Attention Deficit Or Surplus
A routine maintenance ritual, copier techs would spread a couple of sheets of newspaper on a copier glass to collect and bag worn-out developer. On one occasion, a front-page headline about adult attention deficit disorder caught my attention. Ironic or not, I was distracted enough to read the entire article which continued on page two. While ADHD was something you don’t outgrow, I never knew that I had it.
Over, Under, Sideways, Down; I was supposedly “under-employed.” I liked working, but moved from job to job often—mechanic, laborer, carpenter on a framing crew, and copier technician; I was curious enough to get a diagnosis.
TOVA
One of the tools used for diagnosis is the Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA). I sat in a darkened room with a handheld microswitch and a large computer monitor. Whenever a small random black square momentarily appears, press the switch. If a red square flashes, ignore it. The computer tracked my reaction time and accuracy. Sitting in the dark, trying to be vigilant enough to catch harmless squares flashing on the screen while I was doing nothing, made me anxious. A diagnosis of normality or abnormality, either one was a threat. Sometimes, both states of being seem equally undesirable. The test made sense. But the boredom from waiting for flashing shapes was surreal. The outcome? If my reaction times were normal, I’d have to ask myself, what was stopping me from success, a societal construct in itself. If there was some kind of deficit, what did I need to fire me up?
******
Dream World Egg on a Golf Tee
Sid Sidney describes a session in the Academy’s EggRoom: Electrodes attached to his forehead, he focuses on a built-in cubby that frames a pigeon-size egg; pointed end down, perched on a golf tee. Room lights dim, a spotlight shining on the egg brightens the cathedral-shaped cubby. He keeps focusing on the egg, centered in its sanctuary. He wonders if the egg is just a calcium shell containing life that can’t be. It might be there to help him relax, react in minimalist ways, and transmit brainwaves piggybacked on radio waves casting themselves out to the EEG.
It might not be an egg. Maybe it is just something that happens to be oval shaped, and white. Whatever, it sits on a golf tee, centered in the cathedral-shaped cubby, projecting life, with or without meaning. It might be an Easter egg, not to be eaten or hatched. In and out of focus, his mind swims in its neurochemical ocean, scrambling to escape itself. His eyes blink away tears, not from sadness, but from the effort required to focus on something meaningless, an egg too real to lack nothingness, a void too empty to fill. There’s nothing to fear but emptiness itself. Sid says his eyes can’t blink fast enough.
Truth or Promise in an EggRoom and EEG.
How did Sid get there? Offbeat or fictitious diagnostics? Is there any truth or promise in the Eggroom?
I know this: an egg perched on a golf tee can’t be any crazier than a pigeon hatching a golf ball.