i also do understand about the ability of some drugs to give the temporary appearance of “normal”. the only drug i’ve even taken, pot, does this to me. to be able to not appear retarded, to have greater control of outbusts, to be able to successfully be able to mess with other people in a fun way with body language, are all terrribly addicting things to themselves. but nobody is immune to the general effects of being stoned and the longer range effects of becoming a stoner. you learn if you smoke a joint, you will be stoned for a couple of hours, but appear normal for half a day. by finding very mild stuff, eating it instead of smoking it, and good timing, you can get through critical job interview and other important events that otherwise would be very difficult. but as i grow older, i gave it up, and i don’t even want to be “normal” anymore. the price to pay in being a stoner and losing my intuitive sharpness is too great.

besides, i have learned normal people are really boring, repetative in their own ways, and though play nicey-nice so much they truly have a general mean streak that is a cause of so much hurt in the world.

I don’t know of others who read this are religous or not, but a great man once said ” be like these little children who come to me, and the earth shall inherit peace ”

i don’t want to be normal anymore, ever, just glad i have learned better how to fake it, without any drug.

to not really understand the subtle nature of most people, to not know when they are kidding or not, to completely blow interpretation of minor body language, and to be perceived as being retarded or something is not a fun thing and makes life difficult in many ways.

but to sit out by the edge of the forest on a warm summer night, and not just hear the crickets and peepers, but to hear a single point of intensity of sound in the crickets song, move about like a wave at a baseball game, to the rhythem of a embedded group song is a beautiful thing. people can tell something is not consistent in the sound, and if you point it out, they sorta can hear the intensity thing for a moment, but they really can’t listen to the song.

on the same warm summer night, to walk down to the pipeline break that seperates the forest, and look up towards the mountain, watching the beauty of a river of fireflys slowly flow down like a river, you can see a pattern in the light, not too unlike the crickets. it is very hard to point out to people.

to listen to the sound of all the neighbors dogs bark, and over the course of an hour, know a pattern is there. the barking overlaps, with random exceptions, but they are reacting to something moving along a path. and the next day, to find the bear tracks, and know now you can listen to the movement of a bear along the forest edge behind the residential area, is beautiful, but you really can’t explain to people. after all, is it just more crazy talk. you learn to just not tell people such things anymore.

they are the normal ones, remember?

Thank you very much for posting on Youtube. I think you are doing a very valuable work here, of giving a voice to the ‘people in the lines’. And I also think your singing is lovely.

Amanda has embodied what I am saying perfectly. In this video she is completely present, all there. And when we encounter something like that, we ourselves open wide. Look at the response around the web this week to “in my language…” People are truly and deeply moved by it, and I think it has a lot to do with being open to hearing what Amadna is saying in HER language. The first part of the video is actually NOT incomprehensible to me – it communicates to me on a much deeper level. I can understand it. I can see this woman in conversation with the world and I can sense something of what that conversation is about.

Long answer, but in a way it’s a Zen thing.

What does it mean?
Is it a Zen thing, like awareness and enlightenment?

Everyone’s responses are interesting and I’m still trying to find a way to explain why I find this video so touching.

It’s interesting isn’t it how your work opens us up. That has been the common comment from most everyone who has seen this video, that they feel opened by it.

We are opened by presence, and I wonder if one of the things that you teach us in this video is what presence really is. We have no idea what you are saying or doing in the first part, and the words in the second part are not spoken by your voice, by rather by a speech synthesizer. All of the trappings of the communication strategies most of us take for granted are gone, replaced instead by pure presence. Having your words overlay your images (which are ways you see the world and yourself) gives me a far deeper insight into the nature of self and being. I feel like your presence alone is an invitation to go even deeper into embodying that state, and that at some level, beyond both my language and yours, we could find ourselves occupying the same place and meeting there, knowing that about each other.

I’m fascinated.

And then of course there were other comments about accessibility which reminds me that we are burdened with assumptions about the world and the access that everyone has to it, and moreover, we lose much by not designing ways of hosting the kind of wisdom that you bring.

THanks for sharing this.

She mentioned twirling… it’s odd, as I’ve gotten older, I can’t twirl anymore without horrible nausea. I used to be able to twirl indefinitely with very little dizziness or nausea. Wonder how that changed.

Except in my group there were also some people who liked to get me stoned (which made me fearful) and then try to freak me out and stuff, rather than being open-minded and accepting.

And yeah, I’m a synaesthete too. (Color-number, spatial-number, color-letter, touch-sound, color-sound, shape-sound, etc.)