mark ty-wharton

Inspired by a conversation with Laurence Platt.

I have been thinking about death.

As a context, a basis for the creation of everything that exists, language is an interesting tool. It sets us apart from animals.

Without it, existence would have a different quality. Our experience of ourselves and our awareness of our awareness would not be the same.

As an autistic adult, I have a self-conscious nature. Though, I am not sure I agree with Dr Temple Grandin, that I am like an animal.

I would say I am further from animal in my noticing, with more extranious language, while retaining a connection to my animal self. I would say I have an over awareness of my animalness. It actually detracts somewhat from human social interaction. In otherwords, most human beings don’t notice themselves.

Like other autistic people, I do some of my thinking in pictures. I am going to use *language* as a verb here to describe the process.

If I am thinking about things I will *language* images into my thought processes. Thinking “I’ll collect Gina from the station” puts images of Gina, car and station onto an internal movie screen.

I visualise the outcome. It is a very natural process I am actually self aware of. It includes still images and movies of different aspects and outcomes and the best solution is presented back to me conversationally. It makes creative visualisation and vision boards easy conceptually and almost impossible to put into practice.

And language appears to be at the root of the process. So what does language have to do with death?

I would like to create something for you based on a recent experience.

Last Saturday, I went to see spiritualist medium, Philip Kinsella. For the purposes of this blog, it does not matter if you believe in mediumship or not. For a moment however, accept there is something the medium connects to, even if it is cold reading, the following holds true.

If you are a spiritualist, you will have to excuse my non-spiritualist use of the word dead. For me the terms passed and other side hold death at arms length.

However, Philip gave the audience messages from those crossed over to the other side. Very specific and very accurate messages, with very descriptive details and accurate names.

Interestingly for me, Philip worked with pictures and feelings. He then interpreted the information he was receiving and literally *languaged* the person he was channeling into being.

What do I mean by that?

The person being *given* arrived in the room as a concept or idea in Philip’s mind. A person who is dead, no longer has a physical presence. Assuming they exist, the only way for us to have awareness of their being, is for Philip to *language* their being into existence.

The only place they continue to exist past death is our conversation about them. Their existence is in language. Nowhere else… So langauge is their being?

And is that true of us? When I stop thinking in words and think in pictures, do I cease to be?

If I do, my existence is a paradox!

See you on the other side of the looking glass,

mark ty wharton

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blog.aspegineering.com

It is my son’s fourth birthday today. We have been celebrating. While I gave him loads of gifts, the best gift I can give him today is to be genuine.

So here is an admission:

I am actually squirming as I write this…

I am a name dropper!

I discovered something I do in life which is a block for me and is at best a bit slimy but at worst completely self depreciating.

I have been hanging off my famous friends coat tails and using my association with them to further my career!

In fact if I recall, once a time upon, most of my friendships started with thinking “What can this person do for me?” and “If people see I am working with The XYZ, they will want me to work with them too!”

I think there is also a hope, if one of them tells me what I am doing is good, or endorses what I do, it will somehow validate my existence and give my life and this time around, my current product, my book, meaning.

It’s a bit like taking a tune to an A&R man and waiting for the nod, the nod of approval. The nod of approval they will only ever give when you are on fire with your own creativity. Like everything else, it’s all in the unspoken communication.

If you are a NO you’ll get a NO.

Okay there are one or two genuine friendships along the way, the rest are history so to speak, or should I say no longer to speak to.

Recently, I even tried to befriend some brand new famous people. Stephen Fry via Twitter, Bob Proctor and Joe Vitale from the movie The Secret, The Dalai Lama and Werner Erhard to name a few.

In a way, Joe Vitale is the guy who somehow (don’t ask me how) got me to realise I am being a slime ball by doing it.

I was basically working on the premise “If I can get this guy to Tweet about my book, loads of people will buy it”.

Not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with doing it, a lot of people build their social networks in exactly this way.

And maybe that’s the key. Social networks. I have Aspergers and was somehow missing the point of the whole thing beyond “how can I generate more leads?”

Here’s the thing!

Because I say that I don’t and won’t do it, I now have an integrity issue.

I’ve put a lot of energy into making people notice me! Especially the famous… Trying to force their hand to get them to believe in me by sending them a book, while perhaps not believing in it enough myself.

What I have just seen about myself, is I need people who are at a certain level to validate my work. And there’s the hideous irony.

I am the guy that says there are no levels!

The interesting thing about Twitter is that I have actually made some really meaningful connections along the way.

I would go on to say, there are a small circle of us accelerating one another’s enlightenment in 140 characters or less.

So much so in fact, that I am now a YES!

If you are not already, follow me on Twitter, my user name is @mark_tywharton

Specifically check out some of the people I am following. The theme… Is LOVE!

Are any of them famous?

Not yet!

In my experience, many famous people are famous to make up for their own insecurities and helping someone else climb the ladder to fame and fortune would of course make them feel insecure, so they won’t do it!

The really meaningful connections are coming from people whose lives I am making a difference in, people I have been giving something to rather than trying to get something from.

Of course, I was attracting an exact reflection of me. So you’ll have
to take my word for it or put it down to my flawed perception

See you on the other side of the looking glass,

  Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Mark Ty-Wharton