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What label has been given to you? I know mine. I know the words; I know the labels; I know the criteria. This is what my PCP calls Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder; the thing that this is trying to describe is something I call; Running From Zero. After 3 years of daily Adderall dosages of 10mg/2x daily I found myself no closer to being able to calm down my hyperactivity and control my attention than I was in the first place; the hyperactivity on Adderall only manifested itself in bruxism and a tightening of my muscles and mood; I could focus; I could zero in on some-thing and that would be the focus for me…
But I was just running from a different Zero.
ADHD is a label to describe something that the animal side of me is doing; it’s panicking; it’s wild; it doesn’t know how to behave as a human; it’s just faking it. ADHD describes that sense; the loss of calm; the loss of self; the loss of control.
Running From Zero is my word for it because it’s how it makes sense to me in a senseless world.
My Zero is a calm; it’s also a sphere; the sphere of everything my senses are feeding me; the present rumble of the AC unit mixed with the chirping of cicadas outside; the sense of the chair touching my ass, legs, elbow, back; I can see what I am typing and I feel the keys beneath my fingers and I can smell the Coumarin Pipe Tobacco I use for my vaporizer pen; I can taste that too. This place here; this is my Zero right now. This moment; living in the Now; this is my Zero.
I am not centered on an axis between attention and a deficiency of it; I am not a 2 dimensional zero on a + and – axis of hyperactive and calm; I am a sphere of my senses that collapse into a specific focus; I have many axis on which I may travel; X, Y, Z.
When I leave my Zero I become anxious; I lose my connection to my calm; I feel lost amongst a vast depth of stars and chaos as cosmos; when I find myself in my Zero; I know the world goes on; I know the universe continues to universe; I know that wars are fought; I know that I love; I know that the Hubble Space Telescope should be funded; I know what is happening in the south; I know who my neighbors are.
With ADHD or when Running From Zero; the calm breaks; severely; I carry with me a nervous energy that feels like I’m inside of a Fisher-Price Brilliant Basics Corn Popper.
When I don’t run from Zero I find my calm; I am within a sphere of my immediate senses and the frightening world that I do my best to be a part of dissolves; I am only me as I carry my Zero with me; nothing is frightening here; nothing is a trigger; there is no anxiety; this is where I can love from.
This video shows (better than I could have hoped) the sensation of having ADHD; not allowing ADHD to have me that is; I have it; by the throat and I’m telling it; your name is Zero.
Taking my PCP’s label and, instead, naming it in the way I understand it gives me the control I require; I don’t have a daily medication doing it for me; I have me; in my Zero; doing it for me.
The art is allways a long process; the process itself though; that’s the art. The image at the end; that’s only the result; this video is me; me; fully enveloped by Zero; fully still in Zero; fully calm in Zero; knowing that if I run from it – it runs with me – so I keep it.
This video itself is one of my Zeroes; all of my poems, each are a Zero; my love; my fiancé; you and I make my favorite Zero.
Welcome to my Zero; I am in love with being where it is calm.
-...Running From Zero...+ 