The Art of Autism kicks off our 8th Annual Arts & Poems for Peace Project. We will be posting on Facebook peace submissions throughout the month of October.
Looking at what is happening around the world, it seems like humanity has not learned a single thing from the past. Different wars continue and where one conflict ends, another starts. On the surface, a war can have different motives, but deep down it is only possible if there is a lack of respect for other people. A conflict starts inside before the war plan takes place in the mind of the decision makers. They make a distinction between us and them, regardless if it is a case of different religions, cultures, language and so on. What they all seem to miss is that we are all humans with similar dreams of creating a good life for ourselves.
Many of us want love, a purpose, friendship and maybe a family, being able to be who we truly are and be respected for that. Being an autist of course I can not forget the important part of special interests, or why not call them passions. It gives us a focus and a drive to wake up for a new day, this is freedom at its best. What is the meaning of taking over other people’s land, destroying buildings, infrastructure and above all destroying peoples lives. Instead of closing the gap between countries/territory it creates a crack that can last for generations.
I believe that we sometimes have unprocessed feelings inside that make us choose wrong decisions. Maybe we have been hurt in the past and walk around with heavy memories in our mind. It is normal to have preconceived notions, especially when it comes to the unknown. It helps us to protect ourselves against dangerous things like an animal out in the wild, but we need to be aware of this and we can not walk around with our guard up all the time. We are not aware of how our life experiences have formed us and people tend to not look at themselves in a self critical way to actually see our own shortcomings and question our own way of thinking and our actions. If we do this, it would give us a chance to look at other people’s perspective with a little distance and possibly it would prevent us from judging others so fast.
Of course there are times when other people’s moral compass is just totally off and there is no way around that other than saying that something is wrong in their way of thinking. Do we have to meet them with aggression? We can be the bigger person and try to do everything in our power to meet them with respect and would I dare to say even love. Nothing good comes out of a war; that has been shown time after time and do not forget that we often have more in common with our neighbours on this planet than what we would initially think. I believe in freedom and am prepared to hold on to that core value as long as possible. But what if someone wants to take away our freedom and bring evil over us. First of all, every possibility to meditate has to be exhausted.
After that we can continue to look over what has to be done. I am not stupid, there are still times when we need to fight for our freedom and protect what is ours. This is also a way to stand up for freedom. If the opponent is a country, in this case I think that it is important to pay attention to that not all inhabitants agree with their leaders, they can be trapped in a situation that they can not escape from, things are not as easy as all people in a country are enemies. Dictatorship around the globe put normal people in a very difficult situation, even if they disagree with what the dictator says and does it oftentimes is a big risk to take a stand against the leader and it can lead to death or imprisonment. Few are willing to take the risk, not least when they have a family that can be affected.One big reason for war lies unfortunately in different views on religion, you would think that religion should unify but it often does the opposite, even between people inside the same country, horrible civil wars start from the origin of different religious beliefs.
They seem to think that you have to think the same and be on our “team” or else you are against us, which I find very strange. Dissidents should be encouraged and not looked down on. We need to have new influences to evolve. We need to understand that life and the world is not static and unchangeable; it moves day by day. My message is to take care of each other and take an active stand for freedom both in the small and the big perspective. We can not fix all problems in this world, but we can do something good for someone.
Daniel Antonsson is a 43 year old Autistic man living in Sweden with his Venezuelan girlfriend and four year old daughter. He has always enjoyed writing about different subjects and being able to publish for the Art of Autism make him feel truly blessed.
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