Tuesday, December 31, 2024
After sleeping most of the day, I had a good night's sleep only to wake and become 'overly' excited again. Now, I view everything from the medical perspective of hypomania.
Grammarly corrects hypermania with hypomania. I finally checked the definition. While I've been annoying, I have never been dysfunctional. With hypermania, a person qualifies for protective custody for their own sake.
Yesterday, one of my students showed me something that started this recent bout of overexcitement. She spelled the word anysthing. One of my strengths as a teacher is my willingness and ability to see things from the student's point of view. Why did she spell it with and s? Answer: She spelled it with an s because the word has an /s/ sound. Yes, indeed, there is.
I lay in bed and experimented with it. I could hear the /s/ sound. Was it an illusion, or was it actually there? I observed my tongue moving from the long /e/ at the end of any and the unvoiced, sibilant /th/ at the beginning of thing. Was there a moment when my tongue made an /s/ sound? Sure enough, there was. Was there an /s/ sound when I said nothing? No. Why in one case and not the other?
The long /e/ requires my tongue to be placed high in the mouth's oral cavities. In nothing, the schwa, or relaxed /u/, requires the tongue to be at the bottom of the oral cavity. As the tongue transitions from the long /e/ to the lingua-dental position, where the tongue is in contact with the top teeth, it brushes the roof of the mouth to form the /s/ sound. In the case of schwa, it doesn't do that. The tongue can sweep from the bottom of the mouth to the front teeth without 'bumping' into any other part of the mouth, forming another consonant. Fascinating. I'm sure all my readers share my enthusiasm. I truly find this discovery fascinating. Too exciting?
Worse yet, it unspooled all sorts of thoughts., some about how mania is perceived and received by others and some about the role of mania in the creative process. I am 'open-minded." One person in my life has told me she hates that trait in me and considers me other-directed. I always try to understand the other person's point of view. Is that trait good or bad? There's no easy answer.
The magician and the fool of the Taro cards, dancing at the edge of the world, come to mind. Every society needs its destabilizers as much as it needs its stabilizers. Both offer opportunities for insanity if excessive. I don't know the percentage of 'open-minded' versus 'closed-minded' people a social group can tolerate. Circumstances have to be taken into consideration. The topic is too complicated for this discussion. But coming from the perspective of the open-minded, I see others living a script-based life. That was a big problem for me when I was younger. I've learned to appreciate the need for scripts and respect the role of the script enforcers. Both the enforcers and the innovators have a role.
I have an example of two polar opposites who were both excellent at what they did and were polar opposites: Jessica Tandy and Marlon Brando. They played the roles of Stanley and Blanche in Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway. Tandy was script-oriented; Brando was improvisational, following the moment. You can imagine what that was like for both of them. Tandy lived a balanced, well-regulated life; Brando, while considered a brilliant innovator, was a walking nut case, self-destructive and destructive to others. Is that necessary to be innovative? I sure hope not.
Is every self-destructive personality a creative one? Probably not. Undoubtedly not. " By their fruits shall ye know them." If all a 'creative' person produces is destruction, are they creative? My response is beauty is as beauty does. Same for creativity. You have to make something worthwhile for others, or innovation is meaningless. That being said, I feel that the people who spend their lives meditating in caves to benefit all of humanity may have a positive function. Recognized inventions don't happen in vacuums. There must be people supporting the zeitgeist so that a new idea can be born. However, sometimes creativity is ahead of its time and is worthless in the lifetime of its creator. Sometimes, the best you can be is cannon fodder for the world's creative process.
Coincidentally, I listened to several audiobooks about artists: one about the Beatles, then a book on the life of an artist of all ages by Jeff Daniels, and most recently, one on the Rolling Stones. Mania in rock and roll is a requirement. Being the sort of person who can handle those incredible highs and lows is what makes the difference between those who survive and those who don't. Keith Richards seems to be the exception to that rule. He threw himself into sex, drugs, and alcohol and survived to the current ripe old age of 81. Go figure!
All innovative artists describe highs and lows. The opposite is not true: not all people who experience highs and lows are creative, no less innovative. Again, "By their fruits shall ye know them." Is what I've produced enough to classify me as worthwhile? Now, I haven't gone the path of sex, drugs, alcohol, or such extremes as to be self-destructive or destructive of others any more than the average person.
I developed a new perspective on my mental state this morning. I know Mike was disturbed by my 'excitement.' If I had shared my excitement over the intrusion of the /s/ in anything, he would have had an adverse reaction. "Are you a safe part of my environment?" he would ask. I had to tone down. I respected his wishes without feeling put down. He expressed his displeasure in terms of his own needs, not as a deficiency or deformity on my part. I could respond to that. He didn't reject me. However, I have a new appreciation of other's responses to my hyperstates.
I have a friend who lapses into mania. She's creative but not innovative. Her excitement isn't even about her creativity. Quite the opposite. It's about beliefs that are fixed and not open to discussion. I find her mania frightening. I think she feels the same way about me. We try to avoid areas where we rub each other the wrong way. What else can we do? It's sad that there is such a significant difference between us. Our relationship is distant enough to make it manageable. I value what she has to contribute to my life. I'm not sure if she feels the same about me or for her; it's all driven by 'loyalty.' I know I'm uncomfortable, actually frightened when she goes into a hyperdrive. She, like me, will say, 'I'm just excited." and conclude I'm stifling her. I can identify with the feeling.
Having experienced it from the other end, I developed a new appreciation for how others must experience me in that state.
While I can find the hypermania state exhilarating, it can also be fighting. It feels like I'm riding on its tailcoats versus being in control. How much do you have to let go of control, and how much do you have to practice restraint? Well, isn't that always the question? From my perspective, I believe people who exert control and believe in following the recipe or drawing within the lines at all times think they're right all the time and judge others wrong, but are they? Social structure needs stability. We need rules of conduct to function. Rules that apply to everyone. We're in trouble when those rules become too narrowly or loosely defined or misapplied. The question is when and how much for all circumstances. Very tricky.
Can there be cutting-edge innovation without hyperdrive? There can be creativity within the mold. Jessica Tandy explored variations on the script. s e knew how to execute a particular state of mind but did not go beyond the time-honored role of acting. She didn't take improvisation to a new height. Mike didn't like jazz because it had no structure. Y u could do anything you wanted to. Then, he learned there is an underlying structure to improvisation. That changed his perspective.
Mike was deeply distressed by my mental leaps from topic to topic and how I associated or compared ideas he didn't think belonged in the same conversation until someone told him I was a phenomenalist. Then, he had a category for me, and I could enjoy the way my mind worked.
I met with the Twins this morning. They keep blowing my mind. I had Twin A work on the passage I had been using for Twin E by mistake. Twin A works on fifth-grade material, and Twin E works on third-grade material. The difference is in the length and complexity of the sentences and the number of multisyllabic words. Either way, Twin A recited the first sentence of the passage I had given her the day before. This is a girl who couldn't remember all the names of the letters of the alphabet at the end of first grade. Both girls had such serious memory problems that the family joked about it. Now, Twin A is remembering whole complex sentences from the day before. Holy cow! The lesson for today was on the difference between itsand it's. I still make mistakes when I write it. I taught her the trick I use to this day. If I can substitute 'it is' for its, I will write it as apostrophe s. if not, it's without the apostrophe.
Twin A wrestled for a moment with the spelling of turns. She got the tu. Then, she heard the /er/ sound and wanted to spell it tuer instead of just turn. This approach to teaching reading is fantastic because I can address their problems and confusion in real-time. That's how I like to teach.
Twin E had a few problems this morning. She misspelled little as littel. She got the double tt from visual memory but sounded out the final sounds. I asked her to check her visual memory, and then she got it. Students often confuse every and ever. They share a lot of letters, but the sounds are different. Every is pronounced /e-v/r-y/. That second e is silent. I sounded out both words.
Twin E spelled glasses glass. She paused and thought in silence. She knew it needed another s but also knew it looked wrong. Into that fertile questioning mind, I threw in the answer. You must add an- es if a word ends in an /s/. What a teaching opportunity!
I did the evening walk early. I was home with Elsa before 4 pm, and the fireworks started. Hawaii has more fireworks for New Year than it does for July 4. That makes lots of sense if you think about it. The locals here don't identify with the mainland. As far as locals are concerned, Hawaii was forced to become a state. W overthrew their Queen. Also, fireworks are a Chinese invention and tradition. When I had dinner, it was dark enough for the fireworks. I ate on the lanai while Elsa hid in the kitchen. After dinner, I retired to my bedroom. It is an ample space of connected 'rooms' with no way to close off the spaces. I can close off the doors and windows well enough to reduce the impact of the fireworks; one window, two sliding doors, two sets of louvered windows, and one glass door from the shower leading to the outside. I planned to watch TV and work on updates.
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