Focus, Damn It!

It's funny how memory works.

Why do we remember what we remember?

This morning I was going to sit down and sort through my morning e-mail and for some reason the unlikely line "Ethel the Aardvark goes Quantity Surveying" came running through my head.

Whereas it might sound like a children's book title it's actually a fictitious one that was made up for Monty Python's relatively famous bookshop sketch.

Which, in turn, made me think about my very strange teenage years lived in the South of Spain, and how I originally heard this sketch honey crackling connection on my portable radio from Radio Gibraltar.

The rock of Gibraltar from Guadiaro beach... my own photo, circa 2007

You’ll never know the true value of a moment until it becomes a memory

One of my insights of this Sunday morning is the fact that while I have always struggled with (a lack of) focus — thanks to this thing science calls ADHD — part of the reason I seemed to struggle with focus is the fact that I get "interrupted" by memories.

They appear very suddenly, perhaps triggered by the present... invading my efforts to get something done.

Alas, none of this stuff seems particularly important. It certainly doesn't help me live my life, and it doesn't help me earn an income, but it does add a backdrop of distraction and reflection to my existence.

Back in the day, when teachers would tell me to "focus, damn it!", the reason was often that I was drifting away and thinking about something that had happened at some point in my prior life. I used to believe that excessive dwelling on memories was a thing that happened as you got older but even when I was 16 and in high school or 23 at University I was doing the very same thing.

But why?

I suppose a psychologist would say that I was trying to get away from the present moment by shifting my mind to thinking about the past.

But why?

Trauma can be a difficult beast to trace...

You were beautiful and broken, in all the right places...

Some memories haunt me, and they never stop doing their little dance in the deeper recesses of my mind. They often take the shape of "what ifs," and typically circulate around people (women) and relationships that either didn't happen or went sideways.

What might have gone differently?

We can analyze situations till we're blue in the face, but the primary common thread here tends to be that I went through life accumulating a very fine collection of "broken wings."

Sometimes the answers we seek only serve to point to our own darker sides; the sides we'd like to pretend don't actually exist... but until we acknowledge them and take responsibility for them, we are doomed to stay in an eternal cycle.

The dark side of that is perhaps the recognition of a state of self esteem — for at least the first two decades of my adult life — of feeling like all I deserved were broken wings and discards, not healthy wings that were actually able to fly.

Physician, heal thyself!

Perhaps there are those among us who subconsciously hope we are healing ourselves by providing a safe space in which others with broken wings can heal themselves.

Whether that actually works, I am not sure.

Meanwhile, the memories continue to interrupt my focus. Not as often as they once did... but they are still there. I expect they always will be.

The balance between our "gifts" and "curses" in life is often a very delicate one. Sometimes the very thing that offers us amazing insights and capacities to be of service in certain arenas are also precisely what stands in the way of our getting want we truly want... and, ultimately, our own happiness.

Seeing you healthy and happy IS my reward!

But is it really?

Our have we just kept on failing ourselves?

The jury remains out, on that one!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your Sunday!

How about you? Do you have memories that haunt you? Memories that show up and "interfere" with your current life?Do you just wish they would "go away," or is there something unresolved, there? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.07.28 14:04 PDT
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