Where I Went
16 Jul 08 by jeff
I was amazed to notice today that I haven’t posted for a week and a half! Actually, I haven’t done much of anything for a week and a half. I have a tendency, you may be surprised to learn, to be distracted.
The problem has been straightforward; I have been learning how to solve Sudoku puzzles. Not just how to fill them in, but how to crack the most difficult monsters. I’ve been struggling with the Nishio technique, X-wings, and forcing chains. Buying books, markers, clip-on lights, transparent overlays, colored markers, and countless mechanical pencils. (I love mechanical pencils.) Practicing until I can write the numbers 1 through 9 meticulously - until you can hardly tell them from the original typeset numbers. I’ve done hundreds of puzzles in the last month, and I’m starting to see changes in the muscles of my hand! And the new game I bought for my iPod doesn’t seem to have hard enough puzzles.
This predilection for puzzles is not an expression of how little I have to do in a day. It is, instead, my most distracting affection: I need to learn. I actually need to learn. Not that I need to excel, or achieve, but that I need to be challenged by the mystery within each system.
What makes beautiful music come from a guitar? I started where every does. I learned rote tunes and made myself weep with how bad they sounded. A year or two later, I was able to teach guitar - in order to buy a better instrument, of course. A few years after that, I was able to entrance and mystify strangers. Eventually, I was up to an eight-hour practice schedule every day, and I finally understood exactly what goes into that magic manipulation that creates emotion from six strings. I soon lost interest and moved on to something else. I haven’t played guitar in 30 years.
My life is littered with so many fixations that demanded focus and study and dedication and practice and understanding, but didn’t, in the end, remain mysterious enough. Music, photography, hitchhiking, religion, electronics, bicycling, theatre, computers, quantum physics, the internet, women, virtual worlds, social interaction, and politics - to name a few. These were all things I sank myself into - heart, soul and wallet. For the longest time, I thought of myself as a failure, since I always got just this close to expertise, but never sealed the deal with life-long dedication or income. When I started earning money with my guitar, it was nothing but pain and hassle. When I got my union card and started getting a paycheck as a theatre lighting technician and stage manager, I got distracted by something else and just forgot to keep asking for work. And I have been dismayed - for decades - that my fixation on computers in the late 70s finally turned into a career. I lost interest in computers, and the internet, many, many years ago, but have no other marketable skills. So, this is what I do, and where I’m trapped.
If you think it must be wearing to have to move so often from one fixation to the next, then consider what it must be like to be caught and bound by one long after it should have died.
There are a few subjects I pursued that were not as cooperative. Poetry, for example. I won a contest or two. I published a few. but I never got to that point where I truly understood what happens inside a person that causes them to write a poem that reduces a reader to tears. I imagine I’ll eventually be back to that one.
Fiction, stage plays, short stories - all these fall into that same category. Things that just barely escape me. I understand the mechanics, and I’ve heard all the advice. I’ve studied and practiced process, but never managed to wrap my brain completely around one single work. I produced pages and pages, but never a finished product. I’ve been thinking. lately, that this may simply be the result of an autistic over-dedication to self-criticism. I imagine I’ll eventually be back to this one as well.
Anyway, my experience tells me that I may be moving on from my most recent dedication: photography. After five years and thousands of photos, I understand how it works now. If I want to go further, I need to practice more and more. I am not the kind of person who likes to practice. I absolutely hate repetitious activity that doesn’t bring me something new every day. When I find myself focusing on Sudoku puzzles and Masyu puzzles, it’s a sign I’m not being stimulated by my current dedication. And I’m a bit angry that my recent photos are not up to previous standards (imagined or real). This all presages change.
I don’t like change very much either.
So, that’s where I was. Apparently, I’m about to change canoes. Would you like to know what my next dedication will be? So would I. I’ve been occasionally distracted, lately, with thoughts of playwriting, but I seldom know what’s going to be next, so who knows?
I fantasize that someday I’ll find a life-long career that somehow brings all my various experience together to some single purpose, but I can’t imagine what occupation that would be. I suspect I’d be searching the want-ads if I knew.
What made all this occur to me today was my conversation with my therapist this morning. I actually shocked myself by spontaneously suggesting that my photography phase was over. I then surprised myself again by equating the process to ending a relationship. I thought outloud about the possibility of breaking up a bit early so that I and my love might occasionally see each other again, as friends.
I have regretted leaving my loves behind. When I touch a guitar, my heart breaks. Watching a performance by Peter Hedges ended with me removing the TV set from the house for a couple years. Tears form when I remember my time in theatre. I’m wistful at highway on-ramps, and salivate over the latest Shimano cycling components. All these things make me feel sad. I imagine I’ll cover all the stages of grief for photography, too.
So, maybe now I can leave the house without the camera, for the first time in many years. And now that I’ve realized what’s happening, I can stop doing so many puzzles! But the best news is simply that I’ve finally learned that I’m not a constant failure; I simply demand more of a challenge - every day.
That need to learn may be the only thing which has really kept me alive inside. But I’m not convinced the credit is mine to take for it’s action in me. I see that something within has a prerogative for life, and stagnation, be it environmental, mental or emotional, may as well be the Reaper Himself.
I can call it learning or I can call it existential survival, but either way, it is that process through which I find a real connection–not only with myself, but to others and the world around me. Learning is my religion in the literal sense; ‘re’ - again, ‘ligare’ - bind. To reconnect.
For myself, I experience learning as a definite attraction in the direction of Being, fueled by a wish to understand this mystery we are swimming (or sinking) in. ‘Knowing’ may be the result, but it is certainly not my goal. I think it could be said I have an interest in learning, even to use the word in a fiscal sense. I’m invested in the prospects.
But I’m young still and easily coaxed by that fork-tounged figure on my shoulder. As they say, “there is counterfeit only because there is Real.” Or, maybe, “all that glitters is not gold.” Very often I mistake the want of distraction with the need for learning. And I think that’s because one contains the seed of the other. In order to learn, I must in a sense, let myself go–be abstracted–drawn away. To be dis-tracted, however, is to be drawn apart. It is this being drawn, to and fro, which I think is part of being human. If I abstract myself too much, I loose touch with humanity. If I allow myself to be too distracted, I loose touch with myself. I prefer to walk the razors edge. It’s where I learn the most.
It’s a tricky business, this being human. But I wouldn’t trade it for all the the marbles in the world. And who would I play marbles with anyways if I had them all?
I hope you find a new hobby. I’m not sure if this is a quick way to implode an aspie, but what happens when you turn attention on itself? It sounds like the kind of hobby that could, if nothing else, save you enough money to visit me in Portland ;)
Ben
PS~ Your quote, “I absolutely hate repetitious activity that doesn’t bring me something new every day” absolutely cracked me up, especially considering the name of your website :D
Make sure you tie the lines securely first, wouldn’t want you to fall in, that would be a heck of a splash.
Cheers
[…] is another variation on “Perseveration” and how it can pan out in “adults,” maybe you might recognise a little bit of yourself, perhaps? A longish piece, but very worthwhile […]