I have have been delinquent in making this blog exciting in the least, or even very readable by breaking up text with pics and stuff. Now that I know how to add these things the natives call "pictures", this blog may get more readership(I think posting regularly may add a little to this phenomenon of people "reading", this thing that I "write", but lets not read too much into common misconception of a broad reader base like timely delivery or appealing to an audience)

This picture is of me, back three years ago, with some fake and real facial hair.

Orginizing a Titlewave of Ideas

"> More work on my website, and getting great ideas. I have been sitting in the university starbucks writing mind maps and trying to figure out how to orginize my website. The idea that has come to my mind is to write an intro at the beginning of each page describing the main topics that I will be covering in that page. The trick is that within each page I will have tons of links to the other sections of other pages in the site.
It would look like this. As you read the section say on ideas(I am taking liberties assuming you think I am interesting enough to go to my website, and also actually read it instead of just looking at all the cool pictures), I might bring up where the idea came from, like becomming ambidexterous from leonardo davinchi, or how to improve creativity through juggling(link to juggling and theories of creativity).
I think I will end up writing enough material for a book by the time I am done, so it will deffinately have an organic feel to it. To keep navigating it easier, I think I will do a mind map of the whole website with links built in to show one way the flow of the website could go.

Writing Website

Well I have been working on writing a website for about the past two weeks. It is quite a lot more work than I anticipated, but is never the less coming along. I have also scoured my old pictures for memorable poses of myself. I like to take pictures, but almost never take any of myself, for obvious reasons(arm length pics get boring real fast).

My biggest struggle in the content of the website has been how to organize the ideas in a coherent manner. All of my ideas link together, so it is hard to relegate them to one section. I have learned some info on mind maps from my friend Jerome, and these are helping me a great deal. I have also found that writing several introductions for the same topic allows me to get a feel for what the main idea is, and I will end up using the intro's in different sections as segways from topics pages to main pages( this doesn't make sense in words, but will become clear later).

Off to write more content....

How "Groundhogs Day" changed my life

Is there something you want to be able to do, but can't do it yet? Or are there things that you wish you could do a little faster, reading, typing, critical analysis, anything? Then there are those useless talents that everybody wants to have, but never tries, like juggling, throwing cards into a hat? All of these things appeal to me, and I was jealous of ... For having the time to acquire these talents in the movie Groundhogs Day.

well this movie got me thinking, how much time do we have that we don't use? How often do you find yourself waiting at the stop light, or at the doctors office, anywhere where you can't really do something productive, but have time? I say, use that time. Doing what? Improving your ability to learn. Increasing the connection between the left and right sides of your brain. Maybe learn a language, or five. The limits are boundless, but I don't think I have sold you on the benefits of the idea.

Why do these useless talents matter? I recently started to learn how to do several things left handed. One of these is writing left handed, and mirror, which is more natural for the strokes, but not for the brain. And what did I notice about my normal writing? My penmanship has improved drastically. It almost looks like another persons writing. The drawbacks area that it only lasts for several hours at the moment, as I am not proficient at writing left handed yet, so I am developing theories as to why this happens, but anyways. It also, in my opinion, helps tap into the creative part of my brain. The best people at problem solving, have the ability to switch between highly logical and highly creative sides of their brain. Some of this ability is innate, or at least fostered at an early age, but I believe the ability to improve this connection, however weak it may be at the moment, never goes away.

Well, I must be off to class, but I will add more later in the day.

Ok, I am back. So another talent I recently acquired, is speed reading. Now this one is a little tougher than some of them out there, but I think it will probably end up being most benefical. I am very suprised at the reaction I have gotten from this though. Several people have said things like "why would anyone want to read faster? I like reading for fun, not for work, and that seams like work to me." Or "I have heard you lose the enjoyment by doing reading fast." It is a tool. It would be like writing all of this down instead of typing it out. Are there fun aspects to writing as opposed to typing? Sure, I still write, but I also type, there is a place for both. How much you do of each depends on you. I journal in writing and typing. Sure I would like to only use one, but I use each for different purposes.

The other aspect is the time it takes to learn how to do this. Yea, it does take time and practice, but I will gain this back once I am faster at it. And I don't feel compelled to do it all the time, or to always be improving. There is a time for doing what you have always done, and a time to improve. I am also learning to only read what I want, and not feel compelled to read a whole book if I have gained the insight I was looking for, or if I really don't like the authors perspective, or if they are negative, or whatever. It is very liberating for me to not feel this pressure.

I find it interesting to see how stuck in their ways people, and myself, can sometimes be. It is like someone trying to convince me that they enjoy the hunt and peck method of typing, and that they could not imagine the drudgery of having to use qwery, and how they would lose the aesthetic value of typing and searching for the right keys, or maybe the connection they had with the computer when hunting and pecking. Just doesn't make sense to me. But change is a slow process, and I am programming myself to become accustomed to change. So I don't mind peoples apprehension to it, I just want to understand what their misgivings are, so I can help them to overcome it to the degree they are willing to.

One way I am going to try to help people overcome their reluctance to positive change, is a comedy routine at a standup club. I am writing the material for this in between classes and whenever (in my free time, ha ha ha, get it? Ok, so I am very busy, but I still have tons of little moments here and there to expend mental energy in multiple avenues of creativity). We shall see how this goes, if it is well received at all. It will be an experiment at how to get the audience on my side, then speak the truth in love, and still have them accept me enough to believe what I am saying. I'll write about this later. Go out there and try some new stuff, and let me know, ok?

Am I crazy?

No, I am not. But sometimes I wonder how much of my personal experience is similar to other peoples experiences. So I am in this acrylic painting class, and experiencing the joys of color theory, artistic layout, so many new avenues of thoughts, it is inspiring. I then go to work, and suddenly I see art everywhere, I look at the shot glasses and the sweet espresso pouring into them, with the Guinness like separation of creme from the body of the shot, and I see a painting at work. Everywhere I look, I see possibilities and colors converging.

I go to Target, and I am overwhelmed with the colors and inputs. I walk by clothes, feeling the texture of each, I walk by shelves and see the converging lines of perceived vanishing points, with the contrast of colors filling my field of vision. I completely forget what I was there to do, and wallow in sensory input. Sometimes, without purpose, or even a recollection of what was causing this euphoria of sensation.

Ok, so honestly, this does not happen often. And it is an extreme case of the right amount of caffeine, and lack or overabundance of sleep, combined with the right frame of mind, like I was just drawing something, or wanted to draw something, or was daydreaming about drawing something(you get the idea).

I am working on what frame of mind caused this to happen, and how I can foster it in the right circumstances, and push it back in most other cases, but it is interesting in any case. I was driving with my parents about an hour ago, and I thought of a great analogy to what this was, and the adhd experience for me in general.

So you know the movie "A Beautiful Mind" Russell Crow is describing how he was able to overcome skitsophrania, he would not feed the different identities. If he saw a person that he had realized was not really in existence, he did not acknowledge it. He would not put himself in situations that would bring about the delusions.
Now for my experience. I work near a framing company, they frame paintings and the such. Every time I walk by, I notice a new painting or print, and am inspired by the colors, brush work, overall design of the piece, but I keep walking at my normal fast pace. I would love nothing more than to sit down on the sidewalk outside and contemplate the foremost painting for hours. Then each piece would require the due respect I would want to give it now that I have new appreciation for art. But I can't, so I don't even entertain this idea in the slightest. Do I think about the frozen image in my head often throughout the day, you bet. Do I contemplate the design of the foremost painting while I drive, more than you can ever know. But I have learned to focus my mind on what is at hand, and allow it to roam in the fenced in areas of what I am doing. It still goes through the same process at work, but concerning work, how I can improve at work, what I would do if I were a district manager at work, on and on and on it goes.

The trick with focusing my mind, is to look at what I am supposed to be doing from a new perspective. How would a stock holder view my actions of what I am doing? What if they were making a movie of me throwing these cups behind my back as I steam milk. People say I look like tom cruse as I spin wiped creme, and toss the tea shakers.

Who am I? What is identity?

So what if I go through a midlife crisis every month or so. It is good to find out some of these answers, or at least ask them. What makes you, ? It is not what you do, not what you look like, who you hang out with, or even what you did in the past. (I think I wrote about this a while ago, but I am going to be taking it deeper, besides, this is how adhd works, you get the same ideas over and over again, you just take them further each time.) It is what you decide to do right now. What you did in the past will affect how easy it is to make the right decision, but that does not mean you will make the right one. And if you were a "bad" person, you still have the ability to make the right decision, it just might go against your accumulated experience up to that point.

(to let you in on some though processes, I am thinking and deciding how deep to go with this topic. What the hey, lets show you some thought process organization.

Topics I am thinking of covering

The core of consciousness, do we really decide our actions, and to what degree

Free will

divergence between self perception and others perceptions

Can we change who we are, and to what degree?

The influence of other people's perceptions of us and its affects on our identity

So I am sitting in starbucks(ina and Thornydale) using these questions to focus my thought on the topic at hand, and struggling in myself to see which ones relate more to the topic I want to discuss, and which would lead away from it, however relevant they may be. I will go with the last line of questioning, and maybe bring some of the others in as they relate. But in my mind, they are all inter related, in ways that I have not thought through yet. Lets get back to topic, if one does actually exist.

If I am aware that a specific person, call them Bob for fun, believes that I am uncoordinated, and I am aware his perception and belief of this, then I begin to act this way (mind trailing off to Quantum Leap episode that deals with this issue, no, come back mind, ok back for now). Well I am highly coordinated(count'em, juggle 5 balls, ride unicycle, like to swing dance, do magic tricks, manipulations, flourishes with cards, bla bla bla) I trip and am aware of what I did, and glance over to see if Bob noticed. Now I become aware of each instance of a misstep, or all of the normal things that people do, but when accentuated through the perceptual filter of heightened awareness, becomes uncoordinated behavior. I may begin to see myself as this klutzy person, and I start noticing every instance of this new formed identity, I start self fulfilling prophecies and perceptions. I have seen this scenario happen over and over again, someone forms opinion based of perception, I become aware of their perception and act according to it.

Here is a worse one. It is not really what believe, simply what you think they believe, that starts to affect you. This is where trouble happens. But how can you really know what others think about you? Here again multiple ideas come to mind.

I believe that you can never fully understand what someone thinks of you. Communication is imperfect at best, and humans do not have full disclosure with each other using this impaired communication. So, take deep breath and listen intently, we can never fully understand how other people perceive us, or what their opinion of us is. No matter what they say, there are underlying feelings that they will not want to express, or can't (because of impaired communication). Lets put an example on this one. You ask, "do these pants make me look fat?". Whomever you asked, can never go completely into their feelings on this subject, because of social constructs of the way communication should happen, (read don't be too honest, but try to hint at true opinion). What if this pant analyzer wanted to be completely honest, they would have to write a dissertation on their understanding of what fat was, how you fit into some of the categories that they list, and do not fit into others. Then their opinion would get completely lost in the shear volume of information that was trying to be conveyed.

Again, I could go off in thousands of directions with topics in the last few paragraphs, but I will bring it back to a point, a leaf on the twig of the branch on the topic of Identity. What are the implications of never knowing what someone's opinions of us truly are? You can only ever get a broad picture of if they like you, and a small amount of info about the specific topic. (I realize I am on thin ice of understanding, both my understanding, and the limits of simplifying down such a complex topic, with lots of other issues involved, but lets proceed). What are the implications? You decide how much to believe of what someone says. "Yes, those pants make you look fat!". Well, decide for yourself how much of this you want to believe. What is their concept of fat? What positive aspects about the pants are they neglecting to mention, simply to sway your judgment. They can never fully express their feelings and thoughts concerning the subject of your pants, and if they could express it, your understanding of what their whole point in the conversation would be confused at best (what are they, a professor of pants, PhD pants, why do they care so much about the positives and negatives of wearing low rise verses classic look).

And I believe I am approaching this line of understanding, where my point gets lost the deeper I try to explain it. That idea, that the more you try to explain something, the more confusing the point gets, intrigues me, and I think I wrote about it before. Must refine, must focus, must condense to a intelligible level so I can share it with others. Ok so back to the first sentence of this paragraph, I am done. I hope you learned a little, disagreed a little, and try to carry some of these ideas further than I have. Let me know if you do, and I will try to write about the ones I touched on, but didn't want to allow to confuse the topic.

House of Cards

My ability to conform to a normal life, or just keep up with everything that I have going, is all a facade. Normal tasks take effort, mental processing to accomplish, and at some point I will forget do that thinking process, and everything will collapse like a house of cards. This is a genuine fear I have, just one that does not run my life.

I am a financial genius, and completely inept at the same time. I have grandiose plans of how to balance my two checking and two savings accounts(ok so 3 checking if you include the credit union that I have a savings account at). I have read several books on how to limit your spending, how to do a budget, and follow it, pay bills on time, the whole works. I am able to "keep it up" for a period of time, and then it falls apart. I forget to pay a credit cards, my checking account gets overdrafted several times, fees . Thankfully I am now able to fix these, and have minimal damage, thanks to learning how to fail, but I still fail a lot,.... a ton.

This same philosophy carries into my school work also. I am gunk hoe for about the first third of the semester, then my ability to stay up on the work wanes. I can't figure out why, but my drive just dies. I think it has something to do with an inability to see my work contributing to the end results that I am going after.

Now I am an extremely positive person, and happy. I enjoy work, and am pretty darn good at it. But this fear applies there too. What if several aspects that I am in charge of suddenly collapse, or I forget about them. Individual instances happen all the time. I don't allow my mind to wander at work, but this is sometimes how I remember to do things I didn't do the minuet I saw them. I notice an inordinate amount of things I could be doing at any moment, and am torn between which one has a higher priority, and which will have lasting benefit. I try to do the urgent, and the important tasks that are not urgent, as much as possible.

It is like, if anyone actually saw how many times I forget to do something, and then remember later and do it in the nick of time, they wouldn't trust me with anything. I am waiting to see if someone notices this, or if I have a high error rate on any given day, and someone sees how I really am.

After reading the above section, you might wonder how I sleep, or live with myself. No fear, there are positives. Many I might add.

For every time I am worried about what I am doing, and if it is the right thing to do, I discover a better way to do something, or a new insight about an old problem. I am always analyzing what I do and if it is efficient, so I find ways of being highly efficient. All of these ideas concerning my circumstance provide me with a very vivid memory, and ability to see where a system was breaking down, and usually how to fix it.

It is my belief that my strengths overshadow my weaknesses that helps me to see the light of day, and enjoy it. I am also able to put myself in perspective. For different people, there are different roles that they would fit into well, and ones that do not fit them at all. Can you imagine Einstein working as an accountant, daydreaming of relativity and science when he was supposed to be doing "work". Many great people in history were that way because they found where their talents and abilities applied, not how to improve their weaknesses so they weren't as bad. Sometimes their weaknesses were blaring, they just rarely had to encounter circumstances that would demand their use of the weakness.

So as you may have guessed, that is what I am trying to do, find where I fit, and what my strengths are. How can I use them to my advantage, and what "job" or work would best suit those strengths. We shall see, we shall see.