There was no diagnose for that back then.
So I grew up just to be me, more or less.
Sometimes that does work out fine
For some reason I can feel quite restless, yet sit still for hours on a chair behind a screen. Working with my current tools: keyboard, mouse and tablet. The one with a pen, pressure sensitive, that kind of thing. Already an old one, but in some way I get attached to things. It has the drawing area of an A6 postcard, just fine for the things I am using it for. Computer hardware became tools for me. And I do like to retreat to create, some do that well when they have lots of people around. Way too much impulses for me. It is just that. Sometimes I even wonder how I manage to get about on Social Media platforms. So much information to keep up with.
Really, I am so amazed when I see other people respond to posts like 1-2-3-done... While I am still reading the piece, or looking at a photo, taking time to view the art. Then I feel like a turtle, slowly moving forward, while everybody else is on the fast lane. Recently I started to notice a lot of posts on my Steem feed. Not even following 500 yet, and I already cannot follow all that gets posted. And then I want to post myself, reply as often as possible, upvote and reply on others their posts. So, I start to lose track very quickly, me the chaotic turtle slowly moving on. Too much information. And I still want to create, give a voice to my being. And there is the real life too, you know. While I am working on a masterpiece, getting disturbed, after that:... CLEAR!
What is it like
Recently I came to understand how I have managed to adapt, how it became like a second nature. When I try to make people understand how that works I tell it like this: Imagine you are in a supermarket, there are lots of people there shopping and they are constantly changing their bodies. Becoming large, bowing in every way, like elastic. Then all of a sudden faces get in front of your face, very upclose and they are shouting, moving quickly up and about. Words, shouted out like bullets coming out off a machine gun. Ratatatatatata, information, impressions and then I still have to wait in line. It can be pretty exchausting. Luckily it is not always like that. But it can be quite a challlenge at times.
When I want to get things done I mostly need a spot of my own, a place with a door, that needs to be knocked to enter. Because there in the solitude of my mind, I can focus, almost obsessively and work on whatever has gotten my attention. In the past when I worked for an advertising company, I used to turn up the music very loud, just to keep the other bombardment of impressions out. These days in my own one person office, I have silence and I can hear the birds tjilping. No more loud music, no more TV, no more radio. That I also filtered out, because it comes with an overload of information for me. And then what it can trigger. And I am really okay with that. Because when the worst news would be spread, I'd only be able to witness bright flashes of light, mushroom clouds and...
The image with this post
It shows a pub here in Winschoten, Cafe Hoppe. One of the former owners I know very well personally. It was a place where I went after a friday work from nine to nine. Sitting at the tribal table with some friends, drinking whiskey and beer. And then after that, there still was a saturdays work. But somehow I was able to do all that and still function. Anyway, this digital work got printed out with a large inkjet. And it is always great to see the result and it is still nice to see it in a frame. But why even put it in this post?
Well, this is one of those works that I became obsessively focused on. Every time I worked on it I could spent hours and hours just moving about the digital tools to create this. In a solitary excistence, where my chaotic brain still would do its busy thing, but somehow these times it is almost like I am in an inner sanctuary. A place where I want to stay as long as possible, because I like it there. And then there is all these different things I am interested in.
My posts reflect my reality
One moment I am focussed on creating a digital painting to find peace of mind, next it is forking a 'coin' or creating a new one. Next you know I am analysing cryptocurrency markets and writing about it. All within a limited life span. It keeps the balance between things that better be done and the time to be free to create. And sometimes these things come together in a nice way. While at the end of the day I go for a stroll, at least for an hour, to clear my mind a bit more from all the impressions during the day. It is getting tougher though to find places where cars are out of sound and sight, but I still manage.
Until recently I was still a bit unaware on how I managed to cope with some of my personal challenges. It tends to become perceived as 'normal'. And I have been examined, had talks with specialist and so on, even got medicine prescribed that actually made me depressed and suicidal... So I quit using that all together, and the only medicine I rarely take is a painkiller. What really helped was a thing called 'mindfullness', focus on the here and now. And I guess it is about accepting things the way they are, including myself.
Basicly it is about being who you are and dealing with that in a balanced manor. And I am not saying my life is always great, awesome in every way, and people I love and care about live forever. Or that I am in the best of health, no, in fact I have my health challenges, like many others do too. But I learned how to live life as it is, with what it gives, in the here and now. And there was a time when I found it difficult that I had a chaotic obsessive focused brain. That one moment made me do artistic creations and the next inspired me to write about humans being equivalent and unique. Being busy with a cryptocurrency the next moment, photographing for days, cooking is fun too and then diving into trading BitMoney.
And I can really state here that so far life is a thrill to me, there is always something interesting to dive into. The tough parts of life will come anyway, and some of them can be hard to deal with and that is okay too. That is a given, the other part is the adventure, the wonder, the joy, the suprise, the new to explore and somewhere there is a balance in there.
Have a good one!
Cafe Hoppe, Winschoten, Oldambt
artwork cc-by-sa @oaldamster
EDIT: text corrections.