And God created man unto his image and likeness.
We continue to do so. If our own creations veer from our likeness, we call them retarded, stupid, maladjusted, or just ungrateful brats who do not appreciate all that we have done for them. Just look around. The streets are full of homeless kids with pierced ears, noses, eyebrows and probably brains. They are the vagabonds, looking for love in a beer-bottle, a needle, a reefer, or any other quick fix. We, the parents, have created their environment. We, the parents, repudiate any responsibility for their actions. Just as they do ­ the squeegee kids.
They are different. They do not conform.
They are not in our image and likeness.

If Einstein had spawned you or me, the illustrious entourage of egg-heads would probably regard our actions and mental ability as dismal. Retarded. I have a friend who's child is much less retarded in relations to him than we are in relation to Einstein, yet the doleful father suffers because he regards his progeny as not "normal". Little does he know that "normal" means average, uninteresting, dull, one of the masses. By wanting your child to be normal you sentence him/her to mediocrity.

Xenophobia ­ the fear of the different, of that which is strange to us.
Ultimately, the fear of the unknown.

Being different from us is not limited to the extraterrestrials landing their bits of crockery in our backyards. Xenophobia is alive and well in the hearts of frustrated fathers and mothers whose children dare to be, to have been born, different. No doubt we think ourselves so perfect that any deviation from our mould, our paradigm, we regard with alarm, disdain, often disgust.
Strangely enough, only deviations, or what the scientists call mutations, have assured our evolution. And what is more, the basis for our animosity towards that which is different has a purely genetic background. For our species to survive, our genes must have spurned all other genes for millions of years. If we limit ourselves to such a mindset, then we, guided by our genes, will continue to do so. If we can rise above such a primitive level then we can extend what Carl Sagan calls "the identification horizon" not only to other species but also to the whole world.
Why can't everyone be like us? We ask. Aren't we good enough?
Certainly not if we are xenophobic. For whatever reason.

In my book VISUALIZATION, I have listed a number of unlikely candidates for being recognized as retarded, together with their apparent deficiencies: "Albert Einstein and the renown author Virginia Wolf were unable to speak until they were three years old. As a child, the sculptor Auguste Rodin was so inept at reading and math that his parents and teachers discouraged him even from his passion for art. The multimillionaires of the entertainment industry, Tom Cruise, Cher, Whoopi Goldberg and Henry Winkler are dyslexic (unable to grasp the meaning of that which is read). So had been Leonardo da Vinci and Winston Churchill. Louis Pasteur had problems with math while George Washington couldn't spell." I can only repeat that the problems these people faced were theirs to overcome. And they have been.
The first paintings of the impressionists had been regarded by the connoisseurs as "retarded", and bought for pittance by the backward dilettanti from Russia. The Russian ignoramuses are now millionaires, western connoisseurs ­ dead and forgotten. The rest is history. Or evolution.
But there is also devolution. The physical universe suffers from a deadly disease called entropy. We can succumb to it and cooperate with the elimination of that which is different, or we can rise above it and rejoice in our abundant diversity.

Different is not bad, certainly not abnormal, but, all too often, super-normal. The absence of the average-gene in a son or a daughter is often compensated by a unique, extraordinary talent. It may be a capacity to paint or sculpt in a manner heretofore unknown. It may be a new resonance in musical structures, new approach to other art-forms; it may be an ability to love, to spread cheer and smile in areas where "normal" people would be hard-pressed to find a ray of hope. It may take a long while to discover their unique gift. But the moral is simple. Do not judge, and particularly pre-judge. He who is different from us is not worse. He or she might well be better. Perhaps a mutant. A genius? Only time will tell.
I know of a world chess champion that could not tie his shoelaces.
Was he sub-normal?
To my knowledge no child prodigy ever survived our educational system. Oscar Wild said that he never allowed his schooling to interfere with his education.

Yet, we all remain xenophobic. To a degree.
The clever among us fear abject stupidity, the rich fear the poor, the poor ­ the rich. God forbid our daughter deemed to marry someone of a different skin hue. Perversely, the opposites invariably attract each other, simply because the dualistic reality demands it of the opposites. An electron is attracted to a proton ­ as mentioned before, the rest is history.

We are not equipped to judge our children. We can only attempt to help them as best we can. What if they cannot cope in school? Just how many geniuses have our educational systems produced? On the other hand, how many successful graduates have swollen the ranks of crooks, murderers, dishonest politicians, greedy lawyers or perverts masquerading under some disguise? The children who are "different" will never be any of these. They are and will remain the unique, precious gifts reaching out from the divine into our midst.
It is we who are retarded by wanting to bring all to a common denominator.
Neither we nor our children are limited to our bodies, even minds. We are spiritual entities experimenting with different modes of being. The sooner we accept this truth the sooner we shall free ourselves from our genetic psychosis, from xenophobia. And we shall allow our children to develop their own image and likeness. To be themselves.
And then, within the abundant ocean of mediocrity, let us hope, none of them shall ever become normal.