After years of assessing my strengths and weaknesses, there’s no doubt I’m a highly distractable person. What would that be in today’s coded vernacular…HDP? I’m sure if I were in high school now, psychologists would be breaking it all down into a neat little prescription to be filled at the pharmacy but all it really boils down to for me is an inability to focus sometimes in the midst of surrounding activity. When I’m creating something (this story for instance) and the phone rings or someone calls to me, it’s like one of those near-death accounts where, on your way to the glorious light, you come reeling back to mundane life. It’s jarring and causes an automatic restart.
It’s why my creativity has always thrived in the wee hours of the morning. I like being awake when most people aren’t. It’s like being in one of those sci-fi flicks where the guy realizes that the entire human race has been wiped off the planet and he’s the only one left and he’s got the run of the roost, but unlike the sci-fi guy I’m comforted to know that the isolation is temporary and, eventually, the rest of the world will get out of bed and I won’t die alone.
I’ve been this way since I was a kid and after this many years it is an easily definable part of my character. When I was young, if school hours permitted (and sometimes even when they didn’t) I’d be up at 2am doing virtually anything; reading, writing, making model cars, writing songs, studying the jokes on comedy albums, creating lists of anything that came into my head and sometimes I’d just sit and think of shit.
It may sound like ‘thinking of shit’ is an empty activity but that is far from true because most of my best ideas are formulated in this vacuum of uncluttered time. It’s in this time that my brain becomes well-ordered and everything makes sense in a way that the cacophony of day to day activities do not. I admire those who retain clarity while standing on a teeter board, juggling 4 balls and reciting the Gettysburg Address. I just don’t seem to be one of them since all I want to do is get really good with the teeter board and then move on to the juggling.
My wife, on the other hand, is a marvel of powerful thinking in the eye of the storm. With a teeter board under each foot and a bucket full of balls flying at her, she can quickly breakdown the situation and reign it in like Einstein herding relativity into an understandable theory. It’s amazing to watch her in full operational gear.
Now, this is not to say that I’m not quick since in my profession as an entertainer I have to stand in front of groups of people everyday and corral an audience with off the cuff comedy and a perfect flow of music. In the midst of what most people might consider a frightening chaos, I’m as clear as a laser and know exactly what to do and when to do it.
But that’s a controlled environment (when I control it) that I’ve become skilled at over 4 decades of repetition and practice and doesn’t quite have the randomness of the majority of daily encounters. That’s what separates the thinkers from the sinkers and it’s why I do my best thinking when the bats are getting their exercise. Life just sort of gets put on ‘pause’ while I get some work done.
There are only a couple of other comparable times where there is perfect clarity and that’s in the morning when I’m just coming out of my nightly coma, before I set one foot on the floor. I’m at my organizational best at that very moment…lining up the days events, assigning myself a series of necessary tasks and planning a well-appointed day. I only run into trouble when I get out of bed where the quandary of order becomes an issue. Up until that time I’m the best secretary I’ve ever had. Too bad the secretary ends up being a temp.
The other time is in the shower. The shower is like an isolation tank where your only task is to bath, which leaves it wide open for thought. Nothing but you, falling water and an open mind. I have come up with some great stuff in the shower and if I were wise I’d install a waterproof, digital recorder on the wall.
I think my DNA is hard-wired this way and as much as I struggle to make it work more like my wife’s I know it never will be. Getting older is worthless for running faster and jumping higher but for knowing what you’re good or bad at; it’s the perfect clarifier.
I am what I’ve always been; a very, very, very poor man’s Stephen Hawking, a sharp intellect that only comes out after midnight and is this close to being interviewed by Anne Rice.
