My dear daughter,
You have finally arrived. Your mother and I started imagining you shortly after we began dating, some 13 years ago. You are everything we hoped for and more. You are lively, smart, smiley, strong, playful, joyful – a beautiful girl with a strong voice. A quick learner. You have the most beautiful smile. There is a spark in your eyes. When I see you smile and look at your eyes, it’s like watching galaxies colliding, supernovae going off, life arising from the chance encounter of two cells. I feel happy and calm, all my doubts, fears and anxieties are gone and I’m certain my life was worth living. We love you and we always will.
Yes, parents do feel doubt, fear and anxiety. A lot. Probably all adults do. But we’ll get to that in time.
As you approach your 4th month of life, I have decided to write this down and pass on whatever I can of all the knowledge I have accumulated in 37 years. I see no better use for it then to pass it along to the most important person in my life, hoping it will keep on existing in your wonderful mind and that it will be put to good use long after I’m gone.
Aye, one day I’ll be gone, that’s the way it is. We’ll get to it in another occasion.
I intend to write a few lessons a day, for the next 365 days. If it goes well, we can try some more. I’m writing it in English so it will require a few years of study in order to access this little treasure. Until then, you should be mature and smart enough to understand most of these ideas. There will be also a few things in here we’d better not let your mother read, she might not like it. I’m trying to get her to learn English but she is still reluctant.
I’m freely writing whatever comes to my mind. Kind of a stream of consciousness. I’ll review each piece but there may be mistakes – I’m not asking anyone to review this. I’m not stopping to look up references or to explain proven facts. I might give references if I quote more obscure authors or ideas. This is not meant to be a philosophy tractate, but it might encourage you to seek other sources of information, such as books. The pieces should simply come from my heart.
As I write this, I’m listening to Electric Light Orchestra on my headphones and brooding over the election of a fascist for this country’s presidency just yesterday.
So today’s lesson might be a little bleak.
People are stupid and you can count on them being stupid. It’s lonely and worrisome not being stupid, but it still beats being stupid.
Actually, people tend to make (bad) decisions based purely on emotion; humankind has evolved to trust others based on emotion because it has favored survival among small groups in the past. For about 2 million years our species wandered the world in bands and tribes where individuals relied on each other for survival – a freeloader was easy to spot and he/she would be in serious trouble, facing ostracism or violent punishment. As the saying goes, it’s survival in numbers and being left out was the same as being left to die.
Organized society and large cities have existed for a brief portion of our species’ existence. In larger groups there’s more room for freeloaders to go unnoticed. If social controls are weak, it becomes an advantage to seek privilege by deceit.
Fear has also been a key factor in our survival. It’s a world full of predators, venomous animals, deadly plants and other natural perils. Nowadays fear is used as a weapon to keep the unfortunate in line. Sadly modern society is built in the backs of the unfortunate – hordes of them.
People will elect their very nemesis, their tormentors, their executioners, if there is a well fabricated fear and they are promised to be kept safe from it.
Religion is a remarkable form of control by fear. We will talk about it.
As it has been put forward by the idealizers of the American Revolution, the only antidote against such forms of democracy deterioration is education. There can only be democracy with well-educated citizens. A good education will enable citizens to exercise critical thinking.
Critical thinking is too important; I shall dedicate a few entries to it.
And that is it for today. It’s Monday, we have spent the weekend together and I’ll never get used to being away from you during work hours.
Love,
Dad
Aspergers Dad 