ADHD Strikes Again! One Too Many Projects to Finish

Time for a Writing Update!

What? Don't bail yet!

Nope. Too late. I lost them. Apparently, quite a few people spend less than five seconds on this page before leaving for shinier pastures. That people searching for ADHD articles on the net get bored and leave in under five seconds must break a record for irony somewhere.

But you stayed with me, didn't you? So let's ignore the ironically challenged and move on.

Although I have been busiest with my new, annoying friend, Insomnia McEvil, there has been progress on the writing front. I thought I would let you know what I've been up to. Then, as the list of writing projects grew, I suddenly realized that I had become victim of that old malady Multi Irons Syndrome.

Everybody struggles with having too many irons in the fire from time to time, but adults with ADHD are positively experts at it. We don't mean to build with our own hands the obstacles that get in the way of our success, but something about new ideas is so tantalizing for us. With an almost non-existent impulse control filter, we abandon more projects for new ones than a politician changes positions during an election season.

I know exactly how it happened. Once I finished the final, amazing draft for my overcoming suicide book, I floundered. My hyperfocus had ended; chaos returned. Don't believe me? Here's my project list since January:

• My book on overcoming suicide is in my editor's hands. I'm a wee bit apprehensive. This process has taken longer because during the slow winter months while I waited for her feedback, I fiddled with formatting for the final edition and saw edits I needed to make. Next thing I knew, I had rewritten entire chapters. Needless to say, my editor stopped editing once she discovered what I had been up to. Fortunately, my instincts were on the mark and the edits have proven to be major improvements. Not so bad, right? It's almost good news.
• I also dusted off a Middle Grade novel. It was originally a picture book, but I began reworking the plot. In fact, I did a lot of research on the project last week. But do I have a story there that's worth pursuing? I don't know yet. I keep putting it aside because…
• I also structured my book on fighting depression. There is only one other logistical aspect I need to iron out before I begin in earnest. My goal is to start and finish within six months. Time's already ticking, but there's that logistical thingummy, and…
• A new, non-fiction book is nagging at me. It's based on all the Pokémon activity I've been doing with my youngest daughter since Christmas. I've even outlined it. Now I'm deciding whether it's a distraction or not, and wondering how quickly I could finish it if I began writing it. I've already created a handmade camera stand of my own design to photograph screen shots with my iPhone. I think this book is getting in the way of my fighting depression book, because it would be more fun. But is that enough of a reason to abandon the project? So I punt the decision forward due to…
• I have been aching to write some short fiction, too. I even spent a day working out an entire story, complete with character backgrounds, settings, mystery, and a trick ending. Ah, too bad I didn't write any of it down, but I do recall it involved a ghost, a commuter train, a platform, and a clairvoyant hired to help the ghost move on, except the clairvoyant might have been the murderer. Or something. We'll never know. I certainly don't anymore!

Sometimes people discover my blog and they stay far longer than five seconds. They follow me on social media. They promote me, retweet me, and praise me. Then they find out I'm only human. A few then get irate with me, feeling that I've betrayed them. All I have ever done here is share my adult ADHD experiences and how I get over them. I'm not an expert; I'm a compadre. Staying on top of ADHD takes a lot of work, and sometimes life or fatigue get in the way. Next thing we know, we're knee deep in commitments and projects we have almost no hope of resolving. That's the nature of MIS—a malady I made up but that should be added to the DSM-V. Everybody encounters it, but adults with ADHD make it a lifestyle.

What do you do if you have too many irons in the fire?

Try these three simple steps to get back on top:

1. Write Down a List of Your Current Projects – In my case above, I clearly am spending more energy thinking of ideas than bringing them to life. There is only so much time in the day, despite daylight savings time and Apple Watches. The trouble with MIS is that we aren't fully aware that we're making trouble for ourselves. This is why making lists every few months is key. I was overdue by a month for my assessment, but fortunately this problem is easily rectified.
2. Choose TWO to Work On – I usually only choose one project to focus on, but sometimes it helps to have a second, less important one to switch to when I get bored and need a break from the major project. Every project becomes a bit boring once the excitement of the idea has passed. Working out the details and bringing a project to life can be quite dull sometimes, but if we focus on one main project and discipline ourselves to not create new ones, we can surprise ourselves with a finished project sooner than we realized was possible.
3. Put the List Away – Promise yourself that you will return to the unfinished projects as soon as you finish the current one, but put that list away. It has been my experience that whenever I leave other projects on the table, I can't keep away from them. They distract me with their shiny promise of new thrills and excitement. Whether figuratively or physically, I put the less important projects away so that I won't get distracted.

That is what I am doing tonight. My friend, McEvil, has been keeping me up, but the warm glass of almond milk with cinnamon has done it's work. I'm ready to give sleep a chance. Before I crash, however, I will have chosen ONE project to work on until the edits for my “Saying ”No!“ to Suicide” book arrive in my inbox. Then I will put that one project aside and work on nothing but my overcoming suicide book until I publish it this Spring.

Unless! I might decide to teach myself Apple's Swift programming language. There was that app on detecting irony I've been meaning to code.

 

Apple Glitches Causing ADHD Disruption, No Apple Watch Love

I’m not very excited about the Apple Watch. You could say my level of interest is only somewhat higher than I regard floor wax. Don’t get me wrong. I am impressed with its gorgeous stylings and design. I certainly think that it is beautifully made. I’m just not very interested in it, and I believe my ADHD is partially at fault, though most of the blame I lay on Apple.

Every time that Apple comes out with a new product, the internet is filled with griping and grousing from anti-Apple fans who seem to resent that Apple gets a lot of press. Oh, I realize they feel Apple is overhyped, but for the most part their complaint stems from them not being Apple fans. There is flak from the Android guys. There is guff from the PC guys. Now the anti-corporate-greed crowd has a new reason to mobilize due to the Apple Watch Edition being expensive—because apparently rich people shouldn’t be allowed to waste their money the way we poor folk do. Somewhere somebody feels that if a rich jerk can spend $10K on a watch, he can fund their Patreon.

I don’t care about any of that. I believe Apple has a right to make expensive items, and people with money have a right to buy expensive items. If you think that $349 for a sports edition is still too expensive for what you think of as just a watch, then you aren’t the customer Apple is targeting. You also don’t likely have an iPhone and can’t use the thing.

Here’s the Rub

My disinterest, however, has nothing in common with most of your disinterests. The reason I am disinterested in the Apple Watch has to do with apprehension. The user interface of iOS 8 on my iPhone 5 and my install of Yosemite on my Mac mini are so buggy that I’m miffed at Apple.

Does that seem silly? Well, I don’t call my iPhone “iBrain” for no reason. I have made my iPhone an extension of my memory. When business texts inexplicably disappear as happened this morning, or the iPhone won’t let me in because the “Slide to open” is ignoring me as happened two minutes ago, or when I miss calls because the iPhone won’t answer, or any other number of glitches that shouldn’t have been introduced into my ecosystem but where when Apple decided that flat was the new black, I get a little cranky.

However, as somebody said to me so elegantly the other morning, “So?”

Well, the iPhone glitches mess with my flow and routine. Can you relate? PDAs were a modern miracle for me. My dotty memory could finally be compensated for. The iPhone took things even further for me when it gave me the Internet in my pocket, happily synced to my Mac at home. However, when the iPhone doesn’t work reliably I have real world consequences beyond not being able to answer a phone call. iCloud deciding its server database is more recent than the one in my hand means I miss my newly entered appointment because iCloud deleted that entry during sync. Since iOS 6, this has been a serious issue for me. I’ve taken to double checking my iPhone after inputing an appointment just to make sure iCloud didn’t remove it.

In fact, none of Apple products are infallible. Nobody, despite snide Internet comments stating otherwise, said Apple products were perfect. I don’t expect my iPhone & Mac to be perfect. However, I do expect them to work reliably after an upgrade to the OS. Each time I bump into an Apple glitch, I spend days trying to troubleshoot it. A few weeks ago I updated the Apple server software tools and they helpfully overwrote all my Apache config files. When I updated to Yosemite, TimeMachine stopped working and I had to troubleshoot permissions manually in the Terminal to get things working again. My Apple TV only just recently started accessing my iTunes database again after not being able to for the past five months for no discernible reason. I spent weeks troubleshooting that, chatting back and forth in Apple forums with others having the same problem. Eventually, I gave up on it and accepted it as broken. I have no idea why my Apple TV can access my iTunes library now.

What the heck does this have to do with ADHD?

To those on the outside, maybe my gripes sound no different from anti-Apple fans who just hate everything Apple, but this glitchy user experience is a new one for me. Once we left Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) and iOS 6, things have been a bumpy ride. Unfortunately, adults with ADHD have a low tolerance for frustration. Flaws stand out for us. They feel assaulting. They irk us like a wobbly chair in the testing center or an animated chyron during our favorite TV show. We have a hard time ignoring them.

My irritation might be heightened by my ADHD, but it’s a major reason why I am not excited to add the Apple Watch to my already rocky routine. I’m not irritated enough to switch platforms (I already came over from the competition), but after a recent conversation on Facebook with anti-Apple fans, I thought “Do I sound as negative as these guys? They act as if Apple has done something personally to hurt them.” Then I realized that I used Apple products and actually had reasons to feel personally aggravated with the company. I can’t be the only other adult with ADHD who finds the new glitchy Apple counterproductive, can I? Doesn’t it bug you, even just a little? Let me know in the comments.

On Cybergoths, ADHD & Distraction

There is always one inciting moment that sends me off on an Internet safari of discovery. Most days I can pinpoint the moment and say, “Aha! There’s where I went astray!” On mornings like today, however, neck deep in distractions with multiple tabs opened on no less than three different devices, I have no idea when my “get up and get busy” became “get down and get funky”, but I sure had fun.

There is no tip for you today beyond the importance of not beating yourself up when your mind strays. Sometimes our adult ADHD minds need to spin without focus—to return to their natural state before we whip them back into shape. What I like to do in these instances is turn my distractions into something productive. So this is me turning my distraction into a writing exercise.

That’s it. Lesson over.

Can I share my trip down the rabbit hole with you now? This is probably the most off-topic, self-indulgent article I have ever written here, but I had so much fun putting it together. It features a lot of YouTube videos, but I have no guarantee that the videos will still be up for you when you discover this article, so I’ve labeled them. Maybe you can find them again if they go missing.

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I was listening to VNV Nation on SoundCloud this morning. They sound a bit like Apoptygma Berzerk had Depeche Mode over for tea, then wrote music without the rage nozzle. It’s not boring, but feels derivative to me because I’ve been a music geek for over three decades, and I’ve heard it all before. Singing in a virtual 5-note tonal range similar to Apoptygma Berzerk doesn’t help either, but that may be a stylistic aspect of darkwave/industrial.

VNV Nation - Tomorrow Never Comes

I had come across them because of an earlier, but related distraction. I had discovered cybergoths.

Their look was so extreme—so radical—that I was instantly fascinated. They looked like something straight out of a Science Fiction movie. Not even Pris in Blade Runner looked as wild, though there were certainly similarities. Somehow I missed this trend, but not living in Europe can excuse me a bit, right? At any rate, there was even a Wikihow How to be a Cybergoth page. It contained every step I needed to take to embrace this new lifestyle, not that I would know where they hung out in Utah.

The page claimed you had to be familiar with VNV Nation and Icon of Coil if you wanted to be a legit cybergoth, or they’d think you were a poser. I wouldn’t want that! I’d want Pris to take me seriously if I tried to start up a conversation with her. Then I thought, "Waitaminute! I have Icon of Coil in my music library from ages ago. That makes me a cybergoth!! All I need is some dayglo cyber lox, a Bane mask, some goggles perched cutely askew on my head, and a youtube video of me using my tecktonik moves beneath an overpass, and I’ll be totes authentic. My day was all planned out now.

Dance trends fascinate me because my brother and I used to teach ourselves how to pop & breakdance just by watching Friday Night Videos in 1983. We didn’t have cable, and we didn’t have a VCR, but we had bundles of ADHD. We’d intensely watch the R&B videos, memorize every detail, then immediately try to mimic what we saw. We got quite good. I focused on poppin‘, and he focused on breaking’. Then we’d teach each other what we learned. I still remember the Eureka! moment when I discovered the secret to the wave was isolation of the previous joint. That opened up everything. I competitive danced in college after that. Fun times.

From this point on, I am simply going to share with you the videos I found that delighted & impressed me with a few comments here and there. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

I mentioned “tecktonik” before. It was a music and dance style that raged through rave culture in France in the late Aughts. I’d show you dance crew SMDB in action, but their best videos have been pulled, the bums. French corporations kinda killed tecktonik when they trademarked the name. This video shows a group of kids jumping on the tecktonik Youtube craze of 2009, so it gives you a great feel for the peak of the style. Those kids really knew how to rock the Asian mullet:

Tck Music by Tothdanny – March 2009

I knew at the time that Tecktonik had crossed over into Germany, but I had no idea how it had been transformed by cybergoth rave culture. They called it Industrial Dance instead. The dance moves are so similar that it makes me wonder if both styles evolved from an earlier common style. I’m only piecing things together from thousands of miles away through YouTube like some lame online dance anthropologist. What do I know, really? I did find this video from the same time period. It’s clever, but very far out there, especially compared to the kids in France. Cybergoths were wearing gas masks and fake dreads at the time. It’s a wild look:

Eisenfunk – Pong – November 2009

It seems that Industrial Dance took off whereas Tecktonik died when corporate interests tried to monetize it. However, just like Tecktonik the dancers took to YouTube to show off their skills. They follow the same pattern, too. Early videos show off technique, then later videos feature a fictional narrative that ends in a dance-off. This guy here shows how serious these kids took their subculture. He has serious skill, too. My out-of-shape, forty-eight year old self is quite jealous of that skill:

Bio Sektor industrial Dance STUDIO -X SPEED – August 2011

You’ve probably seen this next video openly mocked because the kids spent more effort on their outfits than their dancing skills. They also chose a song with a variable tempo to dance to. Not a smart choice. It’s two years after the French kids video above. The dance styles are similar, but the Industrial style, not Asian mullets, stuck. Also, they’ve added dayglo & rave accouterments. These goths are meant to glow in the dark. Try to watch this original video without the goofy dubbed tracks in your mind that you’ve probably seen on Vine and Facebook. Most of these dancers aren’t very good, but they’re extremely serious because it takes a great deal of practice and effort to carry off all those moves rapidly and to the beat:

Cybergoth Dance Party – September 2011

The bright, furry moonboots matched with poofy dread falls and gas masks look that I affectionately call “Death Muppet” was the characteristic cybergoth style, but in 2012 Steampunk started to make some inroads. This video is a compilation all of the female dancer bits from Eisenfunk’s less-than-interesting CG video for “Pentafunk”, remixed to the beat. I believe it is the same girl from the “Pong” video because of her (likely) tattooed eye makeup:

Cyber Goth Queen Pentafunk Jenny – July 2012

Still, cybergoths loved dancing in run down buildings while wearing gas masks. The more derelict, the better. Their video skills were improving along with their dance moves:

Industrial dance – October 2012

It was around this time that Industrial Dance spawned YouTube stars—usually pretty girls—who looked fabulous in gas masks and fluorescent green hair. Most of them seemed to focus on their costumes more than their dance skills, but it’s still interesting to see the style evolving. Some of these dancers treat Industrial Dance not as a fad, but as a performance art. This girl looks great even if her dance moves aren’t the most crisp (Slow start. Picks up at 0:58 mark…). Also of note, this video had over one million views:

Industrial Dance – God is in the Rain – Suicide Commando – Pitite Oudy Cyber Goth – December 2012

A year later and the face masks are gone except for wannabe videos popping up in other countries. I believe we are witnessing the last of the Death Muppet look:

Industrial Dance // Princess Chaos // Nachtmahr - Mörder – May 2013

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UPDATE: I found this video after I posted this article. It's Bio Sektor from above, two years later and phenomenal. I think this is my favorite video by far. This guy has taken SMDB crew's Milky Way style and blended it with American popping & German Industrial Dance into his own amazing style. In the middle of the video you'll see him speeding up and slowing down his arm wave to the beat. My mouth dropped.

Bio Sektor Industrial Dance X-RX Activate The Machinez – August 2013

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One more rotation around the sun and the styles are less BIG and more convenient, which is usually how fashions go. Also, dancing is hot, so there were less clothes, too. I'm sure it has nothing to do with being sexy. Interestingly, the dance moves remain the same, although stylistically they are more sensual and Tecktonik than Industrial. That could be because of these particular dancers, however. Again, I'm commenting from years and miles away. YouTube isn't necessarily a true lens to study this movement through:

Industrial dance V.Cordis and =BusteT= Sleetgrout – Dance Like Joke – April 2014

Then just the other day, this posted:

Industrial Dance - Riot Rebellion - Binary Division - Ciwana Black – April 2015

At last we have come to the bottom of the rabbit hole. What do you think? Fascinating, yes? I never in my wildest dreams imagined such bizarre fashion, though the makeup & vibe is sure close to what Pris from Blade Runner was sporting in the 80s. At any rate, my addiction for NEW has been sated. I think all of this is rather cool, and if my back supported me, I would be out there trying to learn their moves.

Considering how little sleep I had last night, it was not realistic that I would get much done on my list today, but at least I didn’t spend the day binge watching something on Netflix. Still, I haven’t spelunked down a rabbit hole this deep in a while. I’m not sure if anything I “researched” today can be put to use, but the process was helpful, so I don’t regret it. Somewhere out there somebody will find this blog entry and appreciate all the weird and wonderful videos I gathered. The world can be weird, but there is a beauty to how humans express themselves. I just have this worry that the lyrics to the songs in German aren’t unsafe for work or furry woodland critters.

Lastly, I finally remembered the inciting incident that began this trip to Wonderland. This is the moment my attention was mislaid, resplendent in all its goofy glory. I'm sure the reason the video was posted on Twitter was not so I could ignore the goofy soundtrack and admire the dancing. I saw outlandishly dressed kids using Tecktonik moves. I had to know the story behind it, so I tracked the original video down and began my afternoon of Industrial Dance discovery. If you made it this far, leave a comment below. Let me know what you thought of the ADHD ride I took you on.:

Cybergoths Dance to Thomas the Tank Engine – November 2014

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LAST UPDATE, I PROMISE: I'm posting this a few weeks later. I found this video soon after I posted this blog. If you thought that Cyber Goths were a small subculture, this hour long video comprised of various YouTube clips done to the same songs should show you how widespread the movement was in Germany. The videos cover a two year period. It is definitely NOT SAFE FOR WORK, however. There are a few songs and sequences in there that are eyebrow raising (Almost anything by Centhron.). I share it because it is a great snapshot of how wild things got in the Industrial Dance scene. It's still a subculture, however. My daughter in Germany claims this music isn't played on the radio at all.

Das Klub Industrial Dance Megamix – December 2013