Jack Pelham

Most people are said to be “neurotypical”—meaning, more or less, that the way their minds work is “normal”. And then, in contrast to that, there are the “neurodiverse” people, who are “wired” differently in one way or another, we are told—and who, as a result, may have different aptitudes and life habits to some extent.

The world is still trying to get its head around this idea, and so am I. And there may well be something to it, but the question is “what exactly is that something”? That’s the question, right?

Probably one of the hardest parts about being me
Is what I see as the great abyss of silence in this world
About the things that Jack thinks are worthy of great amazement
Or curiosity
Or laughter
Or sadness
Or remorse
Or study
Or conviction
Or praise
Or gratitude
Or action
Or love
Or even of conflict between fellows.

Unlearned lessons will not fade away when slighted
But patiently present themselves again and again
Attested to by the chorus of bitter experience
And ever patient to convince graciously
The fool who at first ignored them—
Until at length he has gone so far
As to deny their very existence—
And they in anger become
Witnesses against him
Thence forward.

It is difficult to overstate
Just how adamantly most people
Want their religious and political beliefs
To be a set-it-and-forget-it affair.

Truth is often useful
Even to those
Who neither love
Nor understand her.

Wisdom is quoted
Far more often
Than she is loved,
Or even understood.

Is there any unfinished business
That does not exact a toll in time?

He butts in
Making his presence known
Where it is not clear he has
Any clear title to be here
Intruding in my business
And insisting to be heard
With his voicings of moods
Sometimes rapturous but
So often quite severe and sullen
And lonely and dark
And sometimes fully understood
And sometimes not
Yet often so strongly put
As to seem they simply
Must
Have a say in what I do next
Even when one cannot fathom
Their relevance to the real world.