Word of the Week #421:

Primed

I’m writing again!

Yey! Feels so good…

For so long, I kept feeling like the flow of my internal energy was blocked somewhere. Now, finally, it feels open and clear and free.

I feel open and clear and free.

Well, I do have adult responsibilities now, the likes of which were a decade away when I started writing, well, a decade ago. I can no longer just vanish from the real world and spend entire months inside my own worlds, but at least I have had the chance to start building a new world.

I can feel it calling to me.

Let’s see how I can manage my time and pay appropriate attention to everything that I need to get done. I could not have done this a decade ago, but today, it is a lot less daunting.

Today, I am the right man for the job.

Word of the Week #417:

Praxis

So, I have been such a good boy, lately.

Almost every single day, I’ve slept around 11:30 and woken up around 6:30. Consistent. Like clockwork.

And yes, those are PM and AM respectively. I wouldn’t be surprised if people who’ve known me for any amount of time would have had that question.

Turns out, sleeping well and in a regular schedule can really help set a lot of things right. Who knew!

Well, apart from my parents, every doctor, every friend, every girl I’ve ever dated…

But hey, now I know, and isn’t that the best source of any and all knowledge?

So, ever since I got back on this track—it must have been like 3 weeks now—I have been feeling so much better in every regard!

I’m eating better, drinking water more consistently and organically, working more efficient, running faster and farther, lifting heavier, recovering faster… Is there anything else I even do?

I literally do not remember having ever felt better.

Does a runner’s high last hours? I haven’t read about it, but I wouldn’t expect so.

Maybe I’m just happy…

Is it odd how that feels almost unfamiliar?

Well, we’re here now, and it is good.

Word of the Week #416:

Account

One of the weirdest things of living with ADHD or neurodivergence or mental illness is that it affects so much of who we are that we may be tempted to relinquish a lot of responsibility regarding our actions and patterns of behaviour.

I’m sure we have all done this as well as observed this in others, right?

“Of course my sleep pattern is erratic. I have ADHD.”

“Of course I cancelled on you at the last minute. I am depressed.”

“Of course I annoy you all the time. I’m a Gemini.”

Okay, the last one may have been a little more bogus than the others… though unfortunately not less common.

And yes, the first one is definitely one I can relate to. And there have actually been studies linking ADHD to erratic sleep patterns, and erratic patterns in most aspects of our lives.

So, what does this mean? Does ADHD warrant erratic behaviour? If this is I am wired on a fundamental level, why do I need to fight it?

Well, as it would turn out, there is a good reason to…

ADHD doesn’t suddenly make my eyes immune to hours and hours of continuous strain that piled up over the decades.

ADHD doesn’t make my limbs immune to the wear and tear caused by my random bouts of hyperactivity.

ADHD doesn’t make my pancreas immune to cycles of starving and overeating.

ADHD doesn’t separate my actions from their consequences.

We do have certain inclinations, and many of them are hardwired within us. That is true. However, the body does keep a record. And as I approach an age where more and more of these bills start coming due, the more wary I become.

It’s not the easiest, but I have found some ways to help me cope. Let’s see how it goes.

Word of the Week #415:

Heed

You know, I haven’t quite been feeling like myself over the past week or less.

The breaking of the streak last week (yes, I still want to cry just thinking about it) was just another of the obvious symptoms.

I thought long and hard about what was going wrong, and while I had some theories, I could not know for certain. Then, as it often does, an answer showed up in a project assigned to me this week. It posited that when artists do not pursue art, they tend to lose themselves.

Since I do not want to hold myself at that high a standard, I have another way to interpret that. When people with ADHD do not find something that adequately engages them, they tend to lose themselves.

In my normal day-to-day life, I have been finding myself put far too often in situations that need me to me responsible and sane. And, yes, I am good at that. But that will never be all I am. It mustn’t.

I need an outlet for all the crazy inside me! I needs to release this energy into something safe, at the very least. But sometimes in my life, those outlets do not appear as readily as I would like. Certainly not as readily as they once did.

I cannot be as reckless as I once was with sports or gym. I can feel the repercussions through the depths of my bones and joints, and I can no longer ignore them.

Even video games are hampered by my recent injury.

Reading or watching things for pleasure does give that—pleasure. However, excitement is a different beast. It won’t be summoned by something quite this passive.

Even my writing has become methodical and structured over the years of practice and observation. In the process, though, I wonder if I am losing the spontaneity that often drives good, true art.

Focusing on the craft for so long that I lose sight of my art is certainly not what I sought when I embarked on this journey.

I haven’t quite found the answer just yet.

I haven’t quite found my path.

What I do know is that I did feel like I was back to myself earlier today, and that feeling has persisted over the course of today.

Perhaps it could be the beginning of the next streak that may come to define this new phase of my simultaneously ever-changing and yet somehow immutable life.

Word of the Week #414:

Folly

After 413 weeks, my streak is finally broken. I finally missed a Tuesday night post.

I’ll be honest, I am devastated.

Hah… It has been an odd week, and I’ve had an odd day.

Argh! I am too frustrated to form coherent thoughts. Let me just go sulk for a few more hours.

Word of the Week #413:

Mountebank

So I have talked in the past about adaptations, particularly touching on Neflix’s live action adaptations of anime series.

Now, Netflix’s Death Note was atrocious. That’s undeniable.

But more recently, some Netflix adaptations have been relatively palatable.

By all accounts, the One Piece show was good, and over the past week, we got the much awaited Avatar live action show.

Personally, I did not like the show. It is by no means a disaster, but they are just changing WAY too much for my taste. And these are not just cosmetic changes; key plot points and characters traits which truly worked in the original and are by no means dated just yet have been warped.

And yes, there is an argument to be made—as an old friend did make—that these remakes are making the franchises accessible to a new batch of fans who grow up generally disinclined towards anime but all the while listening to people like me badgering them to try these series. This can be a softer, safer way for them to enter the fandoms.

In many ways, it is similar to how so many of us were introduced to pizzas and tacos through Pizza Hut and Taco Bell respectively.

Now, as much as I may appreciate these fast food brands for that, it is important to remember that there is more to pizzas than Pizza Hut. I hope we are not creating a community that thinks otherwise.

Word of the Week #412:

Ligature

In continuation to what I was talking about last week, one thing worth noting is that when I started writing ten years ago (yes, it’s been that long), writing felt like a need. I needed to start writing and create art and explore and cultivate the artistic and creative aspects of my psyche.

Now, as a 30-year-old guy with a lot more strings on me, I want to write. I want to keep writing.

I certainly no longer feel that insane urge I used to that if I don’t write, I will either go insane and explode or just wither away and die.

I have a life now—or at least some semblance of one—that I have built with my own choices and in my own way. I want to keep living it.

At 20, there were no strings. I could jump and fly and not care about what happened beneath my lofty imaginings. The years past have grounded me, and I have somehow come to appreciate the world around me. Not fully, perhaps, but by inches, at least.

I want to write. I still believe it is a big part of who I am—and more importantly of who I could be. But it is certainly not all I am. Not anymore.

Maybe I’m not going to be The Writer Guy. Maybe I’ll just be a guy who writes.

Let’s see how things go.

Word of the Week #411:

Resurge

Over the past few weeks, an old but still too familiar feeling has been rising through my body.

I didn’t expect to feel this way. I thought I had seen the futility in my desire and had outgrown my childhood—and decidedly childish—dream, but apparently not. I guess we are who we are and want what we want, right?

Over time, I have grown hesitant to say these four words. There were days—or months or even years—when it no longer felt true, as life kept taking me further and further away from that truth.

But that’s what it is, after all—the truth. And I like when it is thrown into my face as the unmissable reminder that I do tend to need.

Let me say it once again.

I am a writer.

I want to write again.

What’s the worst that could happen, right?

Let’s go!

Word of the Week #410:

Mask

One of the odder things about me—which I have only recently realised—is that I have somehow gotten pretty good at things that do not come naturally to me.

Things like communication (especially with people I don’t already love) or managing an array of interrelated tasks has never been easy for me. I would love to just talk to that one person all day every day. I would love to just do that one thing all day every day.

Repetition is easy for me. Consistency is easy. Regulation and moderation, not so much.

But what needs to be done needs to be done, right? As adults, we don’t always have a choice regarding what is needed of us, right?

Does that mean I really should learn how to drive a car already? Yeesh…

And, yes, I have gotten better at some of these things, but they still do feel uncomfortable and unnatural. I do feel like I am having to go out of my way to get these things done at times.

I wonder when that will change for me. I wonder if it will.

For now, we just keep moving forward.

Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Charge of the Light Brigade

Word of the Week #409:

Eudaimonia

You know, I hate utilitarianism. Always have, always will.

Every time in the past I’ve had a discussion with someone about utilitarianism, I have just had a strangely distasteful feeling in my head, but I hadn’t fully unraveled it till I read something while working on an anthropology project: Human behaviour is DEFINED BY non-utilitarian behaviour!

Art, symbolism, rituals, aesthetics, personal adornments—these are the things that define humans and have contributed immensely to the continuation of human evolution and the establishment of human civilisation.

We are defined by our ability to be driven by complex feelings, beyond the fundament utilitarian instincts of “survive and breed”.

Utilitarian behaviour may work well for amoebae… They don’t need to fall in love or create art or seek individual attainment…

For humans, feelings are good.

Keep doing what make you feel good about yourself. You will probably be fine.