This is a hard subject, because - well, it's personal for me,
because I've always had attention problems - and only recently
truly REALIZED that I have ADHD. *I always knew it.. but when I
read something about Hyperfocus as a weird kind of side effect a
lot of ADHD folks have, where one 'thing' gets EXCLUSIVE
attention and it leads to a kind of Euphoria feeling... that's
when I knew I had it 'cause everything else fit already. So now,
I have to learn about attention - not from a "how to cope with
ADHD' website but by plunging into the depths of what current
science has to offer. The funny thing about this: In my readings
and trainings to become a monk, I learned a LOT about Attention,
because meditation / prayer requires focus and attention and
dealing with distracting thoughts. So this is a subject I'm very
familiar with from the Meditation/prayer techniques of the
ancient monks who lived in the caves. My deepest inspiration was
the Philokalia, which is basically about hesychasm
("quietness"), - and is very easy to read and gives boatloads
and boatloads of advice on simply: How to Pay attention (be
attentive) - because their whole prayer lives are dedicated to
that task - and these people would spend LIFETIMES mastering it.
The surprise to me is that there is SO LITTLE that Science has
done in investigating this so far: This barrier between your
inner self and your outerself. *I mean, there's psychology
techniques - and a lot of techniques which help people with
alcoholism and drug abuse, etc - but many of these techniques
are practical and not not quite so scientific in basis. *They
WORK though - that's the thing - they WORK... but the "What
really happens in the brain?" part - scientific community has a
long way to go to catch up. So, I guess what I'm working towards
is this: An ACCURATE, Practical Guide on how to be aware and
live, be able to be absorbed in the moment and yet responsive to
new stimuli that come at you, either from the inside or outside.
*Getting things done, sorting out your thoughts (what's
important, what isn;t), how to make quick decisions that are
correct... How to edit what you say before you say it... and
about a hundred other potentially impossible things. But *mostly
iIt's in the end, a Thought Collector. I've been working on a
Thought Collector on and off since I was a teenager. *A thread
that's been running through my life. *And... realizing that the
lifespan of these TYPES of thoughts that I've been trying to
capture are between 15-20 seconds in duration - MAYBE 30... it
helps explain why it has been SO HARD for me to catch them, when
I live in a chaotic noisy environment. I've been chasing after
"notions" / "thoughts" that are fleeting, quick, don't hang
around long at all... and I feel a sense of loneliness and
emptiness when they're gone, irretrievable... and happiness when
I capture them. Butterflies of the mind. Wow... You guys are
helping me flesh out my thoughts right now. *I think... all this
time... I needed an audience who likes me and is interested in
my rambling ideas on this - and who I am interested in as well.
Noah and Jim, you are helping me more than you know right now. I
hadn't realized until now just how important this was to me,
because months or years can go by without me working on it.
*Yet, in a closet, is 5 typewriters. *In a drawer are various
keyboard-based notetaking devices. *I have 3 x5 notepads filled
with ideas through the years on various things... index cards...
text files - several cassette recorders, microcassette tapes...
voice-to-text programs... *programs I've written in BASIC, Turbo
Pascal, on a Sharp Wizard OZ770, a Thought Collector I wrote for
Android but never released (voice-to-text with instant feedback
- she speaks what you said right after you said it while also
catching it in a text file on the droid)... ... I studied
Buddhist medditation (Vipassana style), learned about Christian
monastic techniques for controlling thoughts... learned about
what foods and things you can eat and drink that improve
attention (Caffeine and stimulants are #1 of course - the fact
that stimulants help people with ADHD focus is no surprise to
me) - I never found a system that 100% works for me yet. *That's
one of my goals. But if you want a mental image of my ultimate
goal that is in a movie: That moment in The Matrix where Neo is
completely aware of everything around him and has control of it.
*It's that state of self-actualization that I'm working towards.
*But not primarily for myself: But rather for everybody. *I
probably sound crazy :) *But I know its possible. *Nothing is
impossible if you have tenacity. - stick-to-itness. I'm nobody
special. *But I can do something to help the world in some way -
a mission. Minister, psychologist, professor. 12 years old.
Those were the things that everybody pegged me for. Minister,
psychologist/therapist, professor. I'm starting to see... that I
may become all three. 1) Passionate about this, as a minister is
passionate about faith. 2) Getting an understanding of the mind
of self and other like a psychologist 3) Needing to be
rigorously accurate and teach it to others. Thank you again
guys. You are helping me feel free to write about these things.
*It's in public for the world to see, yet I know that two people
are listening. *That makes all the difference.
