Art | Arturo's Treasure

ADHD Overwhelm

May 24, 2026 No Comment

What is overwhelming about ADHD?

let’s say that there is a project to do.
I know from experience that, if I get started on this project but do not finish, I will forget pretty much the entirety of the project and all of my ideas about it. I will lose track of what I have already done. There is a risk that I could start this project 14 times, and never actually finish it. I will get distracted by something else, which will occupy my whole attention, and it will be as if this project never existed.
I see that the project has a lot of parts to it. It will require coordinating several different sources of information and putting them together to support a single conclusion.
I know that I will need to focus on the project for a sustained period of time. That means that I will need hyperfocus working my way.

This all contributes to a sense that I either do the whole thing all at once, from start to finish, in one major period of time, without being interrupted; or I don’t do it at all. All of my past failures, due to my forgetfulness and difficulty with focus, come flooding back to me.

If, in the meantime, a resource that I need to access for the project becomes unavailable, or there’s an unforeseen technical glitch that stops me from working on my project in that moment when I have rustled up the courage to work at it, or I need to ask someone a question who is not available immediately, it feels like the whole world is against me and things are hopeless – because I feel like if I don’t do it all at once, I will never get back to the project again.

A big reason that ADHD leads to overwhelm, in my opinion as someone who has ADHD, is that a person with ADHD experiences so many instances of failure to complete tasks – tasks that they understand and know how to do – as a result of being unable to easily pick up the thread of where they left off – that every task feels like an all-or-nothing situation.

The higher the IQ that a person with ADHD has, the more intellectual resources that person has, the worse it can be. More thinking means more ideas to keep track of and sort through, more projects begun, and more frustration because you know what it is that needs to happen – you perhaps know it more deeply and understand more of the complexities than most of those around you – but you feel like you can’t get it all to completion, no matter how hard you try.

So my next hypothesis is that successfully dealing with ADHD means finding ways of keeping track of the threads of different projects and making it possible to pick up where you left off with a minimum of rethinking or overthinking. That part – dealing with taking up unfinished business with a minimum of fuss – is key to decreasing the sense of accumulated overwhelm that dogs every new beginning.

That’s a topic to be explored another day.

Education

Not Knowing is a Good Place To Start

April 11, 2026 No Comment

Right now there are thousands, maybe millions, of people unhappy about where our world is headed, and uncertain about what to do about it. There are so many people feeling the same feelings and thinking the same thoughts – and yet, so many of us are alone. Millions of people in their silos are perhaps opening up their computers to hear the latest news, or perhaps desperately trying to avoid the latest news.

Imagine the possibilities if we could connect with one another, if each of us could bring one little thing, and thereby amass all the necessary building blocks to chip away at the iron-clad plans of billionaires and sociopaths.

It would take a lot of patience. We have tried to reach out before, and encountered mass silence.

We have considered reaching out before, and suddenly been inundated with all the work and all the needs of the people around us – urgent needs that have either been created by people of power who have undone the supports and life’s work of the suddenly vulnerable, or by general neglect of government systems.

Keeping people who care about other people busy with the urgent, daily needs of those in our communities, is one way to keep those people from finding ways to figure out responses to the more widespread issues, the true illnesses of our society that are causing the symptoms we are trying to respond to.

A few dozen random decisions by a powerful few, made to disrupt lives, keeps us guessing and off balance as we try to adjust and to determine our best response to the deluge of misanthropic ventures that come our way.

However, if we don’t reach out, if we give up on one another, then we’re giving in. It may take a while for someone to find our little messages in bottles, but, eventually, they may be found. In some way, we may find little ways to find each other, to become a small network that grows into a big network, to become a set of disruptors ourselves.

And, if we don’t know what to do right now, if it feels like blowing into the wind, that’s okay. If we know that we don’t know, we are already ahead of those who assume they know the answers to the struggles we face today, those who amass money and military might and economic levers and assume that they can tell everyone else what life should be and what place we all should occupy, at the behest of conquerors. If we know that we don’t know, let’s at least reach out, let’s discover that it’s not just you and I, but that it’s us. Bit by bit, let’s talk it all through.

Let’s be patient with one another, because powers that be have tried to take away our time. Let’s share, little bits, with one another, because powers that be have tried to take away our resources. Let’s learn from one another, because powers that be have tried to take away our abilities to gather and to communicate. Let’s do all of that, bit by bit.

Let’s learn what opportunity looks like, so that when it arises – and it will arise – we can be ready for it.

There is always something unacknowledged by those who assume that they know everything. There is always something left unconsidered by those who assume that they control everything. Nature itself will respond to these powers that be. Nature, though it may seem to be against us, may also be our ally. Human economic and military powers assume that nature can be controlled. We have seen nature at work, and we know better. So many military campaigns and plans have been disrupted by storms, from the attempted annihilation at Dunkirk to the invasion plans of Barbarossa.

We know that we don’t know. What we need to know first, is that we are us. Not just isolated individuals, we are.

Education

Ugly Shoes

March 1, 2026 No Comment

Getting caught unprepared is always a risk when you have ADHD.

Even in high school, I was lucky to be asked to speak to a crowd during events, at times. This one day, I had a soccer game before the big assembly night at my school. Well, I had remembered most of the things that I needed to remember for that day – I had my soccer uniform, I had my suit.

I only forgot my dress shoes.

It’s possible that I would have been able to get away with wearing soccer cleats with my suit, while I went up front to speak at the assembly, were it not also the case that it was held in the gymnasium, and that the wooden floor – and the risers that the choir was standing on (I was also in the choir) – didn’t amplify all the click-clacks I made when I walked.

Okay, so that time, it didn’t work out so well.

I did get a little mantra for myself from that experience, though, which has actually helped me throughout the years when I have performed or spoken in front of a crowd.

If you can keep people’s attention on your face, no one will know that you have ugly shoes.

Any performance, any speech, has to draw people in. It has to be engaging, and even entertaining. It has to tug on their curiousity, their minds, their hearts, their spirits.

So it may help, when you are performing, to pretend that you are wearing ugly shoes.

Educationentertain, keeping people's attention, performance, public speaking, soccer cleats

Story of a Book Never Read

February 28, 2026 No Comment

About 40 years ago, I learned of or watched a documentary about the writing of a book I have never read, and it has stuck with me.

The book in question was Malcolm Lowry’s “Under The Volcano.” I did a bit more research now, to confirm the details. Lowry, a brilliant writer and serious alcoholic, began writing the book in 1936. He lost his manuscripts several times, and it was destroyed by fire at least twice, mainly due to dubious decisions Lowry made and consequences that followed.

What amazes and encourages me is that Lowry never gave up. Under The Volcano was finally published in 1947, more than a decade after he began writing it. Publishing the book did not substantially change Lowry’s life – he still died in squalor, under questionable circumstances. However, that book, which emerged from his mind and his own living hell, had been important enough to him that he saw it through, despite his many setbacks.

The story of Lowry writing and getting his book published matters more to me than the book itself.

I cannot compare myself to Lowry, neither in circumstances nor in giftedness. The story of the writing of his book, however, encourages me to also not give up.

I have been very lucky, or blessed, in many ways. I’m very happy with so much of what my life experience has been. What does gnaw at me, however, is that I, too, have unfinished projects that have occupied my mind for many years. It took far too long for me to recognize the significance of my ADHD on my work habits, and to find ways of successfully and efficiently completing important tasks. I feel like I’m ready to take the next steps, now. I’m almost 60 years old now, and every time it seems that there’s opportunity on the horizon to take the time to complete the projects that I have begun and worked on in discrete pieces, the timeline gets pushed back. We have to move, or health issues arise, or other unexpected events require a reshuffling of priorities.

It is possible that I may never finish these projects that I have set out to do. There are more important things to attend to than my books or my music. However, I take solace and encouragement from the fact that Malcolm Lowry faced greater obstacles than I, and went through more hardship than I ever have, and he kept returning to the manuscript that was eventually published, and which became his masterpiece. On some level, Lowry must have felt that his persistence and determination was worthwhile. Given the opportunity, I hope to do the same.

Education, Song Writingeducation, perseverance, persistence, Under The Volcano, writer, writing

Commentary For A Future Olympic Sport

February 21, 2026 1 Comment

“Bill Erfsnog and Teresa Fillypogget here, covering the very first Olympic Epiglottal Shmergmakking.”

Bill; “Teresa, ES has been growing in popularity all around the world over the past 2 and a quarter years, and there’s no doubt of the vestigiousness of these athletes.”

Teresa; “Kudos to the Olympic committee, Bill, for double-strafing the compompom and showing that the modern Olympics is relevant to what’s really happening around the globe.”

Bill: “Teresa, you’ve perped the elliglabbit there. Excammating the poofalfabbit has become mainstream, and everyone knows exactly what it means to eeplehaggit the plampf.”

Teresa: “Our first competitors are stanleyking to the crapplepottom now, awaiting the starting pifflecup.”

Bill: “And there they go! Oooh what a glorious shnerpenpeef out of the epselblommet from Flackselstan! How can anyone else respond to that?”

Teresa: “The style points there could oomple the kleekanbassen, for sure! But wait? Ohh, we’re coming up to the poffalfabbit, and there’s a tight race to the plampf….”

Bill: “They’ve Excammated the poofalfabbit flawlessly… Oh no! Peevilken has frottercised. Now it’s a 3 shneepen epfilly!”

Teresa: “All 3 have negurciated the Plampf, but only Flackselstan has done a full eeplehaggit…”

Bill: “Flackselstan replaggelates Purfen and Oobletrausen simultaneously! That will be a DQ for Flackselstan.”

Teresa: “Purfen and Oobletrausen are both down… the winner will be whichever one tumbles and slides through the sickeepenickee first… and it’s… Oobletrausen!”

Bill: “Medics and medals arrive at the bottom of the Berfian together. There’s Oobletrausen in a stretcher is at the top of the podium. For the silver, there’s Purfen in their stretcher. And Peevilken is limping half-merkenshnooped to the bronze.”

Teresa: “It’s a repeat of the World Championship Epiglottal Shmergmakking, and the powerhouse represented by Oobletrausen retains their top status.”

Bill: “That’s all from Ikselboog. Back to you, Purvy!”

Educationcommentary, fiction, humor, humour, silly, sport

Dictatorship is like Coffee

February 8, 2026 No Comment

Dictatorship is like coffee. It allows those in charge to do stupid things faster, and with more energy.

Educationcritique, disadvantages of absolute power, political

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