Long before I heard about autism, I was thinking about it. I was a loner from the beginning – as a boy entering school at 5 yrs old, I didn't keep to myself by choice – I did it by instinct. I was completely unable to have friends. As Chris Stone says in my novel … Continue reading Autism and the Simpleton
Rescuing Loners | The Firing of Dwane Casey
I have to say something about the firing this week of Toronto Raptors coach, Dwane Casey. Though named a finalist for 2018 Coach of the Year, after the best-ever season by a Raptors team, and winning the first round in the playoffs before losing to Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, Casey was dismissed. Yet … Continue reading Rescuing Loners | The Firing of Dwane Casey
The Lost 11 year-old Loner |Was he really Lost?
Last week I went for a walk below the Scarborough Bluffs, the 12,000 year old cliff along the north shore of Lake Ontario created by a giant glacial river during the last ice age. After a long winter, I walked in the spring sunshine there, and explored the woods that grow in the deep gullies … Continue reading The Lost 11 year-old Loner |Was he really Lost?
Rescuing Lee Harvey Oswald | Finding ‘The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald’
One day I did a search for novels in which Lee Harvey Oswald is a character, and, among others, I turned up, The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald, by Walt Brown. Walt Brown is interesting. A one-time FBI agent who went back to school to become a history professor, he says his life-long ambition, since … Continue reading Rescuing Lee Harvey Oswald | Finding ‘The People v. Lee Harvey Oswald’
Watch out for Narcissists and Sociopaths
(This was a post on my previous blog, Loner's Highway, where I presented narcissists as another type of loner. Because they're such problematic people, especially for shy people, I'm including them here.) According to The Everything Guide to Narcissistic Personality Disorder, by Cynthia Lechan Goodman, MEd, and Barbara Leff, LCSW, someone may have narcissistic personality … Continue reading Watch out for Narcissists and Sociopaths
Watch out for Sociopaths
This was originally a post on my previous blog, Loner's Highway, where I was describing the different types of loner. Sociopaths (sometimes called psychopaths, an older term) are a very different kind of loner. Contrary to what most people think, they are not demented haters of humanity. They like the rest of us very much. … Continue reading Watch out for Sociopaths
A Shy Loner under siege |J. D. Salinger
Like everyone else, when I was young I read J.D. Salinger's famous novel, The Catcher in the Rye, and some of his short stories. I wasn't as impressed as everyone else seemed to be, but I was impressed by Salinger's tight innovative prose, which helped me in my early writing. No, I didn't find Salinger's … Continue reading A Shy Loner under siege |J. D. Salinger
The New Shyness |Philip Zimbardo
In his 1977 book, Shyness, psychologist Philip Zimbardo took a long look at shyness. He is the only psychologist, to my knowledge, that has devoted so much of his career and writing to it. I devoted many pages in my book The Shyness Guide to his findings and views. In a Mar 31, 2016 post … Continue reading The New Shyness |Philip Zimbardo
People who don’t need People – James Michener
Those who, like me, grew up in the 1950s, and maybe some who are not so old, will remember the song Barbara Streisand sang in Funny Girl - 'People who need People' (composed by Jules Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill) - which declared that such people are the luckiest people in the world. Whenever I heard that … Continue reading People who don’t need People – James Michener
