Focus and Consistency
Some things are just difficult to explain to people.
Like why you don't seem able to concentrate, and why you "don't just apply yourself" when your mind wanders.
I'm not blaming anybody for anything, but I think it is fairly common within the broader spectrum of human experience that we really can't fully understand what somebody else's experiencing is like, unless we've been through the same thing as they have.
When I was a kid, I was often characterized as "lazy" and I heard that so often that I started to believe it. Which kind of sucks because what you start to believe is that there is something wrong with your character rather than with your brain chemistry.
What is now known as "executive dysfunction" has little to do with laziness or a willingness to work hard, and everything to do with screwed up brain chemistry that sends the wrong messages to different parts of your brain.
You could think of the situation a little bit like putting diesel fuel in a gasoline powered car engine and then expecting the car to perform the same. It's just not going to happen. Similarly, calling that car defective really doesn't serve any purpose.
Lately, I have been having a tremendous amount of difficulty with staying focused and consequently with staying consistent with even such basic things as my blogging here on Hive.
Unlike many, my sketchy writing performance has nothing to do with the declining price of the token, and everything to do with the fact that I'm in a cycle where I feel particularly spaced out and struggling with even some of the most basic tasks of daily existence.
It's definitely something that comes and goes... and in a few weeks or a few months I will likely be having one of my strong periods where I suddenly will be overflowing with creativity and the ability to concentrate.
I think summers are typically challenging in that respect because there is so much outdoor stuff that needs to be done, from house maintenance to gardening and beyond and it comes in on top of all the usual stuff of life that also has to be done and I end up in a state of feeling immobilized by the sheer number of things that need to be done.
Unlike most people I don't find it easy to just pick one thing somewhere to get started and whittle away at the size of my to-do list. Instead, I see the entirety of the to-do list and feel like it's more than I can hope to get done. And that's one of the basics behind so-called executive dysfunction: I want to get moving, but my brain is telling my body that I'm not capable.
I have psychological tools, of course, and sometimes they work pretty well at "deceiving myself" that I'm better off than I actually am and that'll get me jumpstarted... but sometimes they don't really help too much.
This is really not something I like to explore too much "in public" but sometimes I just want to leave a little "marker" I might be able to refer back to, from some point further down the timeline.
Perhaps I am needlessly stubborn and partaking in causing my own suffering by refusing to succumb to a steady diet of pharmaceuticals to help me course correct. I'm just not a big fan of medicating things that can be managed instead by applying various gimmicks and tools to the situation.
I'm grateful for the fact that we live a relatively simple life, so that when I do have these periods of somewhat "checking out" it's not the end of the world. There's no $3,000 mortgage payment to worry about and no $1,000 car payment. And that's a good thing to have in your back pocket!
So that's the update for today. I appreciate you stopping by, and hope you have a wonderful weekend!
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2026.05.30 01:12 PDT
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