My Revelation

Today I have had the most amazing revelation. Approximately two months ago I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, not Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, just ADD minus the hyper. I rather liked the idea, it made sense. I definitely had the "symptoms", looking back on my childhood it made sense, and it gave me the ability to get drugs that would hopefully help me focus and get work done so I could pass my classes.

In order for this whole thing to be truly understood one must know my past, which will involve some serious self-disclosure and some sharing of stuff that I don't necessarily share with most people, but I feel really liberated right now, so what the heck. I've never fit in in school, when I first started school in grade 2 I remember hanging out with some guys one time, but I don't remember having any friends and I do remember spending a lot of time alone, I did have some friends from the neighbourhood. I also remember spending most of my time daydreaming, and I believe that was the start of ten consecutive years of teachers telling my parents how I always daydreamed, never paid attention, was disruptive, sang in class, clearly not living up to my potential.

Before the school year ended my family moved from abbostford to live in kelowna, again I didn't fit in in school, I didn't make any friends, although the next door neighbour befriended me. That year I discovered books as an escape, coupled with my active imagination they added fuel to my daydreaming adventures. Again, before the school year ended my family moved to surrey and I where I attended hell on earth, Surrey Christian. There I not only didn't fit in, I was pushed out, ostracized by my peers, I didn't have any friends. I probably was too wierd, I'd randomly start singing in class, I said wierd things at odd moments, I didn't seem to care at all what people thought of me, I don't think I did. After a couple years their I switched schools to go to Pacific Academy in grade 6. I had reached puberty a little earlier and realized I did want people to like me, and I did care what people thought, especially girls. I thought PA would be a fresh start. Man was I wrong, again I didn't fit in, again I couldn't make friends, and again I underperformed in classes.

Thankfully I made friends with a guy from church who also went there, ah Travis McGee, how I miss thee and your carefree ways. So, grade 7 I tried to force my way into his group, they tried to push me away, by the end of grade 8 I finally felt I was part of a social group. Unfortunately, by this time my self-esteem and self-confidence have been effectively flushed down the toilet, and I still get the feeling that people generally think I'm wierd and avoid contact with me. Grade 10 came around, I developed this horrible infatuation with this girl I thought was way out of my league (try horribly wrong for me, as in below me, not above me), I sunk into a deep depression and basically was among the living dead for a year. Thanks to apathy I was able to live and some times live well for grade 11 and the beginning of grade 12, but then I sunk into depression again. THis lasted until the end of my first year in university, when I realized I needed to get help, so I went to counselling and eventually was put on antidepressants. I went off them and for six months was fine and then sunk into another episode of depression in the beginning of fall 2004. The main reason for these last two episodes was my general failure to live up to my own standards, my inability to complete assignments to the best of my ability as well as on time. I felt I had wasted 20 years of my life just getting by, being lazy, and escaping from my responsibilities.

Well, I got help again, and on one of my visits to get my medication refilled, I told my doctor how despite the medication helping with pretty much everything, my ability to focus and concentrate didn't improve, my doctor then raised the question of ADD, eventually he did an analysis he decided that I did most likely have ADD and we switched drugs to something that would hopefully combat both the depression and the ADD.

Flash forward a couple months and my life story later and I'm supposed to be writing a paper on ADD. Despite concluding I had ADD months ago I never went out and acutally researched it like I normally do with everything else involving me. So, I'm sitting down reading through some of the books I pick up and I'm answering yes to all the descriptors and warning signs, and I'm reading what it looks like and it sounds like my life story. And one book imparticular looks at it in a different way, not as a disorder or abnormality but more like a brain characteristic, almost like a racial distinction, "he's black, I'm white". What makes it seem like an abnormality is the fact that we live in a world dominated, run and organized by people who's brains are wired completely differently. We tend to be more creative, are thinking tends not to run linerally (I don't know if that's a word but I think it works), we have a constant need for stimulation, and we do tend to be rather intuitive and bright. These aren't all negative and if the world was a little less rigid and it was okay to be a little late sometimes (or always in my case) and forgetful, and being creative and thinking outside of the box were things our society actually lauded (it supposedly does, but not really, only when it can be seen to be useful to the people in the small minded ways of certain non-ADD people). Of course I am talking about adults not the stereotypical idea of the kid with ADD who's a typical trouble child who's bouncing off the walls and being a brat.

Anyways, having your life make sense is nice. And its kind of funny that I really should have been writing my paper but I write this book instead. Well, I needed to get it out. Even if I will now be stigmatized as the wierd, creepy, depressed, ADD guy with no friends.

Me and me so

How do you approach someone you don't know. I've become so carefree and spontaneous but I still can't approach a girl I don't know to ask her out. I've stopped thinking about other things, but when it comes to approaching women I over think everything. A beautiul blue eyed, brown haired girl has caught my interest, but she's just another girl in class, how do approach a girl without any previous contact. Well, besides the sex. She was the first person I had sex with today in class, which meant she came and linked arms with me and I made jokes and she smiled and laughed. Psychology's fun. Ah whatever, I'll just try and sit beside her next class.

I'm a twisted pretzel

I wish I was in a cartoon soap opera
it would be soft but exciting
it would never be real drama and because of the cartoon element there would be a happy ending ever half hour and because of the soap opera part everybody would be attractive
right now my life is tiring but boring, conflicts are always messy and don't necessarily end happily, I want to be able to laugh about getting an anvil dropped on me and makeout with the hot secretary of my brothers wife all in an hour
too bad dreams don't come true

Crying for tears

Displaced emotions splashing over impounded thoughts. I'm screaming teardrop memories, I just want to let it out. I hate my social conditioning, I'm going to die young because of it. Watching those who suffered get the gift of feeling. I lie on the couch waves of symphonic emotion washing over me, but the fountains give forth nothing. The wells are dry. All I want to do is cry.

Wow that almost came out like poetry and all it is is random thoughts on how I wish I could cry. I have honestly come to a point where I will put on music that carries strong tear bringing emotions with it and I try to force it. At the end of movies with sad endings, I sit in the dark and try to strengthen the brief flash of intense emotion that spread over me in that short moment of sad, or joyous revelation. But I can't. The only times I think I could probably I cry, I really don't wont to for fear of embarresment, or the need to keep a strong face. The only times I have cried have been in moments of intense and prolonged frustration, where all my barriers are broken to the point of nonexistence, and then the tears are tripped off by some sad or strong emotional response.

The reason I want to cry is the incredible feeling of release that comes afterwords, there's this feeling of peace. It's one of the most enjoyable feelings out there, as long as your not embarrased by the red puffy eyes, it can be great just to enjoy that feeling of release. The pent up rage, fear, sadness, dissapointment, frustration finally being release. I think guys have been socially conditioned to bottle themselves up for fear of being seen as weak. Guys have to be strong at all points. Now of course Im not saying guys should start balling their eyes out at all moments, and I do think some women need to perform some emotional restraint, there is a point where it gets pathetic. But, I think guys have taken it to an unhealthy extreme where we just can't cry unless under some extreme emotional duress, and when we do cry its because a little bit of something has leaked past the floodgates, we never just let it out. Again, I'm not talking about wailing or any moaning, just outpouring of tears.

Of course for this to be effective and a positive experience, one must have somebody close and understanding to be there to hold on to. To finish letting it all out and then to go and give somebody a strong hug and just hold on to them for dear life, it is the most peaceful experience, and honestly I would love it if I could somehow fake it. Some sort of emotional masturbation. Now of course this sounds pathetic, but I think that is because of our social conditioning. What is truly pathetic about it? I think it can be very healthy, and I think its why women are far less prone to violence and live longer lives. We bottle up our emotions and then burst out in anger, which is socially acceptable for men, but we end up with a weakend heart, immune system, etc, whatever kills us.

Of course, after all this I still can't cry and it makes me tired.

Something in the distance

I'm slowly walking through some sort of white, empty space with a strange, low buzzing that permeates every everything in this empty universe. I think I'm coming to understand the nothingness. It is everything important in the world, it is everything of meaning, and guess what it amounts to nothing. I see little dots in the distant and I run, hoping to connect with something that's more than nothing. I see faces and they all look like me, walking slowly, humming along with the buzzing. I want to reach out and touch them, but I fear they'll melt in with the white. I love everyone of them, they're different than the rest of everything. They have become everything.

I try to talk to them, but we have nothing to talk about but ourselves, it seems we only know of one thing. It doesn't matter really, we just add to the buzz, it's the connection, the electricity that passes between our eyes. Blue sparks leak out of the side of our faces like tears streaming into the cream. We're still afraid to touch. How could we increase the connection through interlocking fingers, caresses and brushing lips. We might shatter the world as we know it. But, the forces of gravity and electrical magnetism rush us together.

We collide. I'm about to explode, an electrical bomb sending shockwaves and something besides buzzing. Everything collapses and starts to rebuild itself. We start to give meaning and color. We are no longer surrounded by emptiness, but our surroundings no longer mean anything, now that we have given them meaning. There are only two things of importance, us and her.

Ignore this

I just found out I probably failed two of my classes, possibly three. I knew it was possible, I got one, two and two and a hlf month extensions on the work from four courses, but those deadlines passed and I only completed one couse, and did a little bit of work for the other three. That's around four thousand dollars worth of courses down the drain. These are of couse some of my most hated courses, but that's no excuse, I just have some sort of mental block that keeps me from having any motivation to get this stuff done. I just want it to magically dissapear. I'm now midway through another 15 semster hour semester, working 20 to 30 hours a weak, I don't have the time to do this stuff. Of course, that's not really true, I've wasted hundreds of hours between when I should have done the work and now.

Right now I feel a bit of panic and resignation, I don't want to deal with this right now. However, I've told my parents who contributed most of the money required to take these classes, that I finished all my work months ago. I didn't deal with this long ago because I din't want to, it was too stressful and I didn't want it to drag me down. Now I have to face it and its a much more stressful situation that's much more likely to drag me down. I don't even know where to begin, what to do. I should try and get work down and contact the appropriate people to see if I can get an additional, not to mention a rediculous, amount of grace. However, I'm so far from being done all the work. I should cut my losses and forget about a class or two, but then I have to dissapoint my parents. They'll probably refuse to help me next semester, make me come back to live with them in a country I've managed to avoid for twenty years, away from my freinds and real women.

I guess I just have to tell myself that everything will be alright in the end. It's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. But it might be that thinking that got me in this here in the first place. At this moment it is a big deal and I can't keep doing whatever it is I'm doing. Sure I've got some excuses, but I think they gave out a while ago, and they don't give me an excuse for not trying.

I don't know.

Time and speeding lines of color.

Wow, a second post, this is a personal record. Now what does one write for a second post.

I don't really feel real right now, a minor character in someone else's dream. Although, I think its a good dream. When I woke up this morning only to shut my eyes again I saw the flashing of shapes. Bars of color twisting and fading in complex patterns. This isn't a new experience except its normally blobs of color and its moves a lot slower, this was at a crazy speed. At the same time I felt like I could have floated out of my bed I was so light.

Right now, it seems as if time is meaningless, the world is moving at is normal languid pace only because I want it to, but at the barriers of my mind time wants to take control and move at whichever pace it pleases. At the moment that speed is so fast I would explode if I allowed time to move at such a speed.

It's amazing how little man knows about so many things, yet we pretend as if we understand so much. It's as if we would crumble into piles of dust if we don't know everything. We have such a skeletal understanding of the brain and the workings of the mind, we have yet to gain a firm grasp on dreams and I bet I would get a very minimal and theoretical explanation of the lines of color.

It's funny, because I'm one of those people, who despite knowing I know very little, likes to pretend he knows everything. I do know more useless facts than most people and I like to have an opinion on everything, but there's still so little I truly know or understand.

Whatever, I don't know. I guess I'll just shut my eyes and return to the flashing bars of colors in my mind.

Breaking the Bottle

Here I stand, embarking on what will hopefully be a journey that lasts longer than this sentence. I have brought my bottle of some sort of cheap, warm alcoholic beverage to break over this vessle. Similiar ideas of posting my intellectual puke, as well as putting up some sort of website have all failed miserably. I have a horrible fear of commitment of which things like these can be. As well, I have the memory of a gold fish. Things seemed doomed, but then one might look at a young child and while watching the news wonder how something so innocent seeming could ever make it in this man made, God forsaken hell. But I don't watch TV and I'm not around many young children so its all good.

Life can take us in strange directions, sometimes seemingly far of course and into storms that so easily could have beeen navigated around, in hind sight at least. Yet no matter where we are taken and where we go, it is all part of the journey that is our life.

Wow, will you look at the pretty bullshat. Good intentions are a wonderful thing aren't they, let's see where this journey takes us, shall we.