downs syndrome: social perfection?

[Francis king]

I realise this may offend some ppl, yet that is not my aim.

I was waiting for a train a few days ago, and a small man with a smile approached me. After asking me a question about the train, he stayed next to me, smiling.

Usually this behaviour in an adult male would annoy me and cause me to bristle, maybe walk away, or confront him, and try to determine just what the problem was, yet this man was not a beggar, or a thief, or a player. He was just a man, going about his buisness.

We struck up a conversation, and spoke about many things; he had lost his bag the week before, he was going to meet his sister and a friend and go for lunch, we spoke about sport and top up cards and we had a very pleasant journey. When we left the train, we parted company, and George went up onto the escalators, while I waited downstairs for my connection.

I remembered how it was when we were children, and we come become instant friends with each other for the sake of playing games, or simply because we were children. It made me think about living in a small village, the kind of place where people smile at each other and say hello in the mornings. How nice it was to speak to this man, without having to be guarded, without having to try to ascertain what their real motive was, without having to play the games we play in maintaining roles and social position, how nice not to have to mind the rules of social ettiquette.

I thought... ahh... if only we were all more like George. How much easier and how much nicer life would be. We could leave our doors open. George wouldn't rob us while we slept. He wouldn't mug grandma for her pension so he could buy crack cocaine. He's not going to groom my little sister and molest her. He won't stab my little brother to death on the street because he lives in the wrong area.

And how curious that we consider George to be less than us. Laugh at him because he has not learnt the same degree of artifice we have. How funny that he is honest, and open. How childlike and naive he is, and how vulnerable that makes him.

But rather than say anything about George, what does that say about the rest of us? That we lie at the drop of a hat, that we wrap ourselves in pashmina deceptions, cannot be honest, cannot be open, as it's often too dangerous, so we have to be guarded, and make judgements, and rate people depending on their use to us, or whether they are the right type of people to play, or play with... and yet it's people like George who are considered inferior. Less valuable, less worthy.

yet, in a positive society, in a healthy society, wouldn't we all be more like George?

[Ciel]

Hi, Francis,

I'm wondering ......maybe....... if you met Prince Charles in a bus queue, and didn't know who he was, but a friendly genuine seeming chap who appeared to care about the state of the nation and people and wished he had the power to create changes for the better......... and maybe you would be mesmerised by what big ears he had, and note he was a little different from the other bus riders, and he told you how he had tried to move his life in a direction away from the establishment of his family...... you got talking about faith and religion and found you agreed..... you laughed at his slightly off humour ..... and you said goodbye feeling blessed for a world where another caring individual exists.

- c -

[Snoopy]

Yes Francis, I’ve thought this before about people generally with so-called “special needs”. Often when I’ve had interactions with them I’ve thought if everyone in the world could be more like them and less like us, there’d be none of the petty bickerings and mass wars that are smeared across human history.

s.

[enlightenment]

Originally Posted by Francis king

I was waiting for a train a few days ago, and a small man with a smile approached me. After asking me a question about the train, he stayed next to me, smiling.

Usually this behaviour in an adult male would annoy me and cause me to bristle, maybe walk away, or confront him

Would it?

Why?

[cavalier]

Originally Posted by enlightenment

Would it?

Why?

Surely because Francis is also not like George, and no doubt she was aware of that dissimilarity when she wrote the OP.