Please respond to one of the four prompts (from Penguin Publishing). Your response should be at least 300 words. Please proofread thoroughly before publishing. Also, make it clear which prompt you are responding to.
1. In Chapter 16, “One with the Machine,” Robison says, “Sometimes I think I can relate better to a good machine than any kind of person.” Discuss the reasons he gives for his affinity. Why might a person find comfort in machinery but not in people?
2. Despite career advice from music industry insiders, Robison doesn’t want to move to a city. Compare the life he experiences when he’s on tour with KISS to his life back in Shutesbury. Why might the idea of living in a city be intimidating to someone with Asperger’s?
3. Robison writes that he can’t smile on command. How often do you smile “on command” whether you want to or not? How would not being able to automatically produce the expected facial expression make your work life more difficult? Your personal life?
4. As he explains in Chapter 20, “Logic vs. Small Talk,” Robison is also unable to perform the little verbal niceties that often pass for conversation. Questions like “How’s your wife?” or “Have you lost weight?” don’t occur to him when speaking with friends or acquaintances. Do you remember how you first learned to make small talk? Have you ever struggled with it? Are there any conventions of small talk that strike you as peculiar?
I am responding to the first prompt.
ReplyDeleteFirst, John Elder mentions that maybe his affinity for machines is because he controls them. Most people like to be in control of their situations, and John Elder knows that he is in charge of machines, no matter the size. In The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Christopher likes to be in order. He keeps a minute by minute schedule of his day, and it comforts him. In John Elder's case, it might comfort him to know that he can control everything on the machine the way he wants it.
Talking to a human, there is no way to control their actions or words. John Elder has trouble interacting with other people, and when you do not know what someone will say next, it is hard to prepare for what you will say. John Elder also says he likes machines better than other people because machines are predictable. When something happens on a machine, he either knew it would happen, or he can think about what happened for a long time, and not look weird. John Elder talked about interacting with Laurie, and that he was thinking about what she said for a while. He didn't want to think for too long or Laurie would question if he was paying attention, so he gave a question for a response. The reply surprised Laurie, and she inferred it was none of his business. He thought about what she said, and he didn't understand the logic of it. John Elder said that if he told someone about a guy at work that got in a car accident he would expect them to reply with a question asking who the person was. He expects things to happen, and he doesn't like it when unexpected things occur. The predictability of machines appeals to him much more than talking to other people.
Katelyn Johnson
Katelyn, I really like how you pointed out your connection to Christopher. John Elder most definitely is a very interesting person, and as we read the book you notice how he changes throughout the story. In the book John shows his talents, and when he fixed a car for the first time he found his real passion. Being predictable is something very useful for most people, but some use it for manipulation. I really like your examples that you used, because people aren't machines. Not everyone can understand how John thinks and have people know exactly what they're going to do.
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ReplyDelete3. I can’t think of what it would be like to not be able to smile on command. I smile on command at least twice a day, probably more. Not being able to smile on command would make it harder to communicate with other people. When having a conversation with somebody in person, facial expressions are almost always involved. When somebody says something funny, you laugh and you smile. Even if it’s not funny to you, it’s the polite thing to do. Sometimes, if somebody doesn’t react to something someone else said, that person can get angry. Not being able to produce a facial expression would make it harder to gain, and keep, relationships with other people. I think that most people will smile at things on command and not on command. Somethings make you happy and you smile, other things are supposed to make you happy and what other people are around we want them to think that it makes you happy, so you also smile. Without being able to smile on command, Many things would be a lot harder to accomplish. It’s become a reflex for me to smile when appropriate. And I don’t think I’m the only one who does this. I think that we have been taught that that is how we should behave. However, John Elder may have been taught this, but he is unable to. Even though I have never been in a work environment, I can imagine how hard it would be to not be able to smile on command. Your boss could get mad at you, and from what I’ve been taught, That’s never a good thing. If you work in an environment like a box office, where you have to go to meetings every other week. It may be hard to fit in well at the meetings. If a coworker says something and everyone else smiles except for you, you will be the odd one out. And that doesn’t seem like the best thing to be. Being an electrical engineer, though I don’t know much about it, seems like it would be harder to do without being able to smile on command. Communicating with people is a big part of a work life. You have to talk to coworkers, bosses, and whoever else applies to the work that someone is doing. In most jobs, you want those people to be happy with you. And being able to smile at them, even if you don’t feel happy, is a useful strategy to help make that person like you, and do what you are trying to get them to do, whether that be getting a raise from your boss, or getting a coworker to take your shift.
ReplyDelete4. I don’t remember exactly how I learned small talk, but I do understand how John Elder feels. It has taken me a long time to be able to use small talk in conversations and it’s something I still struggle with today. I was in fourth grade when my mom started nagging me about how I talk to people. She said that you have to say more than one word in a conversation. This is the first time I was introduced to the idea of small talk (that I can remember). It was really hard for me to come up with questions like “How are you?” because I just wanted to get out of the conversation. It’s still a little uncomfortable for me to hold a conversation with small talk because I never know what to say. My mom told me to ask the other person questions because people like to talk about themselves. She also gave me questions to use like “How was your weekend?” and “What’s your favorite color?”. These helped me because I had some questions to fall back on if I couldn't think of anything to say. I agree with John Elder when he talks about how he never thought about questions that didn’t have any provocation. Why would you ask someone about their dog when you see them in the grocery store? This is how I went about conversations when I was younger. Today I’m a lot better at talking to people, in general, and small talk is just a way of getting into a conversation. Sometimes, when I just want to know something, I don’t use small talk, and that makes sense. Sometimes small talk still seems pointless to me. I just want to know one thing and be done with the conversation. This is a bad habit, that I need to work on, but I can definitely see were John Elder is coming from.
ReplyDeleteMadelyn, I like how you related your struggles with small talk when you were a kid and now, to John Elder's. In the book, he just didn't seem to get the point of it, and I also struggle with it. I was shy, and I hated small talk. Like you and John Elder, it seemed pointless and awkward to say "How are you?" when you probably don't care. Small talk can be useful if you are not the person who will just come right out and say or ask something. However, if you are, and it seems like you are, it is definitely uncomfortable and useless. I liked how you pointed out asking people about parts of their life when it is not relevant. Asking "How is your dog?" in the grocery store does not seem like a good use of your time. I really liked your comment because you could relate to John Elder a lot with small talk and conversations.
DeleteSmiling on command has become a reflex to me at this point in life. When someone says something funny, you smile and/or laugh. When someone says something nice to you, you smile and politely say “Thank you.” I smile countless times a day, even when I don’t want to. When someone says something that is good, even if I don’t see it that way, I smile and nod, or do something similar. Not being able to smile on command would be very hard for me. Being the social person that I am, I have many interactions with others, during almost all of which I smile at least once or twice.
ReplyDeleteOne situation that would be very hard to be in without being able to smile is school. When a teacher talks to you, you smile and respond with the appropriate response, whether it be “Thank you” or “I’m sorry my homework isn’t done” or “Of course, sounds good!” John Elder is now an adult and has a job where he has to report to other employees who are higher up in what he calls the corporate food chain. Not being able to smile on command may make it seem as though he’s being rude, even though he isn’t. I think that John Elder may have been told this or something to the same effect as a child, but he is unable to do it because of his Asperger’s.
When John Elder was working for KISS, he mentioned that he only had a suit because they had been interviewed for television. I can only imagine how hard it would have been for him to not have been able to smile on command; I know for me it would have been. Although I wouldn’t know the majority of the people who were viewing the news program, I wouldn’t want to be the odd one out when presumably everyone else was smiling to the camera or the reporter.
I am responding to the third prompt.
ReplyDeleteWhen John talks about how he cannot smile on command, and is uncomfortable when people ask him to do so, I think a lot of people understand him, and know that they aren't comfortable smiling when they don't feel like it's the right situation, and since they don't want to be told what to do.
I personally don't really care if someone tells me to smile since I already do that a lot, and the only time someone does say that, it is when they are taking a picture of me.
I feel like my smile is something someone would remember me by, and that it is a way of me spreading happiness and positivity. I smile a lot, and honestly in some situations even if I don't want to, I do, because I know that I can make someone's day by doing so instead of being really bland and unhelpful.
Expressing gratitude, excitement, passion, or any type of emotion that can show your dedication, and your character to those whom you're working with, is very important. If you want to be able to have a successful career you need to be able to communicate with people, create friendships, and be out of your comfort zone. When John goes through a series of jobs, he experiences a lot of failure due to his difficulty interacting with others. John constantly had problems with people in the workplaces he was in, and constantly had trust issues. From my perspective, at work, John someone that I would love to be friends with, and most people who aren't as energetic (and don't have a sense of humour) wouldn't take him as a serious person. People tended to think he was weird when he wasn't able to show the emotion they expected him to, and I feel like most would think that they have to act like everything is amazing so others would think higher of them.
Almost the same goes for my personal life. I think that if I couldn't really balance out my emotions, and be able to work with others, I wouldn't be able to have a healthy, and stable relationship with a partner, kids, my family, and friends.
From Porter (Fourth Prompt)
ReplyDeleteI am responding to the fourth prompt on the list, talking about small talk.
Small talk is an interesting subject and I am glad to see it talked about in the book, clearly small talk is focused towards social skills, so seeing how someone with ASD handles it was interesting. Personally to me, I have always struggled with “small talk” and conversations in general. The idea of it is honestly, and excuse me for my language, absolutely bullshit in my opinion. Most often then not, small talk is just an excuse to pass time or not stand in awkward silence while looking at each other here and there. Sure we may ask questions as humans about each other, but just seeing someone and asking how something is about the person has been established as a polite gesture, when for some, especially for me in my knowledge, the idea of small talk or receiving small talk is just painful and annoying. I could care less about saying what’s going on in my life, I just enjoy being in my head and try to avoid any social contact that is not making jokes and laughing or is with someone enjoyable to hang out with, which most people, and some offense intended, a lot of people are boring and just very “dry” to hang out with or talk to. To this day I have no truly learned small talk properly, nor do I want to in the future. The idea of learning how to talk small talk is interesting, because you are not learning it, you are just picking it up as you go, it’s not something you study or learn whatsoever. Through all of my hate and struggle for small talk, I always specifically hated small talk when people would ask me questions. Often I am not even paying attention and have to scramble for some words and hope they are “correct.” This is often where I end up knee deep in lying when I accidentally say I had a sister that died or have climbed a 7000ft peak, or something along those lines. Overall, small talk is one of those things that angers me, I would discuss it further, but for the sake of keeping my cool, this is how I relate to the novel and see small talk.