My epiphany about objects
Sunday, February 19th 2012 @ 4:00 PM
Ok I realize this may sound hopefully clueless to many of you, and understandably so. But on my holiday all alone for a week, just me and an apartment full of objects, I realized something that I guess has escaped me all these years… all these years of wondering why the objects I put down on shelves or in the closet or on the counter or just about anywhere, just weren’t cooperating. After all, I had been trying to meet them more than half way, sometimes even ¾ of the way. Somehow, I had just missed the ideas that these were completely inanimate objects, at least I see that’s how I had been behaving. Maybe its the humanist in me gone wild, maybe it’s the early influence of growing up with Disney and movies like the Sorcerers Apprentice
( even if those objects were menacing, they were alive)
But this morning, when it was just me and all these objects, I had a moment of clarity I would like to share with you. It happened I guess because I was in a new environment, no distractions, no where to go. Just me and these shoes I was placing( I thought) on the ground. This room didn’t have a closet, just a clothes rack in the bedroom with a place underneath for shoes. That’s where I was aiming for in my mind, but that was this AM, when I still believed I had a willing partner in these shoes)
Maybe part of it was there wasn't a dark deep place(like my closet at home) where I could just casually toss things into and keep my self literally in the dark about what was happening in there. For some reason it was always surprising to me, when I looked in the next day, that like willful children, these objects were never where I thought they were supposed to be, where I had intended them to end up! Like some magic show where something mysterious was supposed to happen, these shoes I imagined would miraculously end up in straight rows because they would go the extra few inches to help me and line up to welcome me the next day. They always disappointed me
But back to this AM, when it was just me and this one black shoe with bright sunlight streaming in, on a white carpet, with plenty of space, like a stage for me to watch what happened. In slow motion, I saw that when I tossed this shoe, somehow thinking it would land where I had intended it to, I watched instead as it landed and rolled a good half foot away from my mentally intended estimated destination for it. There it was, starkly, in bold relief, just this one black shoe right in the middle of the room, all alone on the white carpet.
And then it dawned on me, objects have no brains!
I hate to admit it, but this was an epiphany. Objects have no will, no brains, no ability to go anywhere except in a random way. The only way they end up precisely in the exact spot you want them to is if you deliberately place them there. (Boy I can see how this would sound crazy to a non ADD group!)
This was the answer then, the reason others didn’t have this problem of dropping, bumping, spilling, tripping. Others must know this secret. Objects have no brains!
I have to admit, it felt like somewhat of a loss to me-I was all alone, just me and all these hundreds or thousands of objects where I had to supply all the attention,intention action. As if I don’t have enough to do already! I guess that’s what ADD is all about after all, that extra edge that takes such tremendous energy to supply. So it is a little lonely here today realizing these are all just a bunch of inanimate objects around me, no personality, no will of their own.
But if you want to, give it a try today like I am. I keep repeating this mantra “objects have no brains.” And it is helping me, yes it seems a sadder and lonelier place, but I am trying to remember that unless I place objects exactly where I want them to go, knowing if I take my eye off of them, even for a second, they will, like unruly children, do what ever they damn please!