Subject says it all as they say… who are “they” anyway?

You don’t have to spend $25 on that latest book by Dr. Phil if you can use a little common sense. As en example if you suffer from “ADD” (aka “inability to concentrate”, “loss of attention span”, etc) or “Writer’s Block” (aka “Can’t get going”, “Can’t come up with an idea”, “everytime I try to write something I get sidetracked or nothing comes to me”, etc) I will cure you right here in a few simple steps.

Curing ADD

Get a pocket sized notebook, a pen, and a watch with a timer. Put the notebook and pen in a pocket. Put the watch in your wrist. Set the timer to 10, 15, 30 or whatever amount of time is outside of your “ability” to concentrate.

Now, get a book, a journal, or a meditation mat/pillow. Position yourself to comfortably read the book, write in the journal, or meditate (you don’t need a complicated mantra– pick a mental picture and work on inhabiting it, picture a large block letter, or work on thinking of nothing). Start the timer and begin. Don’t worry about it not going perfectly. It might even go horribly. Just don’t stop the activity. Keep reading no matter how boring or how many other things you want to do. Keep writing even if the only thing that is coming out is an endless repetition of things like “I am writing.” Keep meditating even if Barnum and Bailey have erected a three-ring circus in front of your third eye.

Repeat this three times each day using the same duration. Up your minutes by 5-10 each week.

Carry the notebook at all times and write down every thought that comes to you except while you are having a timed session. Write down your tasks in lists and check each off when it is done. If you are having trouble getting things done, use your timer to have 10-20 minute “sprints” where you focus on a particular task or project.

When you begin to trust that you will have the notebook at all times your use will go up and your tension will decrease. “Mine” the notebook constantly for ideas and things you have to do.
 
[ruminate add]

Self-help books are one of those annoying realities of modern life. Sturgeon’s Law posited that 90% of everything is crap… self-help is a world in which a 99% average appears to be the norm.

I’m a fan of people helping themselves. For example, I suspect that a majority of ADD/ADHD related diagnoses are not illnesses at all in any traditional sense and that the “symptoms” can be effectively dealt with through a) better parenting (for children) and b) simple coping strategies involving effort, meditation, notetaking, and clocks/timers. Not to cope with having an illness, but to cope with one of those realities of being human: we are not all created equally. Some of us can concentrate easily on tasks at hand, some of us need a multiplicity of inputs. Some of us can run 5-minute miles or bench our body weight, some of us cannot. Some of us have great facilities with language, some of us do not. Using a bicycle, a forklift, a dictionary, or a to-do list isn’t an invitation to embark upon a study of the etiology of this disease of being a human being.

The simple inability to easily do something one wants to do– including (perhaps in particular) those things some others seem to do just fine– is most often the sign of many things short of a physical flaw in one’s brain.

Similarly, I suspect that a significant number of people in this country are horribly mis-diagnosed as being mentally ill when what they actually suffer from is the simple malaise that comes from being a caring, perceptive human being. Some medications (and various illicit drugs) might mask the side-effects of being human but being human cannot be cured.

Frustration with others, alienation from what many define as normal, the feeling of being more perceptive than those around you, anger without origin, contempt– no matter how strong and unique they feel– don’t necessarily demand a clinical solution. I’m not denying that there is real illness that needs treatment and medication. But I do think (based on my own experiences, history, and friends/family) that in many cases it simply turns out to be easier to cater to the desire of the patient to feel that they are part of that minority than to tackle the real problems directly in clear, rational ways…

[ruminate mental+illness selfhelp psyche]

Zhanna, whoever he or she is, has wise words. Not only “dark pleasures” but sometimes it’s just better to feel anything rather than nothing and numbness.

My last post kind of illustrates my earlier thesis: there’s not a lot of point writing about that part of my personal life because it’s preaching to the choir of those who identify and remains inexplicable to those who don’t. What I was describing in that last post was simply how it is. That it’s simultaneously worse than many people can understand– particularly those who’ve never suffered from that kind of illness– and mundane to those that do.

It’s been this way since high school– long before marriages, the demise of both marriages, and children. The strange thing is that it ceases being new and you learn to live with it, but at the same time it never seems to get easier as by all rights it should.

I do wonder who the former friend is and why they don’t just drop a line. I won’t bite… and I’m always interested where my former friends have gotten to.

For a friend who insists on telling me it’s not that bad because it’s all in my head. Imagine (or recall):

• The feeling of sinking into the depths upon waking up in the middle of a dream where you were reliving the single best event in your entire life in full technicolor…

• The deadly disappointment of the worst moment in your life– not the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, necessarily, but the worst thing you’ve ever done…

• The single most intense and immense regret you wake with at 3am of a life-changing choice taken or not taken…

Put this poisonous concoction together and drink it and have it become you. Suffer, but don’t die. Live this feeling practically every minute of every day of your life– a life that feels slowed down to a crawl, the slow motion of a car crash– tainting even the best things that happen to you.

That’s a normal day.
[ruminate psyche]

In Kodiak for a few days for some meetings. I’d forgotten how beautiful it is here– or maybe I’d just never seen it when it wasn’t raining. Yesterday was literally perfect weather: warm, blue skies, only the slightest of breezes. That made it a perfect day to see some of the island so we drove around. Pasaghak Bay Road is a scenic drive that includes many odd juxtapositions… barren, brown, fields with cows and buffalo abut beautiful ocean terrain, a missile launching complex borders Fossil Beach where you can stand in one spot and see fossils that have to be thousands of years old, shells embedded in “brand new” rock, and the stark figure of a missile silo. We spent a few hours picking through the beach, poking around the base of the cliffs, and sunning on the rocks like Walruses.

You’ll have to check Christen’s flickr site for pictures, though, because I forgot my camera (which explains the perfect weather).

[ruminate kodiak alaska fossilbeach pasaghak]

Off in a few minutes to Etech. Sold out, with activities going late into the night– it should be a great time. Buttressed at the beginning with a visit by Link and Gabby (friends from California) and ending with a Seattle sojourn with ex-Alaskan Kirsten– I am looking forward to an intense bout of getting away from it all.

I’m curious to meet other educators who might be at Etech– it’s not a traditional conference for the ed folks (I’m eternally grateful that the Big Kahuna recognizes its value for me and has paid my way two years in a row), but you never know. If you’re involved with education, educational technology, etc. and will be there, drop me a line!

“Getting away from it all” entails conference blogging and such, of course. Check out everyone’s contributions with Technorati, flickr, del.icio.us, etc.

[ruminate etech edtech]

Thanks to D’arcy for the pointer to the Simpsomaker where I created my Simpsons’ alter-ego– Blog Guy (slightly altered to include amazingly life-like scraggly beard)

Speaking of The Simpsons, last night was one of my favorite episodes (Homer becomes Internet journalist, wins Pulitzer, finally makes up stories that get him spirited away to Wonderland-like “The Island” where those who know too much are kept in a constantly drugged stupor) where Comic Book Guy complains:

There is no emoticon for what I am feeling!

[ruminate, simpsons, blog guy]

My son, in 7th grade, is doing your typical 7th grade science project– find a topic, do some research, create a display of some kind, make a presentation. I’d like to see this activity, which carries significant points, be a little more innovative, but this is my second child so my protest reserves are low and this can be a great activity.

Unbelievably, though, in addition to a selection of books, he is limited to using a few dozen selected, vetted online (and necessarily– since chosen ahead of time– generic, and shallow) resources. The “summarize the Britannica” exercise has become a “summarize one of these selected resources” exercise.

Why are teachers so intent on keeping kids out of the deep end of the pool instead of teaching them to swim? I saw a news segment about 6 month old infants being taught to swim and survive if they fall into a pool, but my 13 year old, who manages an online “clan” of gamers, can’t look for original resources on the web? How about providing a rubric for evaluating resources and letting the students take a stab at it? Have the students provide a printout, a link, and their own evaluation? At worst the teacher can reject a resource. At best, Galen could include information like the emergent use of ragworms as a model for a new method of endoscopy– which is pretty darn cool!

It’s ironic that this project stresses choosing a topic that is important and interesting to the students, relevant, timely, etc… but the students are fed musty resources from the Hallowed List of Approved General Reference Materials.

[ruminate, pedagogy, authority]