autism disovered in old age

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Here are some of the directors and films I like most. Many of them are intimistic and some is very sad. I like sad films, I can't stand comedies with few exceptions (Billy Wilder and Jacque Tati are among the exceptions):

Cassavetes, Barbara Loden ("Wanda"), Gus Van Sant, Alain Tanner ("Messidor"), Dreyer ("Ordet"), Bresson, Rohmer, Kiarostami, the Dardenne freres (they are great, great filmmakers), Fritz Lang ("M", "Metropolis"), Becker ("Casque d'or"; here there is this extraordinary french song "Le temps de cherises")... These come to my mind immediately.

A very good guide for movies is the English "Time Out", very reliable except for the list of best films. Nearly all are available in DVD or VHS.

The motif of my beloved "Le temps of Cherises" can be found in Internet. Yves Montand, and many others, sang this song. I could't say why I am shaken and moved by this song as by no other song.

When I taught sociology, I used to show my students some of them. It was for me a relief from the atrocious effort I experienced having to talk. But I think students were happier and learnt more than by my spoken "lessons".

That's it for now.

Thanks so much for the film info....I will have to see if I can find them on line...there are very few rental places here that have more then the most basic "foreign films".I think the only one I have seen
is Matropolis,which I enjoyed(there is also an interesting animated version).Have you watched Pi(the circumfrance of a circle.....my computer doesnt have a symbol for it)...If so ,I would be interested in your opinion about it.

Sorry have to nitpick Pi is not the circumference of a circle its the constant used in equations that relate a circles circumference to its radius.

For bonus points though (without looking it up) who knows what an apothem is?

Of course....smarty pants....its a large grey mammel that lives on the continent of Africa,it likes to hang out in the rivers and can be very agressive.....no wait ...thats hippopotimus...apothem is a critter that lives in South and North Americas,it hangs from its tail in trees and I think it is a marcupeal(they like to BBQ it in southern states of USA.)and I didnt even look it up...

I know because thats an opposum

Isn't it that line that goes from the middle of one side of a figure to the center?

Eh close enough yes it a line drawn as the perpendicular bisector of one side of a polygon connecting to the center of the polygon.

Apothem....sorry Fraya...I just assumed your computer had a lisp...

What makeths you sthay that?

Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

T.S.Eliot

Well. Probably Eliot's solution was mysticism. I am not for that. But I think that the strenuous effort of our culture to cover, hide, mask and distort any image or trace of dacay and death, has much to do with the senseless of our life. Our life of effort and difficulty to survive as fragile selfs should not go in the direction of nearing (falsely) as much as possible the life of the so called NTs. NTs "all go in the dark" like us, as Eliot would say. And there should not be a competition with them in the achievement of futile enterprises. CEOs of Boeing and Airbus are obliged to plan for dacades. When the superjumbos will fly aboundantly in China and elsewhere, how will be the face of our world, and what will be of these CEOs, whose life is totally dedicated to building these monsters, win markets and struggle one against the other?

Two points.
There are very difficult choices to be made as regards to publicity of your (our) condition. We must take stock of the fact that people are frightened of sickness especially mortal sickness, disabling anomaly, and mental impairment. Either they are scared or they don't know how to communicate with seriously sick or impaired people. They attempt several tactics. Negate the difference or the gravity of the condition: "you are allright. you have wrong ideas". You are mad if you consider yourself mad (that's clumsy!) . Avoid you much as possible. Anyway they mismanage the communication. They don't know how to deal with you. This I think is the proof of a disfigured social bond founded on a cult of a misconceived normality. I do not think that these problems may be resolved medically or in a charity perspective.

2. this is different and I can give only some hint here of what I think. Can biology be of some help? Absolutely not in the sense on manipulating genes or something of the sort. What I mean is that biology, history of evolution, awareness of the fundamental processes of life, of the interconnectedness of the living, of ALL living forms can help us to find useful philosophical insights and perspective. The solace that can be found in the companionships of a cat, a dog, even a tree or a plant is well known especially by our crowd. The great russian writer Salamov (Stories of Kolima) who experienced 15 years of gulag, lived his last years in company of a cat that he loved. And so many of us, as is shown by the fact that many of the people submerged by water in Katrina refused to abandon their houses until they were allowed by authorities to retrieve their animals.

Biology again. Is it not that even in this forum there is a survival fight? This is a serious question. I want to keep alive the topic. Survival and reproduction are the ends of life and they are even fun.

Everywhere where it is life, there's a survival fight.

"the only discenible purpose in the process of evolution of organic life is to fill every niche in the environment with appropriate protoplasm." Robert Murphy, anthropologist.
It doesn't sound funny but it is.

I think I'll need to get out my dictionary to understand that one!.

Personally, I reckon I'd still have a pretty optimistic and laid-back outlook on life if I was told I had Asperger's and I was 120! And I'd probably still be hanging around my friend Jeremy while he blows up his house (again). If this sounds a bit odd for where this conversation is, it's because I just read the first three posts here and skipped to page six.

My answer to the meaning of life is this: The meaning of life is to enjoy it. If you're not enjoying it, you're not living, but it's never to late to start!

^Pretty plausible, in my opinion.