I think I might have A.D…look! A bird!
In general, I am not a big believer in all the new diseases that have been invented in the last decade so that kids could be drugged instead of disciplined, so that they could handle with Ritalin what would be handled quite effectively in my day with a simple “Sit down and shut up or we’ll call your mother”. Believe me, when you have to call your mother and explain to her why you are sitting in the principal’s office because you got caught spitting in another kid’s mouth at lunch, it is something that sticks with you for the rest of your life. And to this day I do not spit in other kids’ mouths at lunch.
But having said all that, I wonder if perhaps I might be afflicted with a touch of one of these diseases I don’t believe in. I think I might have ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). I am pretty sure that I am not ADHD, because I think the H stands for hyperactive, and I am the very antithesis of hyperactive. If there is such a thing as hypoactive, that would be me. And in fact there is, I just looked it up. According to dictionary.com, “hypoactive” is an adjective meaning “abnormally inactive”. And imagine my surprise when I saw my picture next to it.
So why ADD? If you recall from my last post, I mentioned I fell well short of my goal last year of a book a week. What I discovered was that I find it extremely difficult to sit down and commit a couple of hours to reading a book. But you may have gathered from my 157 movies watched last year, that I had no such difficulty committing a couple of hours to a good movie. But I no longer have my dad to tell me to “turn off the TV and read a book” (which I recall him saying many times). So I had to figure it out myself. And I think I found a cure. And it doesn’t even require Ritalin.
My original goal was to read 100 pages per night, then I cut it to 50 when I didn’t find 100 attainable. But lo and behold, I now find 100 pages per night quite attainable, as long as it is not 100 pages in one book, but rather 50 pages in one book and 50 pages in another. I guess that’s where the ADD comes in.
So I now have two books going at all times. The first is non-fiction, serious in nature, for education, for gaining knowledge, for gaining spiritual maturity and wisdom, alternating between old and new, between dead authors and living authors, both sacred and secular. And the second is fiction, lighter in nature, primarily for entertainment, but I would be the first to say that one can gain knowledge and spiritual wisdom from fiction as well, for example, “The Chronicles of Narnia” and the “Space Trilogy” by C.S. Lewis, or “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkein, or anything by my favorite fiction author, Charles Williams, a friend of Lewis and Tolkien and fellow member of the Inklings. Check him out.
And another part of this, to free up my evenings from the felt need of watching a movie, I have also set aside Friday night as a guilt-free movie night, where I put the books down and clear off the Tivo as best I can. It is Oscar month on TCM, so there is always a huge stack to choose from.
So why am I telling you all this? To be honest, this started out as a short intro to a book review, to share with you the fruits of my ADD discovery and treatment. Yes, I finished a book. But at this point it would be such a hard U-turn to jump into a book review right now, that you just might get whiplash. It just doesn’t fit with what I have been talking about, and it deserves its own post. Besides, I feel like I need to go do something else right now. Go figure.
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