 
Welcome to my website!
I'm Barb Rentenbach, author of Synergy.
About the Author
I am Barb Rentenbach, and my other defining label is autism—the severe kind, if I may be so bold. For decades, I bumped around ignorantly in this vexatious arcade of blaring impersonal voices, erratic assaults of color and light, indefinable loneliness, and relentless confusion. Eventually, I let down my bulwark and discovered clarity, purpose, meaning, confidence, independence, and friendship.
Today, I am at peace and I am happy and productive. The paths to that state of being were filled with considerable pain, intense anger, frustration, and lots of trial and error. And that is not the half of what my parents went through.
My unique design gives me receptive language, but expressive language is primarily nonsensical. I say "primarily nonsensical" because every now and then, when I blurt out one of my inexorable stock phrases—like, "You are not going," "Fire truck," "It's raining," "You can't go to the pool," "Just a minute," "Pig," "Oh, do not go in the mail truck," "She is not here," "No ma'am," "Nice," "Oh, my God," "the ballgame," "I am mad," "It's Dad's car," or "It's mine, it's mine"—it is sometimes relevant. It is rather like a broken watch being accurate twice a day.
Furthermore, my facial expressions do not always match my emotions. I can walk and move about fairly well, but my fine motor skills are limited and my initiation impulse is extremely weak, so assistance is needed in almost every life sphere (e.g., safety, health maintenance, communication, and personal hygiene). Until just a couple of years ago, my confusion, frustration, isolation, and anger often erupted without warning, putting any handy "normal" or myself in real danger of being kicked, bitten, hit, grabbed, and pinched. Plus, when I am feeling overwhelmed, I have this expensive and stupid habit of breaking my own glasses. Pricey, "indestructible" frames prove no match for old Barb.
About my latest book, Synergy
A designed beauty of synergy is that it serves only to add, never subtract. By definition, it means that the combined interaction of parts creates an effect greater than the sum of the parts. Individuals are the parts. I am an odd little part.
I don't look normal. I appear to be quite messed up and a prime candidate for nothing but pity and patronization with a sprinkling of repulsion and fear. I am disguised as a poor thinker.
I am a poster child for synergy. I am designed to aid in making evident the implicit need for a group effort in order to yield maximum returns.
Synergy is the byproduct of giving. Without synergistic support from normals—say, if I were simply warehoused—I would end up merely consuming resources. With a little help—OK, a lot of help from connected normals—I may add to our collective body of knowledge, perspectives, and insights that have receded from the working memory of many.
It is in our best interest to remember that we are all the same. People are flecks of God. Each God fragment dispersed through space/time has a slightly different shape. One shape is not superior to another. All are necessary to complete the perfect, infinite, God puzzle. To be proud that one "tolerates" diversity is ludicrous. The whole system is the sum of its parts. Be your part. Connect with other parts and the God puzzle is revealed.
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0poy1xm7u9Y&feature=youtube_gdata Yahoo: http://video.yahoo.com/watch/7175859/18691251 MetaCafe: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4323070/ DailyMotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/21208247 Blip.tv:
http://www.blip.tv/file/3362696 Videos of Books:
http://www.videosofbooks.com/video-viewing-room/2010/3/18/synergy-by-barb-rentenbach.html
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