Privileged people who self-medicate deserve no respect. They rarely have the excuse of congenital defects or a disability gained late in life. Their claim to fame is starting with more than most and throwing it away. These people have not the courage or the will to face reality on their own. They would rather delude themselves with their drugs to lessen the pain they cannot bear. It is the acme of cowardice. How fitting, then, that those who have given in to quotidian addiction are the most obsessed with overcoming their addiction? They realize the trap of dependency but gain such knowledge too late, long after they last approached the world with a clear mind.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Practical Obsessions
It can be a great boon if one is able to tap into latent obsessions. As a sufferer of ADHD I know well the procrastination and doubt that comes with perfectionism and discomfort avoidance, but I have always found comfort in silent, uninterrupted meditations on the fixation of my choice. The issue is maintaining practical interests. Save for approximately 1.25 years of my life I have been a non-starter. I was so afraid of the discomfort, so petrified of the possibility that my efforts would reveal my own ineptitude that I simply did not try to succeed. Projects and jobs that involved prolonged thinking and action were aggravating to me. This is merely a symptom of the inability to utilize my mind's natural affinity for order and consistency, obsessed as I am with negative consequences.
That one year was a productive one for me, although it did not attain the perfection I sought. Attuned though I was to the study of English and history I would write far more than was required of me. A simple one-page assignment on Mongols would lengthen to ten or more pages; a creative writing story was overdue a week but rang in at an enriching 18 pages. A biology lab was deemed the opus of my teacher's classes; she recovered a copy and used it as an example for classes to come. But when my interested was not piqued I meandered through the assignment, dismissing the significance of being on the honour roll for the entire year, and not just when it was easy. My spare time was spent transcribing vocabulary words into my private database, an effort I took on without much issue. But after this unremitting focus collapsed I was back where I started. There is no hopeful conclusion here.
That one year was a productive one for me, although it did not attain the perfection I sought. Attuned though I was to the study of English and history I would write far more than was required of me. A simple one-page assignment on Mongols would lengthen to ten or more pages; a creative writing story was overdue a week but rang in at an enriching 18 pages. A biology lab was deemed the opus of my teacher's classes; she recovered a copy and used it as an example for classes to come. But when my interested was not piqued I meandered through the assignment, dismissing the significance of being on the honour roll for the entire year, and not just when it was easy. My spare time was spent transcribing vocabulary words into my private database, an effort I took on without much issue. But after this unremitting focus collapsed I was back where I started. There is no hopeful conclusion here.
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