Stillflight

My main special interest is weird. It's broad. I got told once it was even too broad to be a special interest and that I obviously didn't know what one was. And I guess that's fair. It doesn't make sense to most people, not just because I can't articulate what exactly it is, but also because it's hard for even other autistics to imagine that, for example, my fascination with Edison cylinders, my knowledge about Shakespearean English, and my love of art deco come from the same special interest and not three different ones. But to me, it makes perfect sense. Even still -- I often surprise myself by what I take fancy with.

I clicked on a Wikipedia article about the pulp magazine cultural phenomenon of the first half of the 20th century. And it quickly became clear it was not a mild curiosity, it was yet another facet of my compound eye special interest. It's very cool stuff. They're considered the predecessors to early superhero comic books -- so I guess we have Argosy to thank for Chris Pratt being in everything, in a way. Pulp detective stories reached their height of popularity in the 30s because it was one of the cheapest forms of entertainment during the Depression. Some of the novel we now consider classic sci fi or classic detective novels were actually originally released serially in magazines.

Part of my special interest is the cultural and even personal implications of artistic and technological shifts. I wonder deeply about the people they affect and how their daily lives were altered. One of the most popular magazines, Street & Smith, discontinued their pulp magazines in the 40s to start producing more high quality gloss paper magazines and market to wealthier audiences. I wonder about individuals who were lower class during this time who were upset by this the way we get upset these days about like... the price of Spotify Premium going up.

I've decided to do a potentially infinite series of posts on specific songs, how I feel about them, what they mean to me, analyzing them, etc. For ones like this, these are songs I relate to regarding some aspect of my identity -- specifically, for New Day, adhd. I have two long playlists of songs I associate with my neurodivergence. (One for mental illness and one for adhd/autism.) I figured it'd be the best song to start with because it's the most obvious, most blatantly actually about the thing I associate it with.

New Day Spotify link

The songwriter, Penny Parker, has stated she does have adhd, so I don't know how this song could be about anything else. When I first heard it, I imagined it being about a time loop. "One glance at the TV / again it's the evening / a sick kind of replay / better luck on a new day." And I think time loops are a pretty good metaphor for adhd. It feels like one. Every day, you wake up with the intent to get these things done, and every day you wake up with things exactly how they were last night. She talks about boxes stacked in the dining room -- having just moved in, I presume, and every day she intends to unpack and fully move into her new home, but every morning when she wakes up those same boxes sit there unopened. I think the situation of moving in is perfect for this feeling above anything. What is more appropriate to explain executive dysfunction than being unable to unpack and move in? -- unable to really settle into this place, and feel like you're home. You'll always be restless and feeling like you aren't home. You're just a visitor. Nothing is permanent.

"I felt the most alive / Last I was strained / Out of my mind" and "I'm just a little in the weeds here / It dulls when I am on the move." Banality is the death of executive function. It is so much easier to snap into a proactive mindset when the need is dire. Stress is your motivator, but it shouldn't be. It's not healthy to choose stress, put so much strain on your mind and body all the time just to be able to do the laundry or engage in your hobbies. But your mind seems to go numb when there's nothing to do but watch TV.

"Standing in fog severe / Throughout the year" is the most obvious adhd line. Brain fog is torture. It drains you of all life. And to have it as a symptom of adhd, which isn't something that ever goes away, to have to work through brain fog 365 days a year, it starts to wear down your ability to do anything, motivate yourself, be productive. That's not even factoring in executive dysfunction, which is a whole different psychological phenomenon that's also part of adhd. Though both stem from a starvation of dopamine in the frontal lobe.

Eh... I don't feel like writing a conclusion. I'll do it later.