We Are All Retarded
03/11/09 05:32 PM
I have many patients who are “retarded” by the conventional definition. They are some of my best friends. That term, “retarded”, is not descriptive. It is pejorative. It is ignorant. It is, well, retarded. The term implies that these people lack something that one must have to be whole. It is true that they depend on us for material needs, but the wisest among us depend on them too. Of course they lack some reasoning and problem solving skill, but not as much as many think. It is not the intellectual skills that they lack that defines them. It is the lack of guile, and there is a lesson for all of us in that.
We write-off retarded people as being empty. We cannot possibly understand all of the things that they face. It is easier for us to simply assume that they are empty and that they therefore face no struggles. By assuming that they perceive little, we can conclude that they contain little, and that allows us to ignore them as irrelevant. I have had few other patients who take in so much and bear so much with such grace. They are assumed to have receptive limitations, but their real challenge is often expressive.
No, they are real people, and they bear the same things that we bear. They bear what we do and so much more, and they do it with so much less. They rebel sometimes and express frustration, but they rarely complain. When something works, when something goes right, they are typically so much more joyful than we ever are. When one’s life is punctuated by constant failure, the successes are that much more delightful.
Einstein, near the end of his life, said, ‘we don’t know a fraction of a percent about anything’. That is an expression of humility from one of the most perceptive men ever known. It is also an expression of wisdom. The wiser we are, the more we know of our deficiencies. Einstein’s statement is also instructive. In the scope of all that can be known, we really don’t know a fraction about anything. Our fields of study have never yet defined even a scrap of the nature within that field, much less other fields or how it all fits together. Kierkegaard said that the more we understand, the more we come to understand that there is that which cannot be understood. The wisest know that real understanding is for God alone. The rest of us can only “look through a glass and darkly”. The least wise among us think that they have command in their world, and they seek to command through coercion and force. Even when they mean well (viz. past and current crusades and the current American hegemony), they are the source of much evil and much suffering.
So in the greater scope of things, we are really not so different than those we consider to be “retarded”. We are all retarded; the only difference is the degree and the manner in which we are so. Those we consider conventionally retarded need our help with certain functions of living, but they can teach us much about love and persistence and joy. Providing such assistance may be frustrating for us, but we should not be too condescending. You may be an expert in one area, and if I try to function in that area, I may be just as frustrating to you, but you will probably not be condescending to me. Or you may! This can be a real impediment even for “normal” people as we try to relate in the “real world”. The point is, we are all really in this together, even our “retarded” colleagues, and if we can just realize this, our interactions can be so much more fruitful and enriching.
What retarded people lack most is the guile and ambition that the rest of us so commonly inflict upon each other. What they often excel in is patience and forbearance, things that all of us could use more of. So, maybe we should try not to be so “retarded” in dealing with the retarded. Maybe we should stop, look, listen, and see these people for what they are. It doesn’t take any more time. In dealing with “retarded” people, it usually takes longer to hurry. We should settle down, take a breath, offer some help, and gratefully enjoy the rewards. Hopefully, we will deserve it, at least a little.
