I was reading something the other day about the ancient kingdom of the Hittites in central Turkey. One of the early rulers of the Hittites was Hattusili, and his followers complied a book of legend about him, entitled “The Manly Deeds of Hattusili”. The Hittites were a war-mongering bunch; they liked to send their army out to plunder cities outside their realm, as to bring back slaves and gold and other booty. They weren’t out to colonize or control the Mediterranean, as the Romans later did. They were just in it for the plunder.

As you might guess, the “Manly Deeds” is quite full of bragging and bluster. The Hittites were indeed proud of their aggressiveness and warrior spirit. They obviously wrote down this treatise about their glorious conquests so as to impress future generations. One thing that they didn’t figure on is that changing languages and cultural notions can cause distortions, such that what they thought was so terribly fearsome and impressive can come across as rather comical. One of their most proud achievements was to conquer the kingdom of Hahha. They brag of how past monarchs failed to subjugate Hahha, but they filed many carts with booty and had the king of Hahha drag one of those carts back to the Hittite capitol.

Yea, fine, but . . . modern Americans will read this and say, is this a joke? Bragging about the conquest of “Hah Ha” ? Is this a stand-up comedy routine? Indeed, something gets lost in the translation.

INTERESTING FACTOID: I am interested in Aspergers Syndrome, since it rings a bell with many of my own life experiences and tendencies. I would say that I have Aspergers in my life, but that Aspergers does NOT define my life. Nonetheless, it is interesting to me that the US Center for Disease Prevention and Control just put out a study showing that there may be more Aspies out there then was previously imagined. Some estimates of the prevalence of Aspergers are put as low as 0.25 in 1000 or 1 in 4000. Aspergers was classified by the NIH Office of Rare Diseases as a rare disease, meaning that under 200,000 people have it (although I disagree that it should be called a “disease”).

However, the latest study based on an evaluation of 307,790 children indicates that on average, 9 out of every 1000 children have some kind of “autism spectrum” condition, one such condition being Aspergers Syndrome. Although only a subset of the full 307,790 children were measured for IQ, the IQ sample indicates that about 39% have IQ’s of over 85. This is probably where the Aspies are, as Aspergers is the form of “autism spectrum” where the child can communicate and develop intellectually without hindrance (the problem regards the more complex forms of social communication and interaction). If Aspies make up about 39% of the spectrum, then the incidence rate for Aspergers would be 3.5 per 1000, or 1 in every 285 people. Let’s round it off to 1 in 300 (a study in Sweden came to the same conclusion). That still means that there are a lot more than 200,000 Aspies in the USA (would be closer to 830,000).

Hmm, 300 people. That could be a crowded airline flight or a supermarket on a Saturday afternoon, or the spectators at a local high-school football game. Next time you’re in such a situation, remember – there’s probably somebody there who is a little bit different. Unless you’re ready to admit, we ALL have something that makes us a bit different. NO ONE is truly “NORMAL”. Would you really want to be absolutely “normal”?