Choices

It may be a neurodivergent trait, but I often find it hard to choose what to do. I have no shortage of activities waiting for me to pick up and enjoy.

I have four television shows I want to watch: Ms Marvel, She-Hulk, Sandman, and The Orville. I have many movies on my list, including the new Prey, Grey Man, and a few others. As far as reading, I am trying to read a few books: still struggling to finish Dune by Frank Herbert, which I started over a year ago, and Still Just A Geek by Wil Wheaton. I want to re-read Every Tool’s A Hammer by Adam Savage, and have a few others on my bookshelf that I haven’t read yet.

I would like to paint a few action figures, and create some more diorama pieces for my action figure photography. Many canvases litter the craft room, waiting for paint. There is a project for my nieces I have yet to start (shh, it’s a secret). I have other ideas I haven’t even explored.

I have podcasts unlistened to; a book unfinished that needs to be edited and then completed; a blog on which to write. The trouble? I am often struck still by the choices. Which do I start? What do I do? How do I choose one over the other? What do I put off, what do I start now? Most times it seems there is too much to do, other times it seems I just don’t know which direction to go. Occasionally, I dismiss most ideas one after the other and end up with nothing left after five minutes. I sit about and play Scrabble on my iPad or just endlessly refresh social media.

If this is neurodivergency, I don’t know how to overcome it. If it is depression, I don’t know how to dispel it. Lethargy? Something else?

Adam Savage, one of my muses, has said before that when he doesn’t know what to do he cleans his shop, just to gain momentum, and then once he has started to do that, he usually has figured out what to do next, or what to work on. A few times that has actually worked for me, and tonight I simply opened the WordPress app on my iPad. I had the first line of this entry on my mind, but nothing else. I’ve just kept typing and have arrived here.

Sometimes, though, that doesn’t work at all. My craft room isn’t untidy because I haven’t used it. Nothing is out of place. If it feels as if I am making excuses, I am not trying to, but it isn’t like I can pick up a broom and start sweeping the carpet. A few times I have gone and sat down on my spinny chair and just looked at my easel, my action figures, my paints, and whatever else just to see if something strikes me. A few times something says “work with me” and sometimes I just spin in a circle.

Frustration mounts and I still don’t start anything. I don’t have a permanent solution. To reading, I have begun a reading journal. I write down the date, the time, the book, and the page numbers just to track what I read when. That has worked three out of four nights in the past week, so that may be an impetus to get me reading again. I wonder if I should create a calendar: Mondays for baseball/tv/movies, Tuesdays for writing, Wednesdays for podcasts, Thursdays for crafts and painting? But what do I do if I can’t engage in that evening’s task, just sit there? I don’t know.

What gets you going, when you don’t know which of several great choices to choose? What sparks your creativity? What gets you out of the fog and into the clear light of day? These aren’t rhetorical questions, if you have answers, do feel free to share them. Otherwise, I am going to keep contemplating what I can do to help myself out of the mire. Tonight I took a nap, something I almost never do in the evening. Well, nap is a bit of a misnomer. I reclined with my CPAP mask on and closed my eyes and let my mind drift. I could breathe easy, and just bounce from thought to thought. It ended up being refreshing, and I’ve even managed to write a little something. Tonight I’ll call good.

Which is the other little thing I’ve learned to do: celebrate the small victories. Even a diminutive accomplishment is what Adam Savage would call “forward momentum” and success really can breed success. I at least have a feeling of satisfaction at the end of the night, and that feels good. Today, I really had that sluggishness of mind. But a little, what, meditation?, and then I wrote something. Boom. A little success, a little dopamine (is that the correct brain chemical?) and I’m feeling better than I was an hour or so ago.

I’ve written about this before, but the fact is I am able to do more and more than I used to be able to, and and each time I spend less and less time in the doldrums. That itself is encouraging. So I suppose if I am saying anything with all this it is: don’t give up on yourself and find a way to move in any direction. Once you are moving, you can change directions more easily, and you’ll always end up somewhere else. If you don’t move? You’ll stay exactly where you are and grow old there. I’d rather go somewhere, and any way I can get moving I’ll take.