Little fish, big pond

I laughed my way through the Accountant 2 the other day and you should too. Because it’s not only a great summer movie (if you can stomach a body count of about 100 dead bad guys) but it has some of the funniest scenes of neurodivergent behavior since Peanut Butter Falcon.

The dating scene alone in the Accountant 2 is worth the price of a ticket. Oh, and please go see it in a theatre with a giant bucket of buttered popcorn and large soda (free refills although really, 2 buckets is a little excessive), it will cost you about half of a nice dinner out and I promise you won’t go away hungry.

But back to the movie, Ben Affleck is brilliant from his Solomon Grundy repetitive chant to his buddy relationship with his also-a-tinge-of-the-tism brother. I won’t reveal much more, go see for yourself, but I will say it got me thinking about how we’re really all kinda neurodivergent.

Remember that myth that we only use 10% of our brain? Well, it’s not fully a myth because as America becomes dumber and more sentient, our brains develop paths which reward and perpetuate the situation. It’s like reverse evolution, we wake, we watch, we fight diversity, innovation and connection, we watch, we eat, we sleep, we repeat. OK, maybe not all of us, but for many of us the paths in our brains are set on repeat and difficult to change. But change is life, failure is growth and difficulty sometimes leads you down better paths. IT’s uncomfortable to get out of your bubble but you should do it at least once every day.   

Now I understand why my Lou Reed Pandora station plays Sugaree by the Dead.

My sis gave me “Lou Reed King of New York” for my birthday and it’s become my new tequila. I had a path of acceptable tequila consumption for many years then about 10 years ago decided that it was not going to help my final chapter so I put it down. Nothing dramatic, I had some supports and the monster was never stronger than my conviction so I built a path of sobriety versus the path of acceptable-but-more-than-average consumption which I grew up with.  

Did it change my life? I guess, I mean, things are still hard but not as hard as they were with hangovers and sleeping on the couch. Did I become the famous novelist living by a river in between competing in professional tennis tournaments? No, but I was able to continue helping lost students find a path and my bed is a much more comfortable place than the couch.

Oh, right, Lou and the Dead, damn ADHD.  See, I learned that my love of both bands isn’t really such a stretch, “Both bands like to take simple modal patterns of one or two chords and spin them out into long jams, though they took these in different directions. The Velvets freaky ambient noise not far removed from the Dead’s ‘Spaces’”

I’m learning about myself, my own neurodivergence, how I perceive the world and a little bit about how the world sees me. And if you’re reading this, you’re a part of my journey (ADHD, RSD Rejection Sensitivity Disorder, HED Hyper-Empathy Disorder) because journaling and being heard are important to me. Yeah, I hate the acronyms too but they serve a purpose.

I am also working on a four-week unit called “Self: why you do you.” For next year because my students will benefit from knowing about themselves and why they feel and think and act like they do.

Have you ever read any of these rantings and thought, “How does he think up this stuff?” or “How does his brain go from movies to the Dead to neurodivergence?”  

Well, now you know.