37. rabbit trails

One of my greatest blessings as an ADHDer is hyperfocus.

It’s also a bit of a curse, because it often arrives via a rabbit.

A white rabbit, to be more precise, who then leads me down a seductive and fascinating trail that I must purse immediately and with vigilance! To the despair and chagrin of whatever tasks and priorities were waiting on my daily plate.

It often appears when I have a deadline for something that is pressing, but not desperately urgent - just yet. 

Ah, but the rabbit trail will indeed lead me on a quest of distraction that will surely create desperate urgency for the obligations waiting for me, if only I walk long enough!

Traversing this rabbit trail, I decide walking is not sensible, because speed is surely preferred, so I call not one but TWO horses to my aid...

and then find myself attempting the bold and often stupid feat of riding two horses.

I can do it all! My brain cries out, temporarily triumphantly striding the backs of two noble steeds. But, like most trails, the uneven, sometimes rocky, and occasionally treacherous path unfailingly holds stumbling blocks which cast me from my valiant upright posture down into a messy, muddy ditch where I sit up, disoriented and confused, look around, and realize that in my hyperfocus on keeping my balance on both horses, I took a wrong turn, and am now much further from my intended destination.

Speaking of two horses, I’m in a bit of a pickle, and it might help to talk it out. 

When I chose to say “yes” to Spirit and step off the beaten path of Instagram for an undetermined amount of time (narrator: you mean when Spirit said a year without a phone?), I did so just after hiring someone to integrate my social media. Meaning, I knew I wanted to be off social media, but I felt that social media needed to keep running, so I brought on a manager mid-December to post for me, to help me create distance from social.

But then I went AWOL and left, committing to a 90 day sabbatical (in my mind, anyway, and I think in my preamble here, too.) 

Over the past month, as I’ve maintained separation from that particular digital space, I’ve realized it feels kind of weird and hypocritical - or perhaps misleading - to ‘be there’ via someone posting for me, if I’m not really there-there. Like, she can post things but if I’m not there to engage or reply or chime in, then it’s just a voiceless, faceless, unreachable Amelia magically appearing in the little square box.

I’m not sure exactly how to pinpoint the crossroads of doubt about this decision that is frivilous and most likely entirely irrelevant to everyone but me. On one hand, I am very much enjoying my daily writing experiment and actually finding that it is generating success according to my initial goals and intentions, and I feel encouraged and confident to proceed without so much as a pop-in on Instagram to say where I am and what I’m doing. That would be just fine.

But, the strategist in me, and perhaps the pleaser, sense that it could be wise to continue sharing in that space - albeit, remotely and through a proxy human actually posting what I write or create - as if to create a trail of bread crumbs (a rabbit trail?!) leading to my digital witch hut at the edge of the forest, where I sit now, writing this rambling musing monologue. That would be... fine too, I guess.

When I feel the energy of being ‘here’ but also kind of being ‘there,’ it feels just like that - split, and not as concentrated and focused. It feels like the temporary bravado of riding two horses down the rabbit trail, precariously balanced and likely to tumble and realize to my dismay, that I’ve done it again - I’ve gotten a bit off track in my enthusiasm to do it all. 

Even now as I write, from the cozy corner of the couch, I find myself in an extended contemplative pause, searching my own motivation, intentions, and wisdom for a tidy answer, a clear conclusion, a directive of which way to go, and I’m reminded of Alice in Wonderland seeking directions from the Cheshire cat. 

Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? 

The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. 

Alice: I don't much care where. 

The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.

I don’t have a passionate conviction one way or the other whether the person I’ve hired posts on Instagram for me. I feel remarkably neutral about the idea, and if anything, a mild sense of obligation to have her post some things - since, after all, I did hire her and agree to try things out for a few months. But if she didn’t post anything, and I just carried on my merry way, meandering through the rabbit-trailed forest of my creative expression with this daily writing, invisible on Instagram and with no known date of return, that would be quite all right, too. 

There’s one other little nudging piece whispering ‘psst psst’ and speaking to my heart. If part of the intention and goal of the Antisocial Social Club experiment is to get empirical evidence that I can build sturdy pathways of lead generation and client referrals that are NOT social media, might it be more effective to let that door remain closed while things are under renovation in my values, creativity, and relationship tending? 

Alice: “—so long as I get somewhere, that is.” 

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

I am sitting in the middle of the forest, at a crossroads of rabbit trails leading seven different directions. Bemused, I wonder where my horses went, shrug, stand up, spin in a circle with my eyes closed, pick the path that I land on, and just keep walking.