This is more of a loosely two part blog with the previous entry (read the one recently added below this fine tale). How this two parter came to be, I don't know.
When I was younger in grade school, I refused to acknowledge my fuzzy vision. I don't think I wanted to face the fact that I was aging and my eyes were already losing focus. In many of my classes, I could get away with this, except for math. I would try to sit in the front row, otherwise I would have to squint, and I didn't want an eye exam with a sweaty, all-too-close doctor. Eventually, I had to face the problem so as to have it corrected. My math grades flourished instantaneously. There's been an ongoing battle with a dear friend of mine who has a similar problem, except instead of popping on clear shades to solve it, I think I've truly begun to realize what he means by "lacking in focus." Where mine was more of a physical struggle, his is more internal with the mind.
There are many cries for help that go unnoticed because we don't relate to the problem because we're not experiencing it ourselves. When I say I'm out of focus, it's not generally a crisis. It went unnoticed for me for several years that I'm at more of at a... more advanced level than what school perhaps initially indicated. I could go on about how I think schools' don't nurture young minds properly, but that entire system is so vast it may just be like throwing sand into the ocean.
In my case with focus, I struggled with over thinking. In many standardized tests growing up, I excelled up to a point, the point in which I would end up leaving to throw up. Now, I didn't really take notice of this till I was much older that this was a unique happening in my childhood. Personally, I just felt like all the time I was super sick and sensitive. For the most part, I was a happy bouncing kid; I was also the worst to make an insult toward since I would understand the insult all too well. Since I would be sick randomly in these tests, I was often placed in different groups throughout school from generally regular to advanced (to occasional remedial sessions that would last about an hour, and then they'd send me away.) Through being in a wide range of classes and meeting different peoples I became observant of all kinds of quirks -- perhaps giving me the general key to understanding people around me today. In the seventh grade, I was found to have unusually high writing skills.
To be honest, I didn't really care about my writing skills then. I thought everyone could write. Writing seemed like the most basic, instinctual aspect one could have. I am still somewhat baffled that people can't write even if I have worked as a writing tutor and have met quite the demons in prose. Everyone and their dog should be able to write. I didn't say everyone should be a best seller, but basic writing skills I think that's something we all deserve... or should strive to have.
It was the unusually high writing skills found in the seventh grade that sounded the alarm. I went from the seemingly drawl classroom settings into a series of advanced ones. I began to realize that the reason standard exams were grueling on my mind is because at a younger age I was using critical thinking skills not to be expected till later. I asked more of the questions being given to me than necessary and would make connections that would go way too deep. Sometimes I marked out questions and rewrote them to find clarity or point out how the question made was giving way to more answers than I could circle.
I eventually got my own mental fugue sorted and found a system that worked for me in school. Most snags haven't been due to a lack of ability, but rather personal life situations getting in the way. I left college after freshmen year for a semester to go to Florida when crisis hit my family and my grades were not quite what they should have been. The family hoopla lasted the whole college career making it at times difficult to balance. The real knife of the situation hit after graduating when the facts of life caught up with me, and I realized the dissociation in emotions, an almost necessity, to get through school. This works up until you face emotional sequences in your writing prose and then you find yourself in writer's block. My cure: taking poetry.
With my own mental outlook and perspective the "issues in focus" that my friend has been saying for years wasn't and isn't the same battle that I face. Therefore, in pointing at what is the problem I didn't have enough knowledge to know what exactly he has been going through for ages. We all have obstacles in our way. There's no such thing as a perfect mind. Even the most brilliant ones have consequences for being so brilliant. I do think we are only seeing but a shadow of who we truly are; it's what my heart tells me, but again I do not have a perfect heart. I think we should try to reach for the stars as much as possible. We should also spend more time with those around us and try to really understand what's holding them back. It might not be the same experience you are having which can make it difficult, especially since each of us has our own individual mind.
On this same week, I went downtown and found out that a writing partner I had in my first screenwriting class had opened a bar. After all these years he remembered my barbaric attempt at screenplay writing and said to stay with it. I went to the Mudhouse and found a barista who had been hired only a week ago who also was once upon a time ago in a writing class with me and said the same note of "not forgetting to write." I don't know why these outliers made a difference in my day. Perhaps because I admire both of them. While going to yoga later in the evening, I was at a stoplight. I turned to face a building I once worked in; a writing job I had two years ago. It was the worst experience for me: soul-sucking to the point of insanity. But I was wearing a t-shirt from when I worked there, so granted, I didn't have that hard of feelings toward the company. I did realize that I require space to interact with people. I love writing, but not in a cubicle with strict measures to stay in my seat... for hours.
Sometimes the cubicles we are forced to be in is exactly what's holding us back from being our real authentic selves. I hope the cubicle will be lifted on my friend's "lack of focus." I hope I acknowledge the cubicles I do have and am willing to face them for correction rather than avoid them.
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