The Organist

Miss Beatrice, the church organist, was in her eighties and had never been married. She was admired for her sweetness, and her kindness to all.

One afternoon, the Pastor came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room. She invited him to take a seat while she prepared tea. As he sat facing her Hammond organ, the young Minister noticed a cute glass bowl sitting on top of it. The bowl was filled with water, and in the water floated, of all things, a condom!

When she returned with tea and scones, they began to chat. The Pastor tried to stifle his curiosity about the bowl of water and it's strange floater, but soon the curiosity got the better of him and he could no longer resist.

"Miss Beatrice" he said. "I wonder if you would tell me about this?" pointing to the bowl.

"Oh, yes," she replied, "Isn't it wonderful? "I was walking through the park a few months ago, and I found this little package on the ground. The directions said to place it on the organ, keep it wet, and that it would prevent the spread of disease. Do you know, I haven't had the flu all winter!"

Tags:flu,organist

Current Mood: Amused

Genius Or Madman?

Blas is 20 years old. He speaks equally fluently Spanish, English, German, French, Portuguese and Swedish. But he is incapable of catching double meanings. On one hand, the incredible talent and on the other, socially incapacitated.

Together with the protagonists of 'The Rain Man; or 'Forest Gump', or that of 'The curious incident of the dog at midnight', the book of Marc Haddon. All these people have 2 things in common: possessed outstanding talent for concrete or specified topics, activities or applications, but totally incapable to connect normally with other people. This is the syndrome of Asperger, also called 'syndrome of the sage'. Known names suffering this include Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol and Steven Spielberg.

The parents of Blas began to notice that something was not right with their son when he was 3. He showed astonishing ease of speech with words and phrases not appropriate at his age, and had fixation on certain concrete themes. Although very intelligent, his social behaviour was weird. He preferred to be alone, didn't show any emotions with parents and tended to throw tantrums. His learning was not balanced. At that time very little was known about this medical condition, even psychologist, psychiatrist and neurologist didn't give any clear diagnoses. Finally a psychologist who had been in America knew something about this abnormality Blas was linked to when he was 12. Similar to autism.

They achieve amazing results working on something alone, not so much in groups. If people in general take some effort to understand the disease and those who are affected, things would be much easier for all and their talents would also be better employed and utilized. All I know is, there's only a very thin dividing line between a genius and a madman. Depending on each person's view and mentality, morality as well as ethics to decide, and even so one might still be wrong.

Tags:madman,genius

Current Mood: Accomplished