523 - The Power of Finding Your Attention Aperture, Neurotype and School of Thought

0:02On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift off, sometimes you'll just need a creative pep talk.

0:20All right, so this is a different type of episode. I wanted to start doing some episodes that are just a few kind of quick hits of things that could help your creative life get better really quick. Things that have had a big impact on me, but they were just little shifts. and it's kind of like when you need a creative boost. You need to get those creative juices flowing but you don't know what you need and so you come to the Dr. Pizza to get a prescription for what you didn't know you needed. So I don't know what to call these episodes yet. If you have ideas, put them in the comments on YouTube or send them to me on Instagram at Annie J Pizza.

1:07I would love to hear what you think. what should these episodes be called? But it's just gonna be some really quick rapid fire things that, or just like this episode's three different little buckets of things that made a big difference in my creative life. And soaking in them also just peps me up and hopefully peps you up by proxy, by osmosis. And you just trust me to be your navigational guide on this journey. So that's what these episodes are. That's what this episode is. If you just need a boost, but you don't even know what you need, I got you, man. This is for you. So let's get into three things, three small things that made my creative life surprisingly better when I discovered them.

1:58Let's get into it.

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4:13Okay, got them right here. Number one, know your attention aperture. Okay, what is this all about? knowing your attention aperture. So I can't remember where I first heard this, but it made such a difference for me. And it was an explanation of ADHD, but this is applicable to every human that I know. So, but you have to tailor it to you. So if you don't know, aperture, and this is just the way that I think about this, aperture is a camera term and it's something about like how much light the lens of the camera is letting in. I'm not a photographer, so I don't fully get it, but it's kind of similar to your eye.

5:02Your eye has a kind of aperture with either, you know, letting a little bit of light in or letting tons of light in. I'm assuming that it's bigger when it's dark. I don't know. I'm not an eye guy, doctor. And, but I think that's how it works. But the idea here is that your attention has an aperture setting. Now, if you are a neurotypical person, my guess is that you actually have an aperture that's similar to the eye. It kind of naturally lets in more when it needs to, you know, widens the attention where it's paying attention to the whole scenario, the whole scene, wherever you are, take it And, you know, if you need to have your head on a swivel kind of thing, you can do that.

5:52And then if you really need to go laser focus, you can do that. However, if you're ADHD, my experience is my aperture is wide open, baby. I'm taking it all in at all times. And the thing that I heard, it was in a short form video. If I could reference it, I would. If you know it, send it to me and I'll put it in the show notes. but I didn't know it was going to have such an impact on me. Otherwise, I would have saved it but I've kept coming back to it and it's really impacted my everyday life because it's helped me to not feel shame and helped me take accommodations for the fact that my aperture is wide open.

6:30She didn't say it like that but what she said was you have 100 % of your attention available at all times and there's no way to make it smaller you can't make it 99 you can't make it two percent because you're just filling in a form you have it all available and you are feeling the energy expense the cost to your psyche at all times and so if i am in a low stimulation environment that only requires that's only taking up 10 of my focus that's going to be a problem because 90 of my focus is just waiting there it's like put me in coach come on let's do it what are we doing what you know and i'm like very distracted because i'm like okay i don't know there's nothing else to pay attention to um and so it's been very helpful for me to realize that i need to do activities that either fully engage me you know i've been really loving this video game so if you're a long-time listener you know i'm super into open world games got really into elden ring i put 250 hours on that mostly because I'm not that good at it.

7:39So I've really had to overpower, level up and grind. I'm like a 216 Elden Ring people. The five listeners that love Elden Ring are just freaking out right now. That's for you, but I love Elden Ring. They came out with this new game called Night Rain. Night Rain is this extremely intense, like I won't go into it, you know, into the details, but it's extremely intense, takes your 100 % focus. And so that is a really fun game for me because that's what I need. When I'm doing a talk, that's really fun to me because it takes all of my attention to be on stage, be aware of what I'm doing, tap into what the people in the audience are doing and really try to be fully present.

8:23Those activities are really fun for me. Then there's a lot of activities that don't take, you know, in my work, some things like when I'm doing sketchbook stuff, that takes about 80 % of my focus because I'm coming up with ideas. But I realize that other 20%, I have to accommodate for it. I can't just shut it out. And that other 20 % might be focused on the Altoids in my mouth. It might be focused on the three drinks that I have. It might be focused on the instrumental music. But as I move over to coloring that illustration, then I'm only about 30 % focused and I can put 70 % on a podcast or an audio book.

8:59That, she didn't frame it like aperture, but that idea of like, I have to account for this 100%. I have to limit the things that only take 30 % of that focus, but require me to do nothing else. So jobs that are like that were really, really difficult for me. That's why tax season is so difficult or filling out forms or whatever. I have to try to limit that kind of stuff as much as possible because it's just not in my wheelhouse. Now, you might not be ADHD. This is not a podcast specifically for ADHD people. However, I have found that lots of creative people tend to not be neurotypical, although neurotypicals have the capacity.

9:41I think they have the exact same capacity for creativity. And that's just a guess. But my feeling is from the small amounts of time in my 38 years of being on earth, 38, 39, I think I'm 39, 39 years of being on earth, I only had a short span where I had medicine for ADHD. And in that time, what I felt like was I could be as creative, but I felt less compelled to because being creative was so much harder than doing tasks when I had the ability to just do tasks, you know, having having the medicine. So I kind of wonder if sometimes neurotypical people just choose to be less creative because it is more challenging when doing tasks, you know, more, less creative tasks is second nature to you.

10:41So anyway, whatever. My point is that whoever you are, wherever you are, I think it's extremely helpful. It will increase the quality of your life if you have an awareness of your aperture. Is it fixed? Is it variable? If it's fixed, is it wide open like me as an ADHD person? And maybe you're ADHD and it works totally differently for you. It manifests in all kinds of different ways. or maybe you're autistic or ASD. I mean, they're the same thing, but maybe my experience, the friends that I have that are autistic, their aperture is more like a laser focus. And so if there's too much stuff going on or that they can really go super deep in one direction for a long period of time, uh really often and then maybe need big spurts of time where they're completely off but they have an awareness of like they prefer this laser focus on something maybe even really detailed whereas i don't have that capacity um but i think the key isn't this way or that way the key is understanding what works for you and how your attention is built and so i just this um metaphor of the aperture was helpful for me that I kind of came up with to explain that video I saw.

12:06And I think that if you can start thinking of your attention that way, you can direct it a little bit better. You're also going to be less ashamed. What I had to realize was I have this 100 % attention at all time. You know, some people, some experts would say attention deficit disorder is actually a wrong term for what this is because it's the inability to direct it. I don't have the ability to to focus in and laser it anywhere i have to i unless it's something all-encompassing like night rain or doing a talk or you know painting is kind of like that for me um that i don't have the the power to just let less in um and focus on small things and so what i've realized is that means that i need to bundle activities so if my wife and i are going to have a conversation about something really practical that doesn't require my full depth of humanity to be there.

12:58You know, if my full depth of humanity is there and we're talking about serious stuff, I can, that's like 98 % of my focus, baby. I like that kind of stuff. That's one of the reasons I struggle with small talk is that it's a, you know, it can be a 2 % to 15 % aperture. And I'm like, okay, what else are we doing, man? Like coffee, alcohol, like what? I need some Altoids, like I said, sunflower seeds, anything. I need something else going on there because my that those those other focus guys in the back are like hey put me in coach. So I've learned that if we're talking about something like schedule and stuff like that I need to be putting the dishes away.

13:36I need to be you know tidy in this room. I need to be doing something else with my hands and occupying that extra space. But if you have the opposite, you might realize like, okay, whatever I'm doing, I need to create a low stimulation environment where I can really zero in on one thing without it piling up on my other senses and kind of just distracting my focus. So number one is know your attention aperture.

14:22All right, number two is diagnose yourself. Okay, I'm not actually saying that you should be diagnosing yourself. There's a lot, if you're not aware, there's a lot of conversation on the internet about whether a self-diagnosis and being neurodivergent is valid. Now, I tend to think that it is, but I also, I'm just saying this is not medical advice and I got no PhD other than in pizza. So I can't really fully speak to that. And it's not really, the point isn't what you might think it is anyway. So for the longest time on this show, I have spoke about being ADHD since the early days. And I think 2014, 2015 is probably when I started talking about it.

15:16And it was before ADHD had really had a moment. And it was partially in reaction to the fact that I had seen a lot of depictions of autism show up in pop culture, TV and movies. Now, not all of them. I mean, most of them weren't very accurate. it, but there was a conversation happening around it. And I had hoped that that could happen for ADHD and that maybe ADHD would become more than just a joke about squirrels. By the way, have you ever, if you're ADHD, have you ever been in a conversation and then got distracted by a squirrel literally and thought, damn it, I'm just like feeding the stereotype.

16:00But it's definitely happened to me happens more with birds but yeah what was i talking about um yeah so i was talking about it and actually because it wasn't really a conversation that i was aware of that was happening online it felt really scary to do because i didn't know how it would how people would perceive me in the illustration industry whether it would hurt my jobs or whether i would get discriminated against and you know people would kind of um have assumptions about what it would be like to work with me whatever um but i was so brave that i just did it anyway i mean part of it was i do think a little bit of courage of just like feeling like i want to i want this conversation to happen i have such a extreme empathy and compassion for neurodivergent people And so much of this project is about, you know, being, needing to carve your own life path creatively.

16:59So as much of, as it was about like pursuing a creative practice or creative career, it was about carving out your own path, creating your own path as a person, because you needed a different life than the one that you were born into or the systems that you're born into. And so I felt really compassionate about that. So yes, some of it was courage. Some of it was just like, this is something that I want to be known for talking about because it's something that matters to me. And I love talking about it. So it's selfish in that way is that I just was my own little hyper focus too. Anyway, back to the diagnose yourself.

17:35What I'm saying is it's not so much about a medical diagnosis as it is about knowing yourself. Last episode or in the recent episodes, I don't know which one's going to come out next. In recent episodes, I was talking about building a world that suits you, carving out that path. The only way you're going to be able to do that is if you love yourself. If you believe that you are ultimately on the most base foundation of your being, a good thing that deserves space, unless you believe that, you're not going to do what it takes, which will be a lot, to build your world to meet your needs. And so throughout the years of talking about ADHD, I tried to be clear that what I'm talking about is knowing yourself, knowing and loving and accepting yourself.

18:29I think pretty often I was pretty open about not being medicated for most of the time that I did this show and that medication wasn't the reason why I thought you should seek self-knowledge like diagnosis of of of who you are and what you're like and what your brain is like um what your neurotype is like um but i just wanted to be clear again like that that's what i and again not a not a doctor of anything but pizza don't know anything on that really you know officially i'm a deep believer in um fan of science and scientists and and educated people i love love them, would love to be one one day.

19:13But so I can't speak to whether you should have medicine. I know people who swear that medication has saved their lives and I believe them. For me, it doesn't really mix with my system that well. And I've chosen a different way to kind of manage my symptoms. But what I mean by diagnose yourself is the reason figuring out I was ADHD before I ever even had an official diagnosis, the reason it was so, so much of a game changer was that it was a map of my brain. And when I say diagnose yourself, I'm saying through the lens of that previous episode about loving yourself, have a positive psychology lens on that diagnosis.

20:02You know, we live in a time where so much of the funding comes from the medicine community. And that means that we're looking at it through the lens of what's wrong with you so that we can supplement it so that we can fix it. Right. And so and so in some ways, that's really great. But in other ways, it means that we don't have the funding to figure out what's right with you because where's the money in that, right? And so there was this huge, I spoke about this in more detail in episode, I think 522 about loving yourself where they had this massive shift in the psychology space in the 90s where there was this big movement with Martin Seligman who pioneered this positive psychology, which was not positive thinking.

20:48It's not toxic positivity. it's coming at the human like let's start with what's great about you let's start about instead of our bible being the book of disorders let's make our bible the the strengths of humanity of understanding the different neurotypes getting the most of these different people and it's at least as valid of a way of approaching psychology as a negative psychology and for me and from what I've read that, you know, the efficacy of practices that lean on positive psychology, it might even be a better way to approach it. So what I'm saying is finding out that I was ADHD, yes, it started with like grief of what's wrong with me.

21:35But what it, eventually it helped me find a neurodivergent community. and that neurodivergent idea is that what makes us different is what makes us great is that neurodivergent means there are different types of brains they're not necessarily broken or wrong just because they're less common or because our society our current society isn't set up for them and so that was my gateway into learning about all the different types of brains and how different my brain is. And because we've had this long history of negative psychology and we have this medical community that is funding a lot of the studies, we don't have a huge DSM version of what's right with you.

22:26We don't have the positive diagnosis of, hooray, you've got 100 % aperture. It means you can do all this other stuff. We don't have that. So what you have to do is use the resources we have and then flip it into a positive lens when you can. And so this idea of, oh, you have a really hard time doing mundane things, that's the negative diagnosis. But the positive is you maximize meaningful experiences. And I do that better than anybody I know, baby. So in your face, whoever's on the other side of that. So that's what I mean. Diagnose yourself means find out everything you can about who you are.

23:12I used to say this story on the show every once in a while, this idea that if an alien came to you, popped out of a wormhole, gave you this device that looked really weird and bioengineered, and it gave it to you and it said, here, this is the most unique and powerful thing in the universe. Even supercomputers can't do what this thing can do. And then right before they could tell you what it did, another alien popped out of another wormhole and lasered them out of existence. And then now you're sat here holding this thing that you know is unique in all the universe, the most powerful thing in the universe.

23:52And if that was you, you would do whatever it took to figure out what this thing was, what this thing was capable of. And the fact of the matter is that is you, except you're not holding it in your hand. You're holding it in this skull. that that is what you have here. And I think you should do everything you can to figure out what this unique version of this thing is and what it's capable of. And unfortunately, a lot of the information we have is coming through the negative psychology lens. And so you can start there because there's just so much information, but you don't have to stay there. You can flip it and say, okay, well, what does this make possible?

24:28One positive psychology lens that you can look into that I would recommend is there's a test called StrengthsFinder. It's, I think,$13. Highly recommend. That test told me some things about my strengths that I never would have saw in myself. My top strength was strategy. I never would have thought, you know, I took this probably a decade ago. And so now it's been a part of my identity, but it's not something I ever would have thought of up to then. and the way that I've, it's really helped me because I've realized like, oh, the negative side of this is you could use that for bad. You could use that just for your own gain, being strategic and getting what you want or you can use it in your career and build a life that is well-suited to you.

25:17You can use it, I think strategic thinking is exactly what great storytellers do because they can start with the end and work backwards and have this really surprising but inevitable thing happen at the end because they built it in reverse. And it's something that comes natural to me. So, diagnose yourself. You don't actually have to diagnose yourself. I'm not necessarily recommending that per se. I don't have, that's above my pay grade. But I am saying find out what type of brain you have. Find out what it's capable of and know as much about that as you can.

26:08all right third and last one find your school okay find your school so this is about school of thought. Now, I have a theory that we have all of these different schools of thought in philosophy, Stoics, Epicurists, Epicureans, I don't know, different religious schools of thought, all these different nihilists, whatever. I can name more, but I'm not going to. We have all these different schools of thought, different ways of seeing the world, moving through the world, different definitions of what the good life is, right? And historically, they've kind of been seen as arguments against each other.

27:04Like, I think life is about this. No, I think life is about that, da-da-da-da-da, so on and so forth. And my theory is that these aren't one ring to rule them all. There is not one school of thought that works for everyone. That actually what we end up having is these different types of people that have different ways of needing to move through life and then arguing that theirs is superior or theirs is the one. And I think that that's just completely not true. And the other thing that ends up happening is if you hate yourself, then you will go try to adopt the most polar opposite way of living, the most polar opposite philosophical school of thought that completely defies your nature because you think you're bad.

28:05You think you're a problem. So you think I need to become my opposite. I need to go find a school of thought that is the exact opposite of the way that I tend to naturally move through the world. And if you really hate yourself, then you might end up in a school of thought that is just completely detrimental to your nature. That happened to me. I was in that in my late teens, early 20s. And it wasn't all for, you know, I think there can be kind of positive things that come from that in small doses. But, you know, there can be this kind of throwing off of self, forgetting everything you think you know about yourself.

28:42That can be kind of valuable for a short period of time. However, I much more recommend finding a school of thought through the lens of that episode 522, through the lens of you love yourself. You're more or less good at the deepest level. And if you work with it, if you cultivate it, you will become a better version of yourself. Instead of thinking, oh, I have to crush her or I have to overcome this way that I am. And so if you can find a school of thought that's really compatible with you, you will get the most of your nature. And so instead of thinking, are the Stoics right? Are the Epicureans right?

29:26Are the Nihilists right? Are the Zoroastrians right? Whatever it is. See, I told you I could name some other ones. Instead of thinking that, start looking for which one might really work for you. Now, for me, I actually tend to feel like the Epicurean way of living really works best for me as a ADHD person or just the way a creative person, the way that I am. Epicurean philosophy is in modern times often seen as hedonism, but it is not hedonism. I am not a hedonist. I live pretty simply, which is pretty in line with Epicurean thought. So Epicurean thought, the reason why people think that it is hedonist is because it's about having kind of the most pleasant life possible, the most contented life possible, that your main objective as you move through life should be the maximum level of contentedness.

30:28Now, that is deceptive. On the surface, that sounds like hedonism, you know, this idea that life is all about as much pleasure as you can possibly have. That's not what it is. It's not about seeking as much the maximum amount of pleasure. It's about the law of averages. It's about how can you make the most of your life the most pleasant, peaceful, contented version of life, which means not overdoing it with substances. It means not swinging back and forth and having these huge valleys and these huge peaks. For me, it's been about how do I smooth out the edges. Now, this worldview has really helped me because it's made it so that when I think about diet, when I think about exercise, when I think about substances, I don't think what is the best for me, what's the most ideal for my health, for quantity of life.