Solemnly Swearing

So, what I’m wondering at this moment is….what the difference is between ADD and just having an undisciplined mind?

Sometimes, I’m not really sure what’s up with my head – but I severely lack discipline, focus and concentration. It’s just so easy to jump from subject to subject and get nothing accomplished. Granted I have my moments of “hyper-concentration” (that’s an ADD term I found via Google) but I do not want to believe that my lack of focus is biological. That might make things easier to understand, and possibly easier to work through. But that still seems like a pat answer…now run off to Walgreens and get your pills. Everything will be better in 2-4 weeks, once the meds kick in.

I came home tonight with the explicit goal to get my room cleaned up. Instead, I ate cookies, smoked two cigarettes, ate some tuna, watched TV, watched some porn, talked on the phone and made a half-assed attempt to balance my checkbook and pay my bills.

Is that normal?

What do normal people do on a Friday night?

Should I be at a gym, in a class, viewing art?

Should I be out on a date, and if so, with whom?

Should I be drawing, painting, thinking…..creating?

Should I be folding laundry and vacuuming?

Should I be fretting so much about all this anyway?

Seems like so much time can be spent, sitting here, reading blogs, searching Google, listening to NPR archives, acquiring vast amounts of useless information about things and people that have no impact on my life. Seems like I can spend hours thinking and writing and not really doing anything constructive – even with my thoughts and my words. There is a commotion in this inactivity that seems strangely engaged, but is really quite ineffectual. And I’m left wondering if this laptop shouldn’t be left at work? Is there’s a life out there for me? But I doubt that I will ever find the answer to those questions until I get off my fat ass and get busy.

But busy doing what?

With whom?

Where?

And who’s gonna pay for it?

See…we found the kid guilty. (This is the terribly confessional time where the real crux of the matter is about to play itself out. Trite, I know. But I never promised to be much of a writer.)

So…see……we found the kid guilty.

Well, he really wasn’t a kid. He was 20. But the evidence was there. And he’s gonna spend time in jail. He’s already been there for a while, but now he has a conviction (actually, two) and he doesn’t get to have this existential crisis. He doesn’t get to worry about where he’s going with his life and whether or not he can spend tomorrow buying Christmas presents. Right now, maybe he’s in his cell, probably hating us jurors, regretting his actions and his deeds and he doesn’t have any chance to make things different for himself today, tomorrow or the day after that. His life right now is probably focused on not getting sodomized, not getting stabbed and not losing hope.

I felt like I really understood what freedom was when I looked him in the eye as the verdict was being read. When all was said and done, I got to walk out of that courthouse to live my life however I saw fit. But the experience was profoundly draining. And no National Anthem played in my mind when I walked down the stairs and out onto the bitter cold sidewalk yesterday afternoon to live my free life.

Rather, I walked out and thought……So what happens now? Where am I going to?

And the fucking Evita soundtrack started racing through the neuro-pathways. And it got me thinking, Is Madonna (this wasn’t the original Patty Lupone recording) the way? So now, today, after much consideration, I’m still left wondering, “What the fuck am I eating cookies when I could be doing yoga, studying the Koran, developing a world-wide marketing plan, taking care of two kids, screwing an auteur, pissing off Sandra Bernhard and having the HBO premier of my terribly lousy film?”

And that’s just tonight and just from 8-9 CST.

Maybe Madonna is the way, after all. She needs to write a book to tell us how. A real book. And not some crappy pseudo/art crap piece of shit book. No…she needs a self-help book. She needs to share how to get the focus. How to keep the focus. How to keep it together in the family and how to ….okay…I’m going to shut up. I was about to say something really stupid…

Yup. It’s the Madonna plan for 2004. If she won’t create it, maybe I will. Of course, I cannot call it the Madonna plan, coz she would sue my ass in a heartbeat. But there’s a new focus here in at robthurman.com.

At least for the next five minutes.