""Animals don't care if you can't have small talk about the weather," she says. "There's just not as much anxiety as there is with human interactions, so you can really connect.""

I'm finding myself more and more of a pet lover which is to be expected since I work at a pet store.... but there are some things going on in my head that's kind of questioning some things. I watch people come in to the store and spend lots of money on their pets.... heck, I do it myself.... Sometimes I wonder if Lisa is spoiled.... and at the same time, I wonder if Lisa is the replacement for something that I don't have in the human world....

I see how much the pet industry has grown and how much of a business it is.... and it is an honorable business -- at least as long as your respectable in the caring of the animals rather than a pure focus of making money. At the same time, there is no secret that our world is in a moral decay.... hurting people left and right.... broken friendships and relationships.... Maybe this explains the stereo typical "cat lady" who is a single woman who has no one around there except lots of cats....

The quote above is from an article in Psychology Today about Asperger's. It's basically a form of autism but I think what is really interesting is that people with Asperger's drift away from many "normal" scenarios simply because no one understands them and they fear being mocked -- often times, it's a learned response from people actually mocking the person. The thing that I find most interesting about Asperger's is that a lot of the symptoms paint a vivid picture of things that I think everyone is experiencing... and, at the same time, I recognize a lot of symptoms in my own brain that I think may be things that most people don't portray. Interestingly enough, many symptoms bleed into the ADHD classification.

When God created man, He decided that man needed a suitable helper.... God created the need for friendships and He made us emotional beings who long for and need interaction with others. In today's world, we keep taking more and more focus off of people and putting it on things that really will not matter that much.... ultimately, we even take the focus off of ourselves and, before you know it, we are all caught up in how much money we're making or raising and how well we have done or how well our companies have done. Even those who make or raise money to help others seem to lose sight of who they are working for....

I think it's quite interesting that before God created woman, he brought all of the other species before Adam and found that none of them were suitable for him.... This means that the dogs, cats, birds, fish, etc that God brought before Adam do not Biblically meet our needs as companions. They *ARE* great companions and there is a lot of research that shows that pets are healthy to have.... but the important thing is that we do not REPLACE human interaction with our pets.

.... It kind of makes me wonder if God has me in a pet store because it's a great collaboration of people who need help -- and people that I can connect with?

Article Referenced: The Girl With a Boys Brain - Psychology Today
http://www.psychologytoday.com/rss/pto-20061103-000002.html