Conversations

[Hopalong]

Hi G,
Thanks for this question!

If you have focusing challenges/ADD then how is it that you are such a good writer? It's just curiosity on my part. Does the focus problem have any impact on your writing at all?

There's an odd "gift within the problem" for some with ADD, called hyperfocus. For something that interests me....mainly writing....I can focus like a fiend. My brain locks on, everything else (such as opening mail or tidying the kitchen!) fades into unimportance. It's an odd thing but it's real. I got a Teaching Fellowship for my M.A. at an "elite" university, and that's nearly unfathomable to me. But it happened because I would sink SO deeply into language. Once it got to poetry, it all came together and evidently worked.

I connected to this too:

Even when there is a lot of time it can feel like I am still skimming the surface of my life.

I said to my dear earlier T, for EIGHT YEARS:
"I have lost interest in my own life."

I finally stopped asking myself why I felt it and faced that it was pure depression talking (plus grief over my lost daughter and family). Once I just starting calling it a symptom of depression, very slowly my interest in my own dreams began to return. It'll be a while and it's been long and slow, but I realized at some point that because I felt that way for one long period, there is no reason at all to believe that I have to feel that way forever. Therapy and endurance and loving connections with people eventually pulled me out of the depths of it. It comes back sometimes, but not like the deep gray thing it was.

Hugs
Hops

[Meh]

Is hyper focus only with writing?

[Hopalong]

Anything creative, really.
It could be drawing or making something...though I don't do much of those any more.

It's 90% with writing (or editing).

Hugs
Hops

[Meh]

I'm so tired. Watching a video about Jacques Derrida and the narrator says: "Love is Narcissistic."  Then of course I must come deposit it here, in a compulsive, oh no, please don't make me analyze this right now sort of way.

I have to save it for later, not like a candy bar, instead more like a rotten thing in the refrigerator. I don't want to think about it but I know I must think about it eventually I will have to. It's annoying me right now even but I need to conserve some sort of focus and concentration.

[Hopalong]

Ahhh, well.
You don't have to believe that narrator/scriptwriter.

Safely parked here until/if you want to revisit.

Meanwhile, good to hear your voice, G.

You've been missed.

hugs
Hops

[Meh]

Curses exist in stories of mythology, and if there was such a thing as an actual modern-day curse, emotional damage might qualify. Maybe a curse would be Narcissism because it's invisible yet powerful. A hex that sticks and won't go away, present wherever one goes, unshakable unfurling in ways we can't fully understand until it's too late. What else takes an act of magic to undo.

[Twoapenny]

Curses exist in stories of mythology, and if there was such a thing as an actual modern-day curse, emotional damage might qualify. Maybe a curse would be Narcissism because it's invisible yet powerful. A hex that sticks and won't go away, present wherever one goes, unshakable unfurling in ways we can't fully understand until it's too late. What else takes an act of magic to undo.

I got very into curses at one point, G, and just that whole kind of mythical/ juju/other wordly kind of stuff.  Because, as you say, things like Narcissism and the events something like that contributes to (or causes) and it made no sense to me.  You can't deal with it in a logical way, because it's such an illogical condition.  Unless, of course, you look at it as emotional damage and then in makes more sense.  But yes, I've often thought of it as some sort of curse that needs a magical/miracle cure.  It's hard when you wish someone else would be cured, I think? xx

[Meh]

Hiya Two,

There is something otherworldly about accessing emotions for someone who generally has no need to or learned to motor through life, sucking it up. There is something otherworldly about the inner-child stuff. Speaking of I've not checked in with my inner-child for a LONG time. It's all those invisible yet still precious things. They are magical in a sense. Looking inwards doing a personal inventory and peeking at the interior landscape, it is reminiscent of Shamanism. Yeah, emotions are not of the realm of logic. Logic is all about applying rules and expecting something to be sound or unsound.

Well, I was reading Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shalott."

I'm not an Arthurian Legend follower I like the art inspired by it, that whole Romanticism Period, the Waterhouse paintings and such. Certainly, I've outgrown it, and still, there is no end to learning about art/history.

It's a bit of a corny poem; however, I am going to allow myself to go there anyhow because I want something romantic in my life even if it's not actually romance with another person. Oh but to get to my rambling point there was a part in that poem about curses and it got me to thinking about curses throughout history, about the concept in general.

Life generally requires us all to weaveth steadily. It goes back to my lamenting about living topically, being busy, too busy, or having excuses or distractions. Can I even be melodramatic and say it's tragic, can I say that we live tragically. I mean, one can't even blame oneself. It's all part of our culture too, to keep on going and put on a smile face even if we are cursed.

It sounds self absorbed, self pitying but it's true WE ARE CURSED, it's like having a black bandage forever adhered over one's heart. There is definitely a metaphysical hex when it comes to emotional damage.

No time hath she to sport and play:
A charmed web she weaves alway.
A curse is on her, if she stay
Her weaving, either night or day,
      To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be;
Therefore she weaveth steadily,
Therefore no other care hath she,
      The Lady of Shalott.

She lives with little joy or fear....

[Hopalong]

G,
You are such a profound woman.

Thank you for this, which rang chimes in me:

There is something otherworldly about accessing emotions for someone who generally has no need to or learned to motor through life, sucking it up. There is something otherworldly about the inner-child stuff.

And for this:

Can I even be melodramatic and say it's tragic, can I say that we live tragically.

Yes, you can. It sounds like deep awareness combined with deep acceptance of the human condition, to me. In the face of the reality of the tragedy, we march on anyway. One step at a time.

Who you gonna call? GHOST BUSTERS!

hugs
Hops

[Meh]

Today, just very busy as if it slipped by in a breeze.

[lighter]

Tragedy to live without noticing what's in front of us. 
Without awareness.
As though we're sleeping, not awake.

I've always thought of the curse as more of an affliction.  BEING afflicted by the afflictions of others, when I wasn't even aware of my own.  Once we SEE our own, we have an easier time understanding and identifying affliction in others,  IME. Of seeing ourselves in them...  them in us. 

We're all afflicted, or cursed in some way.  We all have a need for balance in our lives.  There's no chance to strive for it, if we don't know it's missing, IME.

This is a really interesting thread, Bean: )

Lighter

[Hopalong]

I kind of get it, because nonstop awareness and monitoring my presentness or lack thereof is just....

Beyond
Me

Sometimes I wish it weren't so!
But I got to like myself even with my limits.

hugs
Hops

[Meh]

Hiya Lighter and Hops,

I read you.

I'm just stopping by with sore ears from the fireworks, nothing much to say right now, too stressed about deadlines.

Thinking about it though, maybe it's a matter of what we are present with. Is there only one 'present' ?  I ask because I really don't know, I'm not sure.

[Twoapenny]

Hiya Two,

There is something otherworldly about accessing emotions for someone who generally has no need to or learned to motor through life, sucking it up. There is something otherworldly about the inner-child stuff. Speaking of I've not checked in with my inner-child for a LONG time. It's all those invisible yet still precious things. They are magical in a sense. Looking inwards doing a personal inventory and peeking at the interior landscape, it is reminiscent of Shamanism. Yeah, emotions are not of the realm of logic. Logic is all about applying rules and expecting something to be sound or unsound.

Well, I was reading Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shalott."

I'm not an Arthurian Legend follower I like the art inspired by it, that whole Romanticism Period, the Waterhouse paintings and such. Certainly, I've outgrown it, and still, there is no end to learning about art/history.

It's a bit of a corny poem; however, I am going to allow myself to go there anyhow because I want something romantic in my life even if it's not actually romance with another person. Oh but to get to my rambling point there was a part in that poem about curses and it got me to thinking about curses throughout history, about the concept in general.

Life generally requires us all to weaveth steadily. It goes back to my lamenting about living topically, being busy, too busy, or having excuses or distractions. Can I even be melodramatic and say it's tragic, can I say that we live tragically. I mean, one can't even blame oneself. It's all part of our culture too, to keep on going and put on a smile face even if we are cursed.

It sounds self absorbed, self pitying but it's true WE ARE CURSED, it's like having a black bandage forever adhered over one's heart. There is definitely a metaphysical hex when it comes to emotional damage.

No time hath she to sport and play:
A charmed web she weaves alway.
A curse is on her, if she stay
Her weaving, either night or day,
      To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be;
Therefore she weaveth steadily,
Therefore no other care hath she,
      The Lady of Shalott.

She lives with little joy or fear....

Gosh I was nodding all the way through that, G, and I love Arthurian legend!  The whole South West of England is steeped in it; so many places where - according to legend - Arthur was born/fought/died/buried/sat with the Knights and so on.  I've visited a lot of the places that legends are attached to and the bit I don't like is that there's always loads of other people there.  It's to do with what you say about being busy - I find it impossible to kind of relax, let go and tune in to that mystical/spiritual/inner child, whatever you want to call it stuff, when there's loads of other people about and I have to find change for the car park and bustle my way through loads of people to get where I'm going and so on.  I love imagining how England was before there were a lot of people building here - miles and miles of fields and woodlands and just so much space.  I focus less on it being cold, hard to find food, short life expectancy and so on   It's difficult to share space with people who are on a different wave length, I find?  If you're at a place and everyone else there is wanting to enjoy it quietly and feel something then it feels very different to if you're there and everyone else wants to take pictures, buy tat in the gift shop and chuck their rubbish all over the floor.  We've been to Stonehenge before now for the solstice.  There are various theories as to what the stones actually signify and what their original meaning was but they've become a sight seeing attraction now.  You have to pay to walk round them, everything's fenced off, there are security guards walking about.  And I get it, because a lot of people don't respect their surroundings.  At solstice, some people go for a truly spiritual experience and you see them drumming, meditating, dancing, hugging and so on.  But loads also just go to get drunk and take selfies and it just doesn't work with both sorts there.  It's hard to find people with the same sort of vibe, I think.

Describing emotional damage as a metaphysical hex is spot on, I think.  It's so damaging and yet so senseless and unnecessary.  And I think we've yet to find the magic cure   I've not read The Lady of Shallot for so many years now, I'm going to have to re-read it.  I used to love it when I was younger.

[Hopalong]

Me too, Tupp:

I love imagining how England was before there were a lot of people building here - miles and miles of fields and woodlands and just so much space.

One of my favorite photos is of me standing in front of the stones at Stonehenge in 1964 when I was fourteen, before they added ropes and barriers. There were no crowds at all and I feel lucky to have it.

If I had my druthers and could live in the U.K. it'd probably be up north in Scotland. As long as I had a very warm cottage! Then again, to live in a Welsh village that had a good choir...heaven.

hugs
Hops