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Creative Nonfiction First Full Draft

[Dining Hall Conversation piece (forthcoming)]

[study about facial recognition and AD/HD (forthcoming)]

[Sorting piece (forthcoming)]

Attention: What you are focused on — how long you can maintain that focus — Hey, come back here! And how much control you have over it [see this post with more material on Attention (that stuff is not yet in my own words however)]

Imagine a television set that represents your mind, the current program is your state of focus. If you are concentrating on doing laundry, that’s the channel you’re watching. The picture is vivid, the lines sharp — and you are able to interpret (mostly) without issue the elements of the images before you. Now, you hold in your hand a remote control. Your remote is of normal shape, size, color, and composition. Its face has two buttons; one for channel up, and one for down (and maybe some numbers? Sure, why not! (That way if you’re watching one thing you don’t have to go through all the other channels sequentially)). Even better, you have one button for each channel… This is no ordinary remote control, no siree, this has the latest technology so every time some new “opportunity” for focus enters your radar, up pops a new button. Now your average human being watches one channel, then maybe changes to another channel by pressing a button, and then when that program is over they change to a different channel, or wait to see what’s on next, and so on and so forth.

Continue reading “Creative Nonfiction First Full Draft”

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Creative Nonfiction Continued: Attention

Attention: What you are focused on — how long you can maintain that focus — Hey, come back here! And how much control you have over it [see this post with more material on Attention (that stuff is not yet in my own words however)]

Imagine a television set that represents your mind, the current program is your state of focus. If you are concentrating on doing laundry, that’s the channel you’re watching. The picture is vivid, the lines sharp — and you are able to interpret (mostly) without issue the elements of the images before you. Now, you hold in your hand a remote control. Your remote is of normal shape, size, color, and composition. Its face has two buttons; one for channel up, and one for down (and maybe some numbers? Sure, why not! (That way if you’re watching one thing you don’t have to go through all the other channels sequentially)). Even better, you have one button for each channel… This is no ordinary remote control, no siree, this has the latest technology so every time some new “opportunity” for focus enters your radar, up pops a new button. Now your average human being watches one channel, then maybe changes to another channel by pressing a button, and then when that program is over they change to a different channel, or wait to see what’s on next, and so on and so forth.

AD/HD inattentive subtype
The remote is broken. The channel up and down buttons are sticky — sometimes they get stuck. Your TV changes channels indefinitely. Or even better, other times they don’t work at all. You’re sitting there watching a program vital to your social survival such as “What your spouse did today” or even “What cars are coming at you at 70 mph on Soldiers Field Road during Rush Hour”. Suddenly a new program pops up, “Watching a seagull circle overhead” or even “Zone out and think about something else” (always a classic)

So, your TV just freaks out and changes the channel once it sees something it likes. You mash the buttons on the remote desperately; maybe you manage to switch it back– but only briefly, before you notice it’s happened again.

You’re lost in the program forever. Seconds become hours become days… waiting for boredom to breathe life back into your remote, allowing you to seize control once again.

Enter psychostimulants
Methylphenidate methyl a-phenyl-2-piperidineacetate C14H19NO2 Molecular weight: 233.31. Bioavailability: 11-52% when taken orally. dextro,levo-methylphenidate 50:50 racemic mixture: Ritalin® (Ritalina®). dextro-methylphenidate: Focalin. Also Concerta® (time-release), Metadate®, Methylin®, Rubifen®.
Adderall

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AD/HD

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity disorder is a neurobiological disorder.
People with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity disorder tend to have inordinate amounts of trouble maintaining attention-discipline, may be impulsive, and especially at younger ages are often hyperactive — uncharacteristically so for their age and level of development.

There is no way to diagnose AD/HD without a frame of reference.

There is no value judgment, just a comparison and then an observation.

Right?

Right.

Individual A is an aberration, though they belong to an identifiable sub-group with defining characteristics

AD/HD does not imply lower levels of intelligence — on the contrary.

AD/HD has been associated with certain personality traits that can be seen as other defining “symptoms”: High energy, creativity, alternating extreme empathy/unempathy, strong sense of intuition, trouble/frustration making self understood…

Panksepp says a growing intolerance of childhood playfulness has led to more and more children being labeled with AD/HD

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Pieces?

Rafalovich 410
3/20/06
Culturally approved. Broken. Inside. Outside. outsider. The thought that somewhere there is a world where everyone is like me, appreciates — relates, understands without reading the latest literature. That normal really is relative, no matter how hard I try to think otherwise. In the end, it is our culture, and society that dictate how we must be and how we should act — What we can or must wear say think do. Don’t go squawking down the street like a chicken — that’s crazy! But then I think of the social obvliviousness, that humans have evolved with. It’d be like a dog not “getting” that it’s supposed to sniff the butt of another dog, or whatever. We create our own norms, our own rules — are there cultures without rules? “difficulty with rule-based behavior”. How is it not a disorder? An inability to deal with the situation. Though I suppose some can’t do math, the rules too convoluted or abstract or whatever……….

Bigger focus

“Neurology offers a biological explanation which distinguishes between the ‘maladjusted’ child and the AD/HD child.” (Rafalovich, 411)

flashback: ms. whiteside

I remember those afternoons in strange detail. A soft knock on the doorframe punctuated the murmur of learningvoices, Ms. whiteside’s dark brown face smiling slightly, but warmly in the doorway. I rose to leave while she quietly asked our teacher if she could borrow me for a little while. We made our way down the dimly lit hallway, lined by pegs and cubbies and construction paper and into her office, hidden away in a corner of the main lobby.

I must have spent hours in that office with Ms. Whiteside — hours that I enjoyed, as she would put me to a task and then silently watch, observing details I could not fathom,. She would give me colored blocks, and ask me to assemble certain shapes, or tell a story about a picture. I was intrigued, and maybe confused at times by the simplicity of the tasks, but I completed them with no less fervor. Ms. Whiteside’s measured gaze never hostile or intimidating… I vaguely remember her checking a timepiece, perhaps recording all the times. She probably had a file. Come to think of it, she must have written everything down… Yes, she was always writing, in pencil in even measured hand on yellow legal paper, it seemed she wrote far more than what could possibly be taken from my simple tasks…

Then there was Dr. A. We would sit in his office playing games — he’d casually ask how everything was going, and I’d quickly dismiss the question without lifting my focus from the game. I’d tell him everything was fine, and we’d finish our game. Sometimes we played Stratego.