driven as hell

by E.E. Cummings

You are tired, (I think) Of the always puzzle of living and doing; And so am I.

Come with me, then, And we’ll leave it far and far away  — (Only you and I, understand!)

You have played, (I think) And broke the toys you were fondest of, And are a little tired now; Tired of things that break, and  — Just tired. So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight, And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart  — Open to me! For I will show you the places Nobody knows, And, if you like, The perfect places of Sleep.

This comes from an idea of culture-as-object, as something distinct from other object-ified social phenomena and can be bounded by the borders of “culture.” I think it was Aime Cesaire who called ethnography a “white method”, for example - the presumptions underlying ethnography as a method comes from the perspective of a scientist who is external to “the culture” under study, who comes in from outside to document, observe, and even “participate” in a given “culture” before going back to the academy and reporting on “the culture of Papua New Guinea” or etc. The analogy of the individual is similarly fraught when we think about how western psychology often talks about things like addiction, mental illness, the very concept of a “personality disorder” and so on, as these things that affect and originate from “individuals”. The “individual,” like “culture,” is a thing you can map causal claims onto - some individuals are disordered, some cultures are backwards, because they are “objects” with “properties” that can be described, much like you would describe the colour and texture of a basketball.

this is obviously not unique to anthropology - Dorothy Smith, a feminist sociologist, talks about this in The Everyday World As Problematic in the context of women being “an object of study” in sociology, a configuration that presumes an external masculine Sociologist who is inherently ignorant of women. Men are subjects (capable of reason and writing, capable of study), women are objects (inert phenomena to be studied, which is how we get claims like “women are irrational”). Applying this back to a colonial context, anthropology’s origins as a data-gathering tool for colonial powers (Said talks a bit about this in Orientalism iirc) positions “cultures” as objects that exist to be studied by white, Anglo, western subjects. I’m not that familiar with anthropology’s role within shaping colonial policies, so idk much about that side of it, although I do know in Canada that there have been recent pushes for indigenous policies of data sovereignty, where indigenous nations, if engaged as research subjects by universities, are given powers to restrict, control, or withhold data/results/research access from researchers if they don’t like the way the research is being conducted or written about (I think the book Decolonising Methodologies by Linda T Smith discusses this, although it’s been a while since I read anything from it).

The Hyperactivity in Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is NOT about being physically hyperactive, it's about having a "hyperactive central nervous system" because it's a form of inheritable dysautonomia. The problem with disautonomia, especially the ADHD kind, is that it makes boredom flag to your nervous system as a THREAT, triggering hyperactive and maladaptive central nervous system processes like fight or flight.

But dysautonomia kills you that way. Literally, part of the reason our average life spand increase on stimulents is that it helps manage risk-taking impulsivity that can get us killed by accident, but the other part is that stimulents can regulate a hyperactive CNS such that it is functionally (while impacted by the stimulent) NOT dysregulated anymore. And PHYSIOLOGICALLY that is essential because the physical outcomes of dysautonomia can reduce your life span by YEARS if not decades through self-perpetuating hypervigelence, endocrine disruption, and adrenal fatigue.

So when the ADHD brain goes stimulation-seeking and a doctor tells you to practice mindfulness, it feels like being told "hey go stand in a functioning boiler until you can stop thinking" rather than WHAT IT IS which is the process of re-teaching your body what is and isn't safe.

Standing outside making mindful, non-interpretive/moralized observation of the world helps your brain and body re-acclimate to the idea that absence of that frantic "busy" feeling isn't a threat or a risk to your safety, and gradually reduces the level of distress that just hanging out somewhere triggers for you.

Learning WHY this stuff was being suggested and understanding what it was actually supposed to do went a long way towards changing my relationship with my ADHD. I am FAR more functional now, far less prone to shame spirals and rejection sensitivity, hell, I can **sit physically still for near on an hour at a time** now without feeling like I'm going to crawl out of my skin.

So yeah. Go outside. Let the world narrow around you and take deep breaths until it stops feeling claustrophobic or like you need to climb walls. Learn how to let little sensations become big ones like the way the heat of the sun on your skin starts as a gentle warming and be omes a unique collection of sensory moments depending on how it lands on you. Listen for sounds under sounds and let them fade in and out as you move your focus from one sound to the next. Enjoy. Move on. Rinse and repeat.