TED Community » Jason Kirin

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Children, Poetry, Signed Languages, Juggling, Locks and Picking, Autism Spectrum Disorders, Typewriters, Sculpting, Art, Facial Expressions, Emotional Awareness, Body Language, Deception Detection.

An idea worth spreading

Concerning Harry Haller, our dear Steppenwolf, Hesse writes, "As for others and the world around him he never ceased in his heroic and earnest endeavor to love them, to be just to them, to do them no harm, for the love of his neighbor was as deeply in him as the hatred of himself, and so his whole life was an example that love of one's neighbor is not possible without love of oneself, and that self-hate is really the same thing as sheer egoism, and in the long run breeds the same cruel isolation and despair."

Talk to me about

Oh, anything. Really interested in anything you can think of.

People don't know that I'm good at

Chewing my toenails.

My TED Story

Have been watching Ted.com for about 6 years now. Found through my mentor, John, when he was surfing around for poetry lectures.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +11.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Conversation: Where do you use math in your profession?

  Feb 28 2012: I am a Mental Health Specialist for the Pressley Ridge School for the Deaf. I spend my entire day designing, implementing and upgrading Individual Education Plans, Positive Behavior Support Plans, Functional Behavior Assessments etc. etc.
  
  It's all about behavior, mental and emotional stability.
  
  And, of course, when I was in High School and college I griped through my math classes muttering that I'll, "never use this in my real life ever!"
  
  I learned American Sign Language, Literature and Psychology- hooray for no math! I thought.
  
  Now, math doesn't bother me-- I quite enjoy it now that I'm older.
  
  But in my job I often have to use math for behavioral data collection. When one of my students has a negative or positive mark on their Daily Progress Narratives then it is calculated into a percent of their day, this data is then calculated into weekly updates and monthly updates. All of it turns into numbers and averages that are spread over graphs and Individual Education Plans.
  
  In many cases the words are no longer even seen!
  
  I'm fairly certain a lot of the psych field turns into numbers at some point or another.
• +3

  A comment on Talk: Joshua Walters: On being just crazy enough

  Jun 27 2011: The idea in this talk that really speaks to me is the concept of "degrees of crazy." And, I'm paraphrasing here, "maybe we all have it a little bit and just don't want to notice it, or just can't feel it right."
  Mental health diagnoses are SPECTRUMS on which ANYBODY can fall. Each mental health dis-ease can be put onto a bell curve and each person can fall on it. Sadly, it's when a person does not fall upon the average, or standard deviation, of the bell curve are they then diagnosed with a mental health disorder.
  
  "How often do you talk to yourself?" The Dr. asks.
  "Oh, here and there- I have a thought that comes out loud while I'm cooking."
  "Next..." He yelps.
  "Well, I pray a lot, so that's out loud. I guess you can say that I feel I have a guardian angel that I speak out loud to sometime."
  "Standard deviation, check. Next..."
  "Well- I talk to a few different conversationalists I carry around with me wherever I go. We collectively decide on what to do."
  Pills. Straight jacket. Schizophrenic diagnosis. There are our emotions, "on a scale from one to ten how intense to they appear within you?" You will then again have your average and your standard deviations. Those outside of these will get a "manic/depressive" diagnosis. These are just two examples- but you can take the DSM and bell curve every mental health disorder in there.
  
  Part of me wishes to break into a snarky overbearing voice and mock this as some sort of ritualistic eugenics propaganda machine- but I don't take it that far.
  
  Robert Pirsig talked about how when the first platypus was found it was deemed a freak of nature because it both laid it's eggs and suckled it's young. Yet the platypus has been a platypus a lot longer than zoologists have been zoologists. Yet instead of redefining their categorizations and classifications they called it a "monotremata." Which was an inbetween of conventionally understood animals.
  
  Mental Health Disorders... The Platypus... Maybe we need to redefine our definitions.
• +3

  A comment on Talk: Joshua Walters: On being just crazy enough

  Jun 27 2011: Two points come to my mind with this talk. One is the concept that Chel O'Reilly mentions; labeling a someone as their mental illness as opposed to saying that they are a person with a mental illness. We often tend to turn mental illness, well, many personality traits for the matter, into synecdochical representations of the personality whom with which we are engaged at any given point. There seems to be no limit to this either- and part of this culprit is, a word I dread, "or." A person seems to must be a teacher or a learner, they must be crazy or they must not be, they must love themselves or be a cigarette smoker. All of these synecdochical representations of the personality are dehumanizing on a saddening level in my eyes. The human personality consists of a multitude of things- yet we choose to only look at certain photographs and not the others. A person can love themselves and be a cigarette smoker, they can be crazy and they can be a teacher and they can be a juggler, a poet, a student, a drunkard, a bastard, a pool shark, a dad, a mom. And. And. And. The idea that someone has bipolar disorder and is, consequently, disabled mentally from here on out is absurd.
  
  The second point is of similar ranting length as the first, so I will start a new comment.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Should there be such a thing as global ethics?

  Jun 23 2011: My immediate reaction was the idea of an implementation of Kant's "Categorical Imperatives." How to derive morals and/or ethics when you're in a hurry...
  
  Simply put, pose the question to yourself; "If every human did this, would it still be beneficial to the human race?"
  
  Now, you've got your commandments from the Christian God. You've got your suicide bombers. You've got your faith based initiative wars. You've got your dating code. You've got your work ethic. Etc.
  
  Being quite agnostic about religion I find that people have asked me where I get my morals and ethics from, I often use Kant's "Categorical Imperatives" for this discussion easily.
• +1

  A reply on Talk: JD Schramm: Break the silence for suicide attempt survivors

  Jun 19 2011: Even having had my mother commit suicide and, furthermore, knowing why she did it (from knowing her well, and reading her note), I'm going to have to agree with you.
  
  Ultimately there is a codependency if a person is choosing not to commit suicide because of the pain it will cost. It's a tough bridge to cross there, one that I've thought about in circles.
  
  It is the persons life, their own and it's one they may choose to do with what they wish. To say, "they shouldn't have commuted suicide," is a roundabout way to say, "because now my life is more complicated."
  
  There are some whom I believe need an intervention however, we don't let teens drive until 16 or vote until 18 or let people drink until 21. All of these for, roughly, good reasons.
  
  Am I saying there is an age limit where people should be able to commit suicide if they wish without our interference? No, that's just crass.
  
  But- when a young teen is at their end, that's somewhere where I believe, if we are in the place for it, we are obliged to help them.

• A reply on Talk: JD Schramm: Break the silence for suicide attempt survivors

  Jun 19 2011: Wow. I'm impressed. Such a concise, succinct analogy you spun there. I'm seriously taken aback by your means of description.
  
  The anorexic needs a reinforcement of the opposite of what s/he believes to be beauty. While the depressed individual needs a reinforcement of the opposite of what they believe will be beneficial? Did I get that right?
  
  Depression stems from a multitude of things, a list fairly to long for the character amount allotted here and beyond my own ability to type with thumbs on a phone. But can it be more succinctly catergorizeable? Most of the reasons for depression seem to stem from a belief that our past, our story that made us, our connectome, is all sorts of, clinically speaking of course, jacked up.
  
  Our connectome and history make our current story one based on our past. And what reinforces these feelings is the old adage, "thoughts that fire together, wire together." The anorexic reinforces her ugliness because of her story, her built belief system, he past. The depressed does the same.
  
  How can one say to them... The past isn't what it used to be?
  
  It's difficult to rewire years of soldered neurons that connect so much stimuli to despair. How to face the past lovingly? Find a means to love the present self and know that that could not possibly have come into being without the past?
  
  The depressed individual, through cognitive behavioral therapy, EMDR, NET, EFT, any therapy needs, first to believe in a just and beautiful present tense. Then the past needs to be addressed with gratitude in order for the past to, essentially, be changed enough for the present to be just.
  
  It feels like I just walked down a möbius strip with my pet ouroboros. I think I'll name him redundancy.
  
  Sorry for the spill here, but as another poster posted- sometimes you just have to post.

• A reply on Talk: JD Schramm: Break the silence for suicide attempt survivors

  Jun 19 2011: I tend to not like, "thumbing up," without a response. But- your post did well. That's about all I can say.

• A reply on Talk: JD Schramm: Break the silence for suicide attempt survivors

  Jun 19 2011: Beyond description.... Yes... I suffered from depression for a long time and even though I am a writer- I could never get the true feeling out. One musician, however, I believe came incredibly close...
  
  "Well the whole truth
  it's like the story of a wave unfurled
  but I held the evil of the world
  so I stopped the tide
  froze it up from inside
  and it felt like a winter machine
  you go through and then-
  you catch your breath
  and winter starts again
  while everyone else is springbound.
  
  And when I chose to live
  there was no joy
  it's just a line I crossed
  it was worth the pain my death would cost
  so I was not lost
  or found."
  
  - Dar Williams "After All"

• A comment on Talk: JD Schramm: Break the silence for suicide attempt survivors

  Jun 19 2011: What is there to say really?
  
  How do we help those in need? What about the other survivors of suicide? The children left by parents, parents left by children, friends left by friends. What do we do for them?
  
  I am always searching for information pertaining to these subjects and just now came across this video.
  
  The story may as well be a blunt one...
  
  My mother attempted suicide a few times while I was a teenager; each time I was around, or on my way, and so I was able to prevent the happening. Obviously, my mother was mentally ill and, furthermore, had problems with drugs and alcohol. It wasn't until I left for college, after her last remaining, in for the long haul, die hard unconditionally loving fan, was gone that she had interrupted time to try again. Try again and, unfortunately, succeed. After that living, for me, became more of a force of habit than anything else. It took a few years to come to terms with it. Then those terms went away, new ones replaced them- this cycle continued for a while.
  
  I saw a therapist, read all the books. My sister found a group called, "Survivors of Suicide," that was geared to those who were, "left behind."
  
  What could I have done for mom? Nothing. I know this. It took a while to believe it though. Like a drug addict who relapses- suicides try again. I'd lost another friend to suicide and was able to prevent a sucide from happening too.
  
  What can be said for those who survive... Who knows? Things will get better? Will they? I know that the work of Byron Katie helped me a lot and has, furthermore, helped many of my depressed friends.
  
  I know that, "Survivors of Suicide," has local chapters. In Pittsburgh it's at the Western Psych Hospital once a month.
  
  I can always offer up an ear, a shoulder, a therapy session to anyone dealing with this from any angle as well.
  
  I like to think that the, I believe, 4th spiritual law of yoga- detachment. Thoroughly helps one live in the now. Getting yourself present helps a lot.

• A comment on Talk: Keith Barry: Brain magic

  Jun 6 2011: Following up on my previous comment concerning "saccades." I tried, at work, how I'd said I thought it was done- worked like a charm.