ON WRITING

In all of my classes, especially those on ethics, I teach students about the decision-making processes we must undergo as philosophical thinkers addressing issues and making choices. One of the key pieces of this process is a model I use as a sort of flow chart for figuring out what we know and do not know about a given situation. Presumably, these different pieces of information will combine to give us a more holistic approach to solving the wide range of conundra we broach in class and in our lives.

Some of the questions in the model include:

            What are the facts in this situation?

            What information is missing?

            A la Donald Rumsfeld, are there "unknown unknowns," i.e. things we don't know that we do not know? (Of course there are, sweetie!)
         
             Insofar as we can determine them, what are the assumptions and biases involved?

Are there unconscious assumptions and biases at play as well?

            Who holds the power? Who gets to make the decisions about, on the one hand,

possible courses of action,
             and, on the other,
which information is available/public/”true” vs. which information is privileged/private?    

        
             Who are the stakeholders? Who benefits? Who may not benefit – or be adversely affected?

        
             What is the heart component? How do the parties involved feel?

I try to use these questions when I write, much as I do in teaching.

As far as writing as a spectrum-y writer with my own particular quirks, strengths and weaknesses, I have to also ask myself where that might figure into the equation. For example, last week I attended an “Autism & Asperger’s Expo.” I ran into a colleague there and he looked puzzled to see me. I explained that I have a son who is on the spectrum and who was attending a Pragmatic Language/Social Skills Group located in the same building. At this news, he looked, so far as I could tell, shocked and dismayed. But, as I had barely recognized him in the first place (see: prosopagnosia), I certainly cannot trust my assessment of his expression. I do know for a fact that he said, quite appropriately, “I didn’t know that” – and that’s all I can reliably report.

In another instance, I had incomplete information and told a story that was based on the information I had that in the end was not true to what had actually happened due to missing infomation. This post, about a family who seemed to have been inadvertently “outed” as having an autistic member, really resonated with  people and parents with a variety of personal and family differences as a common aspect of our lived experience. What had actually happened emerged as slightly but significantly different from what I had reported. The server in question, who happens to read this here blog (? I feel honored!), had mentioned to Pardner that – actually! –

1.                          the Dad of the family had been distant, detached and fidgeting with his iPhone most of dinner (therefore he was not suddenly alienated in some way by feeling labeled), and

2.                          the family had itself volunteered the name of the school the son was visiting (and therefore the server had not presumed).

I was chagrined. I spoke about it with a few people, all of whom said stuff like, “Oh, the story’s so true that the facts are almost irrelevant,” or “It’s all relative, anyway.” I (lovingly) disagreed. While it is true that families and individuals with differences can potentially have relatively more challenging interactions than “normal” people, and that this may well have been a painful experience for said family for whatever reason, what really happened really does matter. I take it as my responsibility to make that very clear, in this scenario and beyond.

Information is always partial. As writers, we know this fact full well. Some non-fiction writers even embrace it in pursuit of polemical points. This partiality of knowledge holds for all writing, including that which is considered “objective.” At the same time, I do believe in Truth. There can be unknown or temporarily-disputed facts, and different perspectives on the same truth, but I am not, never have been, never will be a relativist. I am always happy to clarify, or to add other perspectives, whether or not they are in tune with my own, so long as they add to the truth and honesty of a piece. In short, I, along with most writers I respect, aim our endeavors toward truth, at some times getting closer than others…

In this case, the parties concerned were totally bighearted about my getting it not-quite-right: I believe the server’s actual words were, “Oh, I get it! I just don’t want you and [Full Spectrum Mama] to think I am an insensitive bimbo.” Heck to the no.

So, because I know it’s just what everybody was waiting for, I have developed a model for writing creative non-fiction that suits my goals for integrity and transparency:

                              Figure I – Venn Diagram of Ideal Non-Fiction Writing Composition

Full Spectrum Mama is an Anonymous blog, with the vast majority of readers reading from afar. Yet I believe there is a sort of trust inherent in the blogger-reader relationship that I would never intentionally violate by deliberating lying or writing with bad intentions. So I have also crafted this handy diagram of unsavory elements that are never welcome in this blog:

 Figure II – Relativism and Known/Intentional/Conscious Bias en route to Finding Another Blog to Colonize

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

Being True

G loves “aminals.” He also has some balance and large-motor impairments that we are tackling from various angles. Therapeutic riding seemed a good way to combine these factors. At the Southern Vermont Therapeutic Riding Institute (http://www.winchesterstables.com/therapeutic.html), Lorna Young and other amazing people (staff and volunteers) work with children and horses to the joy and benefit of all involved.

One time, we were milling about waiting for G’s lesson to begin and we saw the cutest jolie-laide shaggy old donkey kinda loitering a few feet away, all “Just hangin’ out. Nothin’ goin’ on here, folks.”

G and Z were entranced by the motley creature and asked Lorna about it. “That’s Frances,’ she informed them. She pointed to one of the stable hands, who was sweeping the floor a few yards away. “That’s his mother over there.”

G looked over at the woman, and then at the nonchalant donkey.

“I will take that as a joke,” said my boy, with a totally straight face.

Being literal, G often thinks people are lying when the “liar” in question might feel he or she is doing nothing of the sort.  He will say, “___ lied to me today. He said he would play with me at recess and then he played basketball instead.” It is so hard for him to be flexible and see incidents like this as change rather than betrayal. Having, also, an encyclopedic memory, he notes inconsistencies and reads them as untruths as well.  Therefore, among other things, he finds it profoundly disjunctive when people act differently in different situations, and with -- or toward -- different people. Your dork-kid who rejects his dork friends when the in-crowd comes around, your customer who is polite in a fancy restaurant and rude to a cashier at the 7-11, your parent who tells a child s/he is eating “nothing” when s/he has just shoved a piece of candy in her/his mouth…these “normal” people are disturbing to G.

I rather know where he gets all of this –the literality, the trash-can memory, the perceptions of dishonesty. As an adult, though, I am able to choose to associate mostly with people who present fewer such conundra. G doesn’t yet have that discernment – or that luxury.  He gets confused, hurt and angry in commonplace contexts.

Nonetheless I will never advise him to be untrue to himself. I’ve never forgotten learning the literal definition of integrity in graduate school: it comes from a coin that is, on the inside, what it purports to be on the outside. G’s inside is pure gold, but that integral and external softness is going to get him a bit scuffed.

So I’m going to suggest to him that the next time someone “lies” to him he might tell himself, “I will take that as a joke.” The next time he asks Z to play and she says, “Ask me again later and I will say yes,” and, later, she doesn’t [whole ‘nother post]: ”I will take that as a joke.” When someone utters a small white lie that to him feels like a violation: “I will take that as a joke.”

Perhaps that’s not such a bad idea for all of us. 

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama