ABNORMAL? OR JUST ATYPICAL
today in neuropsychology class,
our prof told us about his encounter with Kim Peek, the guy who inspired the movie Rain Man, who suffers from savant syndrome yet possesses an incredible photographic memory
Kim Peek is well-known and well-loved now, despite his disabilities which prevent him from speaking coherently and performing basic motor functions, chiefly because he has been blessed with the mind of a genius
there are only approximately 100 savants worldwide born with talents similar to his.
so what about those unlucky ones with no phenomenal abilities to “compensate” for their defects?
what would they be referred to in present society?
simply “disabled” “crippled” or “invalids”…
in a documentary about his extraordinary life,
Kim Peek said something that made me tear
“you dont have to be handicapped to be different.
we are all different.”
as we witness much aggravation and hostility amongst fellow mankind— a consequence of selfish ethnocentrism,
it has to take an individual with congenital brain damage to recognise that we are all just special and unique in our own way.
