Holy crap.

XKCD Comic number 1106:

For contex see previous posts.

Clarity

I don't exactly know if there is an appropriate place for me to talk about...whatever this is. But a low readership blog seems like it might be a good place for honesty. This place is a rolodex of memory for me in a way, so maybe it's a good place for this:

Every once in a while things are clear. I’m not sure if that’s a statement that’s true to everyone, but it is for me. There are a lot of metaphors for how I feel most of the time. It’s either grown slowly, or it has always been there. but when *it* lifts, the world is so much…clearer I guess?

ADHD is one possibility. Some guy with a lot of Native American drums once diagnosed me. And some lady with bare walls once gave me medicine. I didn’t take it for long enough to know if it worked. It seemed to, near the end, vaguely. But I was on Summer vacation, and the school’s mental health clinic was closed to me at the time. So I ran out. And I guess the fog, if its there at all must have thickened up again.

That’s the problem with deciding if you have a problem like this. *If* I do, it’s been there the whole time. And without putting on metaphorical glasses, the world has always looked like this to me.

Here are a few metaphors for what this feels like:

-A battlefield of ideas where everyone wears the same uniform.
-A spider web, where my thoughts can progress and get caught along the way. The inertia slowing.
-A sandstorm
-A fog
-A whirlwind

The most apt one has always seemed to be a whirlwind. I’m at the center. All the ideas are circling at different speeds, knocking into each other. To focus on one I reach out and grasp at it. It’s moving so sometimes this takes more focus than others. The strength of the wind varies.

And now we come to clarity. Sometimes the wind dies. Dust lifted from the ground along with ideas and memories settle down. And I can organize them. Group them. I can see them. And what’s amazing is I can ignore them too. I can pick one up and just walk around with it, turn it over in my hands. But eventually and sometimes suddenly the wind picks up again.

I don’t know if this is just *life* or if this calm desert hardpan is what everyone else sees. Perhaps my ratios are just off. With more dust storms than most people. Maybe everyone has them, but they’re occasional annoyances.

So, if anyone reads this these days, what does your desert look like? Is it as tumultuous as mine? Or calm most of the time?

Tense.

Ever step up to a ledge, be it the edge of a cliff or the edge of a swimming pool, and feel your body prepare? Not a physical tensing of the muscles, that's what happens *next*. What I'm describing is anticipation I guess, but the raw feeling. It's this transition moment of potential I'm pointing to.

That's what I feel sometimes in my head. It's infuriating sometimes, getting past that ledge. I'll just wait and wait and the revelation won't come. Then, later by some magic what it is will come to light. Usually after I've moved on.

This is similar to another phenomenon I also find frustrating. This one is this sudden onset of a mental pause. It's like I come to a log across my path. And I stop. And I look at it wondering what it is. And I can't get past it. Then I realize it's freaking log and just climb over it.

This happens with simple things like, say, applesause. I'll be stoked about eating some applesause. Freakin awesome delicious applesause. Then I get sidetracked by something else momentarily, like a news story, or a bunny. Then, for all the salt in the sea I can't remember what it is I wanted to do. I'll sit there. Staring in the direction of what I wanted to do. "It's that way." I'll think to myself. "It was....tasty?" Time passes, I have no idea how much, Then, pow, I remember.