Get the Basics, and Hustle

While watching a football game one day, my friend Sean made a comment about how the coaches usually say the same things in their halftime interviews, usually focusing on very basic things. And I thought that was a lot like the way things go at church. When it comes down to it, we always need to focus on the basics.

Happy Birthday

I notice significant-to-me dates. These are mostly the birthdays of people I feel close to. I often think things like, "Oh, the third season of Buffy is going on Hulu on so-and-so's birthday" or "This invoice was sent on other person's birthday". That can be helpful if I want to remember when the third season of Buffy is going up. But sometimes what I'm noticing is that a letter was written on my birthday, thirty years before I was born. It isn't a particularly helpful thing to notice in this case, but I notice it all the same. And sometimes I think about how whoever was writing the letter had no idea that the date Ocober 27 would mean anything to me. After all, they didn't even know about me.

And then sometimes I start to wonder which dates that feel so ordinary to me now will become significant later on. What will be my wedding date? When will my kids be born? Is today a significant date that I'm just not aware of yet?

High on the Spectrum

I recently read that some people say that shyness could be considered a very mild form of Asperger's. If this is the case, I definitely place on the Autistic Spectrum.

Boys are significantly more likely than girls to be diagnosed with an autistic spectrum disorder. When I think about shyness, however, I don't really associate it more with one sex than the other. But I've seen no data about shyness rates and wonder if anybody has ever studied that. I'd guess that someone has, but I don't know.

But the actual shyness rates between boys and girls wouldn't necessarily make any sort of case for or against general shyness being on the spectrum. But if a genetic link between autism and shyness were found, that could provide a valid argument. Autism is a genetically complex disorder- or, more accurately, group of disorders- so such a link could exist.

Of course, even if it turns out that shyness does have some sort of relationship to autism, it is not a psychiatric disorder. Some people say that Asperger's isn't a disorder either, but I don't really want to get into that- just acknowledging and moving on. Anyway, what I was taught is that in order to be diagnosed clinically, there needs to be a serious disruption in at least three areas of life. This particular criterion was brought up in a child psych class and the cutoff point may be different for adults, but it gets the point across. Although shyness can be a limitation, it generally is not serious enough to be considered a real disruption. As an example from a different set of behaviors, a tic is not a psychiatric disorder. But Tourette's is. It disrupts all sorts of aspects of a person's life.

More people are diagnosed with ASD than used to be. Some people think this increase is related to chemicals in vaccinations. An explanation more well accepted within the scientific community is that the symptoms are more recognized. But if the increase did come because of vaccinations, and shyness is related to autism, would that lead to higher rates of shyness these days?

I have also heard that a gluten-free, casein-free diet can reduce ASD symptoms. So if I change my diet, can I make all my shyness and social awkwardness go away?

Worst Journal Entry Ever

I was skimming though the journal I used during my senior year of high school and found this entry:

Sunday, Dec. 21, 2003

We

Yes, that's the whole thing.

Alma 31:35

Behold, O Lord, their souls are precious, and many of them are our brethren; therefore, give unto us, O Lord, power and wisdom that we may bring these, our brethren, again unto thee.

I read this last night and thought it is the perfect missionary scripture. Now, there are a lot of missionary scriptures, but I like how this expresses the reason (their souls are precious) and the goal (that we may bring these unto thee) along with the request (power and wisdom), which shows an acceptance of the responsibility and a true desire to fulfill the call. I feel that it expresses a real understanding of the importance of the gospel and of missionary work that I could probably do to have more of.

Plus, I always appreciate a prayer for wisdom.

And A Random Question

As I was going to sleep last night, my thoughts briefly turned to tithing. And I wondered why it is that we pay 10%. A lot of numbers of things in church have some sort of symbolic meaning: 3 and 12 are the most common, but I think 7 comes in there, too. But why ten? The only reason I can think for that particular number is that it makes figuring out how much to pay pretty easy using our numbering system.

On Writing

The writing process is funny. Sometimes I sit down knowing what I want to say, and it all flows out very smoothly. Sometimes I sit with no idea what I want to say, and somehow something comes out that makes perfect sense. Sometimes I know what I want to say, and it comes out, but in the middle of what I had planned to write are some thoughts I hadn't known I had. But sometimes, I sit down to write, knowing exactly what I want to express, but it just won't come. I sit like a stump for a while, then go for a drink. Sit down again and type out a few lines, only to delete them less than a minute later. Stare at the screen for a while longer. Then eventually I manage to get something written that more or less expresses what I had in mind and decide that has to be good enough.

That last scenario is what happened with my last post. I first had the idea to try writing it over two years ago, but couldn't get it right. Then I decided to try again last Tuesday and spent a week trying to figure out how to go about writing it and how to best express my experiences. And now, what I have will have to be good enough, even though it isn't quite what I wanted it to be.

For this post, however, I decided what to say, sat down, and said it.