This article was just fascinating to me.
“He grows anxious when he has an unexpressed thought,”
When my son was little he struggled with keeping his inner dialogue inner. If he thought something, he had to say it. If he didn’t say it out loud he would become very agitated. If we were at an event where he couldn’t talk continuously, like a school orchestra concert, for example, he would become more and more agitated until he had to scream.
We left a lot of events early.
And once spoken an idea had to be defended forever no matter how ludicrous. If he stated his firm belief in an absurd concept and you dared to criticize that idea, you were calling him a liar. And this was true even after he discovered proof that he was wrong. Once spoken, the idea became a hill to die on, a core belief to defend.
But then, as children do, he grew up.
In this article, John Kennedy describes the president of the United States of America in every way identical to my 7-year-old son. Unable to keep a thought inside and contemplate whether it was true. Unable to change his mind once presented with truth and evidence.
On the one hand, it helps me understand what’s going on with this strange, sad, pathetic man.
On the other hand, it makes me all the more contemptuous that at 80 he has not learned what my son did at 8.