This past weekend, I didn’t get much done that I’d intended to. Including my day off on Friday, I had four days to really dig in with some of the reading and writing I’ve been doing, and I was hoping to make some progress on a project I’ve been thinking about.
But Friday I met with my neuropsych to talk about the new providers they’re connecting me with. It was nice to just have the day, so I wasn’t racing to their office from my office, and then fiddling with my smartphone to answer emails from work. Then I met my spouse at their doctor’s office, and we reviewed the test results they got back. Their numbers were not where they were supposed to be, and that really worried us all. But now there’s a plan in place, my spouse is getting their act in gear and taking responsibility, and as a result of this “mini-scare”, they are making some choices about who NOT to work with.
That’s a positive step in the right direction. They’ve always had a bad habit of joining forces with shady types… people on the margins… outlaws of sorts… so they could produce events — workshops, concerts, gatherings. Alternative community, and all that. The only problem is, the alternative community scene that I’ve been observing over the past 20 years has a lot of people in it who struggle with mental health issues, but never seek formal help for those issues. So, there’s all sorts of behavioral “anomalies” that crop up — questionable behavior, controlled substance abuse, conflict that seems like it’s a case of multipersonality disorder or bipolar or schizophrenia, not to mention a fair amount of borderline criminality that just barely qualifies as legal. I was a part of that world, too, until I got into my TBI recovery. Once I started managing my neuro-cognitive-behavioral issues with both feet planted in reality, things started to clear up. But that’s not happening with my spouse or the crowd they work with.
So, that’s an ongoing cause for concern.
But my spouse realizes that being sucked into that world is wreaking havoc with their health, so they’re cutting ties with a number of folks who have been behaving in ways that aggravate my spouse’s chronic health issues.
So, that’s a new cause for hope.
But it still took up the vast majority of my time on Friday — and over the extended weekend.
On Saturday morning, I was hoping to get some good drafting done on an ongoing project. There was a chance I could even get it done (it’s not big). I did some more research into the persistence of post-concussion symptoms and the preventability of PCS, and as often happens, I found new threads of inquiry that I just couldn’t resist following. So, I got pulled off in a number of different directions that distracted me from my primary topic. That trend continued until yesterday evening. Three days now in my rear-view mirror that turned out unlike what I’d planned/expected.
One of the things that distracted me was Twitter. There is some serious scientific goodness posted there, as well as some compelling debates unfolding. The tone of discussions were bothering me, so I un-followed a handful of people who have just been complaining and sniping and taking pot shots at others. My feed immediately improved. No more cringeing when I logged in. That’s a plus.
I also realized that I can’t really dispense with Twitter, because as an outsider to the scientific and academic fields, it’s the one place I can actually keep up on research that’s coming out relative to my own interests. Twitter has really opened up a lot of ideas for me — some of them filling in gaps that had been, well, gaping for a number of years. So, yeah… I won’t be dispensing with Twitter anytime soon. Even if they do change the feed to relevancy-related, instead of sorted by time. It just gives me too much access to stuff I’d never otherwise encounter.
I really shouldn’t be surprised that I veered off course, almost from the start of Saturday. I am so focused on my schedule all work-week long, that by the time Saturday rolls around, I can’t be kept on the leash anymore. I need to move at my own pace. I need to be free to roam around and take the pressure off. I need to just let my mind think — not toe the line. As much as I like the idea of being ultra-streamlined-productive on my weekends and getting things done, the simple fact is, I need the time off to just let my mind relax and unwind.
And in the process of relaxing, amazing things happen.
That “open space” in my mind gives my organizing mind a much-needed opening to “what else is out there”. I get to play… with ideas… with concepts. I can let my mind stretch its proverbial legs and wander about and come up with entirely new (for me) concepts and approaches. It’s the kind of leeway I don’t get during the work week, when I have to keep on my schedule, and I’m so tightly wound, it’s crazy. When I loosen up and don’t put any pressure on myself to Think Of Just One Thing, amazing things happen.
That’s exactly what took place on Saturday. I got an inspiration for a project I’ve been working on, that feels like it’s gotten way too big. I figured out how I can “chunk it out” to be more useful — to myself and hopefully to others.
I found a bunch of research papers that intrigued me, and the more I looked, the more I found. So, now I’ve got a pretty sizable cache of papers that are just waiting for me to dig in.
And dig in, I shall. I started a new site a few months ago, called TBI Research Riffs, where I can discuss the brain injury and recovery research I’m coming across from the vantage point of someone who’s actually using it. Of course, being a multiple mild TBI survivor kind of disqualifies me in academic circles, thanks to the implication of brain damage and compromised thought process, but so what? It’s not hurting anyone that I’m playing with some of the ideas. I have no institution to answer to, I’m unaffiliated with any “camp” or governing body, and my words are my own.
Plus, I have a blog… and a Twitter account… and a bit of a following… so why not ask some pointed questions? The TBI research site has a horned bull as a logo for a reason 😉
Why not have some fun with it? I’ve been in and around the academic / scientific world all my life. My father was a college professor, my mother is an underachieving mathematical genius (think Good Will Hunting as a woman), my grandfather was a science professor and once served as the head of a statewide scientific academy, I have a cousin who’s a biochemist whose team just found a cure for a certain kind of cancer, my closest childhood friend and intellectual sparring partner is in the process of redefining an esoteric corner of philosophy, and I’ve got a handful of doctors in my family on the in-laws’ side. Being around them — both while growing up, and now — I’m continually struck by the political and logistical limitations that academia and funding put on them. It’s quite stifling, and it discourages them from really letting loose. And it’s a shame to see them so stymied by the requirements of their respective institutions.
That’s a shame. From what I’ve seen (and studied voraciously, back in the early 1980s), the real conceptual leaps are taken when you let your imagination run wild. But I don’t see much of that happening — at least, not in public.
In private, however… in the anonymous blogs, in the private journals, in the hidden workshops of independent and unaffiliated researchers, philosophers, and scientists… there’s a rich body of work emerging. And that’s pretty exciting to me. It seems to me that some of the most compelling science is happening on the margins. It almost has to — like Cavendish’es work — because the distractions and political exigencies of the institutionalized world are often antithetical to pure science.
So, I’m formally expanding my work in that area and getting better organized. I’m moving my research work off this blog and over to TBI Research Riffs. I’m going to keep this blog focused on my own personal experience, sticking with my day-to-day discoveries and developments from a personal point of view.
All my “sciencing” doesn’t really belong here. It needs its own space, where it can stay on topic. If anyone wants to read about me flailing around with great wailing and gnashing of teeth over logical inconsistencies in 20-year-old research papers, they can join me over there.
That will give me room to “play” in both domains, without blurring the lines with a bunch of pontificating and whatnot about esoteric or specialized topics that may not interest anyone other than me and the handful of people who dig into the research themselves.
Ultimately, of course there will be overlap. I’m a whole person, and each part of my life blends together and informs each other. Personal experience and scientific research are very much intertwined, as they should be. But this blog has always been about what it’s like to just live your life. So, I’m going to keep it that way.
And now, to start moving posts around.
Onward.
Broken Brain - Brilliant Mind 