Andrew,

I find it very interesting that my son describes what he calls "mental switching gears" in a very similar way--cutting his brain in half.

He learns very differently from my other boys--and most other people. Makes me wonder if you learn in the same way. . .it is sometimes called The Edison Trait.

http://www.elijahcompany.com/help/articles/edison.htm

Of the three types, he is a Dreamer.

If it doesn't mean tearing your chest in two, take a look and let me know if you can relate.

I read the entire article, and although I don't have all the traits they mention, I'm probably also what they would call a Dreamer.

I wouldn't want to be any other way, either. When I'm properly motivated, I can accomplish large quantities of work in a short period of time. I can figure out complex problems, come up with useful designs, or foresee problems that others might overlook. I can also spend several days thinking about a single thing--even to the neglect of my health. I can spend hours writing one sentence until it's perfect. And yes, to outsiders I'm a huge procrastinator with my head in the clouds.

Here are two examples that might illustrate my personality better: I was going to replace a rusty section of the body on my Landcruiser. One year and $20,000 later, I had a new truck. I bought a camera six months or so ago. I didn't know a lick about photography. Six months later I have taken 10,000 photos, even including periods of several weeks at a time without taking a single shot. I have learned to use professional software to edit them, and have a website with over 500 photos on it. And I don't care if I ever take another photo or drive that truck again--but they were all consuming projects at the time.

I only wish an obsessive mind was more useful in personal life. For instance, I've been told that I'm the most frustrating man on earth to have a crush on, and I'm often so consumed with tasks at hand that I neglect my friends for long periods of time. Then, when they least expect it, I'll smother them until they're sick of me. Oh well, we all have our strengths.

Thanks for the encouragement, however, since whoever wrote that article doesn't seem to think I'm crazy!

Maybe that's why I like you so much, Andrew. You really are so much like my Sam!

Sam is a cartoonist and he is really very good. He has spent a great deal of his free time drawing and learning about cartooning and cartoons. He knows the old cartoons inside and out (for example, he can tell you the year and the episode when characters were introduced in various comic strips and cartoons and can take one look at a cartoon drawing of say, Elmer Fudd, and tell you about when it was drawn and when the next updated version came along. And yet, while he can learn facts in school long enough to get through a test, he promptly forgets them unless they have some intrinsic value to him.

A professional cartoonist saw some of his work and offered to mentor him over the summer. Took all the joy out of it for him and we finally told him he didn't have to do it anymore, even though it was a wonderful, unique opportunity.

Recently he chucked cartooning for a new interest: music editing. He is teaching himself and once he has accomplished whatever it is that he has set out to do with it (and I doubt very much whether "it" is even known to him on any level he could communicate to himself or anyone else) he will go on to some other intrinsic passion.

Intrinsic is the operating word for Sam, and I suspect, you. Creativity is a wonderful thing, Andrew. I suspect that once you get out of the constraints of formal education, your passion(s) will become your work and you will no longer feel pulled in two!

Oh, I forgot to mention; the landcruiser episode is an example of what we, in our house, call the "one thing leads to another syndrome" or sometimes, in it's fullest orb, "catalytic 'catalystic' syndrome" because it can become almost like a chemical reaction!

You said:I have grown to thoroughly despise my university, and just about any institution that tells me what to think about at a given time. To me, it’s as if they’re telling me to walk with broken legs, or box with broken arms.


I felt like this about uni at times. Once a professor told us that we had to write our essay in a very particular format, writing our names five spaces down, indented ten spaces, using this particular font...blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and on he went listing one million little things we had to do to make it just right. I immediately HATED this idea and decided to willfully defy him. So, I worte my essay on a box. Actually, on many boxes all inside eachother and then handed that in.

They forgot to mark it because they didn't know they had to mark a box but eventually it was marked and I felt liberated. I think your no policy policy is quite liberating too. I like it.

Missmellifluous, your policy is certainly more creative than mine. I used to either not do those assignments at all, or say something like, "What a stupid assignment!" loud enough that my professor or TA would overhear.

And now that I no longer have contact with my professors, I either just put an obstinate dig somewhere in my paper, or just give up altogether.

But I wouldn't recommend that anyone emulate my attitude toward university.

Andrew,

I am still waiting for a photo of a bear....karen

I'll do my best, but I give no guarantees. In these parts we call it good luck to never see bears, so I guess I've just been far too lucky.