
At the moment there are many people anxious to establish their Irish descent so that they can remain citizens of the European Union despite the English decision to drag the United Kingdom out the EU. Last week the main Post Office in Belfast ran out of Irish Passport application forms so great was the demand. I know there are many people who prefer not to call themselves British at the moment because of its negative connotations and who are seeking to attach anchors to alternative nationalities to which they may be entitled because they no longer feel secure in a post Brexit UK.
In India when a person decides to dedicate themselves to the life of a sunyasin they not only put off their possessions but also their family and their name. Other cultures have similar practices. Hereditary, family, and name are like any other possession, merely ties to bind a person into society. Genealogy is both a tool for placing oneself in society and a chain to bind oneself into that place. Curiously enough although the renunciant may no longer find themselves in that place and may disappear from the recognition of all who knew them, who they were will always remain in that genealogy and in the memories and records of the family. Whether one passes through a symbolic funeral at renunciation or a real one at death they retain a place for the members of their family within their family. They may no more leave a mark on the world, but they have left an indelible mark behind them.
Filed under: asperger's syndrome, autism, Gardening, Health, Justice, personal development, Politics, Religion, social media, Steampunk, Travel | Tags: Brexit, EU Referendum, FaceBook, football, hatred, Jo Cox, political violence, retreats, Twitter, xenophobia
Society of St. Francis Friary, Alnmouth
Sometimes it is difficult to make sense of this world. Within the space of a week we have seen a homo0phobic mass shooting in a Gay nightclub in Orlando and an English Member of Parliament murdered, it would seem for her support for refugees, but as yet we can’t be entirely sure of the killer’s motivation except that he is a supporter of Britain First. We have seen English football fans attacking people on the streets of France, but to be fair, thuggery seems to be the distinguishing feature of football fans of several nations. I must admit my mood is not improved by this being the season of Orange Walks and the inconvenience and disruption they cause, even when orderly. The media and social media are full of people spouting xenophobia and hatred to try and secure Britain’s departure from the European Union while many who spouted the same hatred a little while ago are now are arguing with similar language to keep Britain in the EU. What is astonishing and depressing is the sheer amount of vitriol from both sides and the incessant negativity. No one is making any sort of case for why a vote in either direction will make the world better or even, Britain. The inescapable conclusion looking at both camps is, that in the words of Private Fraser “We’re a’ doomed, Doomed I tell ye!”
Regardless of the violence of the last few days there is little to celebrate elsewhere in the news. The Chancellor can say what he likes, but I can see the empty shops and closed businesses in our streets. Sometimes the government seems to forget there is a Britain outside London.
It is impossible to escape the information onslaught. Every pub and every bank and office seems to have television screens either feeding us football or news. Nearly every shop and restaurant insists on playing music, often of dubious merit. On social media I find friends being unpleasant to each other merely because they express divergent opinions. It seems that the inevitable consequence of free speech is hatred and ruptured relationships
Sometimes this world is just too demanding, the amount of information too overwhelming, the lack of clarity and validated fact too confusing, and the incessant sensory stimuli too omnipresent. It is time to escape. Turn off the television, stop reading newspapers, ignore Facebook and Twitter except perhaps the Steampunk and Cosplay sites where participants are interested in more important things than politics…okay fluffy kittens are fairly safe too.
Sometimes it is necessary just to shut down. It is a couple of years since I last made a silent retreat, but I feel the urge to escape building. A break in the country with no phone signal nor wifi would be very acceptable too, just a pile of books and my wife to keep me company, that would be good.
I had a friend who used to swear by flotation tanks. I am too suspicious of shared water, although I don’t suppose it’s any worse than a swimming pool, indeed given recent articles about ‘floaters’ (another reason to avoid newspapers), probably cleaner than a swimming pool. Even a walk by the river, or digging the garden can help. We all need sometimes to stop and let go. To pause. To relax and just breathe.
At the moment Britain is awash with emotion, with anger and hatred, xenophobia and sectarianism. We need to cool ourselves and release the pressure now. If we do not something will have to give, and an uncontrolled explosion of violence in the streets of our cities is something none of us need. I almost said ‘none of us want’, but unfortunately the death of Jo Cox shows that is not so. There is a very real danger of hatred and resentment leading to violence and the levels we have reached, I believe, make that imminent. I hope our television screens are not going to be filled with images of violence, I think perhaps I shall leave mine turned off a little longer.
Filed under: autism, disability, Health, Parenting | Tags: courtesy, good manners, punctuality, reliability, scheduling, Time keeping
They say that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Today as on so many others I was made aware of how precious time is.
Neelam and I had intended to go out in the early afternoon. However before we could leave there were things to do, some to meet deadlines, but others unexpected.
We had made our plans sometime ago and all should have been well. Unfortunately a sudden and time consuming incident occurred which meant time that was supposedly allocated for other things was otherwise used. Thus the other things that had to be done in turn occupied time earmarked for other activities. Add to all this people not delivering what was expected of them and the delays caused by having to correct their mistakes and the eventual outcome was that we were late in doing the things we wanted to do for our own recreation.
I remember years ago the complaints when, as a committee chair, I refused to accept nominations and motions for the annual general meeting. Instead of being submitted before the committee meeting previous to the AGM someone tried to submit them after the start of the meeting and hence after the deadline. I was bound by rule and there is as a rule a good reason for deadlines, usually to ensure things happen on schedule. It only takes one missed deadline to precipitate a chain of delays and deferments until eventually something has to be sacrificed. Today it was my afternoon drive, but it might well have been something more important. Sometimes delays are unavoidable, but if we become too casual about our commitments others suffer and our reputation for reliability and courtesy is tarnished in their eyes.
Perhaps I have too much of a fetish for punctuality, perhaps it’s the Aspergers, but I abhor lateness in myself and begrudge it in others. I like things to happen on schedule, I plan accordingly. I consider tardiness, like illegibility, and mumbling, to be illmannered and unnecessary. It must be the Aspergers no one else seems to bother.
Filed under: autism, disability, Politics, Travel | Tags: BBC, Jess Phillips, misogyny, Woman's Hour
I listened to Women’s Hour this morning, it’s one of the most intelligent current affairs programs on any media. Today they discussed misogyny on social media. Now don’t get me wrong, I loathe Jess Phillips, I think she’s a disgusting, backstabbing right-wing Blairites. However I am not stupid enough to think that her gender is in anyway responsible for her political opinions, there are plenty of women who, unlike Jess, espouse sensible left wing politics.
The only valid way to contest another person’s arguments is to demonstrate their fallacies. Abusing someone for their gender, color, race or religion is not a substitute for argument. When you stoop to insults instead of arguments you have effectively admitted that you are in the wrong, that you have no counter to the opposing point of view.
To step away from differences of opinion I think we should be clear misogyny is wrong, racism is wrong, sectarianism is wrong. People cannot help who they are. If you are a woman, you’re a woman, if you’re black you’re black, if you’re gay you’re gay, if you’re straight you’re probably straight. A person’s chromosomes have nothing whatsoever to do with their opinions. If you dislike what someone does by all means challenge them on their behaviour or opinions, but don’t make yourself look stupid by abusing them for who they are as people.
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