Final Blog Post

As I look back on the blogging project, I am very glad that I chose to pick a more serious topic.  I debated back and forth on whether or not to pick something that I thought others would judge me on.  I came to my conclusion because I felt that, since this topic is so intriguing to me, it would be more interesting for me to write about.  Obviously it's kind of a risk that I chose to pick something that's kind of personal to me, but since most people already know about it, I thought I would do my best to clear up what seemed inexplicable. I also was happy to finally do some research on it, as Randolph does not usually like me to have time to do things I would like to do. Learning more about why I space out so much helped me find some ways to not do it as often.  I don't mind it except when it happens at a time when I need to be paying attention to a task at hand.  Keeping busy and finding things to garner my attention will be steps I will take to getting past my problem.  As far as oversleeping, the earlier I try to go to bed, the earlier I will eventually fall asleep.  I really should try and get to bed earlier than I do, although that would really cut into my nightly Xbox time...  I really enjoyed the comments, and it was nice to see what other people thought and that daydreaming wasn't as uncommon as I thought at first.  I was really just glad to see that people understood what I was talking about and wouldn't think I was just depressed or a complete weirdo.  I'm happy that I got to talk about something interesting to me, and it made this assignment a bit less painless than most school assignments.  From this assignment I have learned more about myself as a person and first and foremost learned that there are certain things about myself that I will have to accept.  One of the hardest things in life for me to accept is the fact that I don't have control over everything and some things I will not be able to find answers for.  Sometimes I think that the nihilists may have a point to some extent.  I won't lose so much sleep over things that I wrack my brain over if I can just learn to accept some things as they are.  The Serenity Prayer carries a lot of truth with it and it is something that I think will help me through my life as I continue to try and overthink life's most frustrating questions.  Life will give me many ups and downs and while I will strive to learn from every mistake to be the best person that I can be, I have to learn that some things simply will never be understood and I will have to move on with my life.

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things that I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference."

Interview blog

For my interview blog I decided to interview my parents.  I thought that they might have some answers as to why I do what I do, especially because I know that my dad also does the same thing.  I started by asking him some questions about how deep thinking affects him in his life.  Many things that he said were similar to mine, but just as many were different. The information that I learned from my parents was very interesting and helped shed some light on the reasons that lead to why I get so lost in my mind.

 My dad told me that he gets caught up in thought a few times per day, and mostly during the weekdays.   He said that he is most commonly lost in thought when he is in the car or at work.  This made sense, those are pretty solitary moments and I could see why he would think a lot during those times.  I have to listen to music in my car all the time when I drive alone.  If I don't listen to music at a pretty loud volume I will get stuck in thought and that can actually be pretty dangerous if I zone out far enough.  My dad agreed with me that sometimes he can get "so fixated that everything else gets blocked out.. it's like everything other than what's on my mind is just pushed away".  The main difference that I found is that most of my dad's deep thinking moments are derived from things he is angry at or upset with.  I find that most of my daydreams or thought processes are derived from worry or curiosity.  However, I do believe that there is nothing worse than when a bad thing gets on my mind.  When I am upset about something it bores deep into my mind and sits there like a huge weight.  It consumes me and it's all I can think about.  I usually try to find a reason for why the bad event happened and I generally attribute it to something I did.  I believe in Karma and I try to sometimes believe that things just happen.  I know that I can't control everything that goes on in my life and that disappointments are just going to happen.  But, as much as I would like to believe that, I always come to the conclusion that there was some action I made along the road that screwed everything up for myself and I am solely responsible.  I think that what really causes the bad events to get to me is the fact that I can't control them after they happen, no matter what I do, those things have happened and are in the past.  That is an idea I will have to learn to accept.  My dad takes a very cynical approach to it all.  My dad's language is very strong and I'll do my best to censor it.  "Nick, there's two kinds of people in this world, people that are going to screw up your day, and people that have already screwed it up."  I think if my dad was less angry he wouldn't think so much about the people he hates and then as a result, get into bad moods. Literally, my dad hates everyone.  I can count his friends on one hand... but he likes it that way.  Being around him has taught me that I need to let things go and not bottle things up so much because the more I keep anger in, the more I will sit around and think about it, which is very detrimental. Thankfully I have sports to help clear my mind and release emotions.

My mom was a very interesting interview.  I learned some interesting things about some of my other family members that will help me better understand why I get lost in thought.  I also got to hear the opinions of someone who sees me when I think deeply.  My mom says it is very noticeable and that she, like many of my classmates, would think I was sad, but she knows better. My mom knows it's best to avoid my dad when he is deep in thought because, as most people know, he gets in terrible moods and just rampages around the house when he is upset.  But, when I told her about how I usually worry about things, she had some interesting insight,  she said that my sister is a constant worrier.  She said my sister always used to wander
around the house and worry about things, same with my grandmother.  So now I really think that there is some kind of hereditary connection involved.  The interviews went very well and really helped me learn a lot, I expect to discover more in time.

Special Topic Research

Last Wednesday I didn't have to come to school until 10:35 and I was really excited to get to sleep in and not have to do all my assignments that night.  I didn't stay up super late that night but as always my mind got caught up in a certain topic just before I was about to fall asleep.  When my mind gets really set on a topic right before bed, not only does it make me stay up much later, but it always leads to a dream.  The dream is always extremely vivid, I feel like I am actually there. The sights and sounds, smells and touches, all feel so real.  When I wake up it always takes a few minutes to realize that what just happened was just a dream.  When I dream I am pretty much dead.. I won't wake up for anything.  I had set my alarm for 9 A.M. and I when I woke up I was confused as to why it was so bright outside.  I looked at my clock to see that it was in fact not 9 A.M... No, no, it was 11:45.   I had slept through about 3 alarms, and had a missed call from my mom.  I kept staring at my alarm waiting for the numbers to tell me they were just kidding and go back to 9:00... But they didn't.  I made a familiar facial expression at my clock and let out a long sigh.  I wasn't even really that mad.. I was impressed.  Anyway, once again, getting lost in my mind had a serious detraction on my day before it even really started.

The research that I found led to some pretty good insights on why I dwell on the larger topics.  The article pointed to a kind of anxiety over serious topics, the inability to be clutch when it counts.  The article pointed towards sports as an example, highlighting many athletes who had failed to perform in intense moments.  Thankfully I have been able to avoid this issue in sports because I'm having fun during games and the stress doesn't get to me.  However, as far as academically and socially, I would say this is true.  Many times that I get caught up in one of these topics, it's due to some sort of anxiety or stress.  This is a problem many people encounter, and the article suggests doing other things to take your mind off it will help.  If you distract yourself it will ease the stress and help clear your mind for whatever the activity is.

What I could not find an answer to is why I get so wrapped up in little things.  Tons of small questions and intricacies cross my mind daily that I ponder for hours.  Every day I wonder about things as trivial as why the sky is blue, how cameras are made, where certain NFL players went to college, and so on. I miss about 75% of my AP Gov assignments because I sit right next to a world map and I pretty much just stare at it and thing about all sorts of topics.  Maybe I am just a very curious person, and maybe that's not a bad thing.  I just wish I could let go of these questions sometimes.  I guess the saying that "ignorance is bliss" carries a lot of truth.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200809/mind-your-body-lost-in-thought

Special Topic

My dad often calls me a "Space Cadet".  This of course refers to the long periods of time I spend staring into space while my mind is somewhere different than the rest of my body.  At school, lots of people ask me if I am sad, or upset. They see that I am staring off into the distance with a melancholy look on my face and they think something is wrong.  While this is understandable, it is not true.  I am simply lost in my mind.  I daydream all the time, probably once per class at school. I don't zone out because I don't care about the class, my mind simply wraps itself around a new topic and I forget about everything else.  This is something I have done for years and I have always wondered why I do it.  I chose this as my special topic because I want to find an understanding for why I get so lost in thought and how to avoid it at times when I need to be focused.

I believe that when I zone out it is to a degree that is worse than most people.  For example, one night I was playing Xbox and started thinking about something.  All of a sudden, I was just sitting in the dark.  I felt like I had actually been asleep.  While I was daydreaming I had actually turned off my Xbox and T.V. and then sat there for a while without even realizing what I was doing.  It was the weirdest thing ever and was hard to explain to the people I had just been playing Xbox with.  The worst time that being trapped in my mind affects me is at night.  I'll be almost asleep and then something will enter my mind.  Then it's a good 2 or 3 hours of sitting up or pacing around the room contemplating this thought until I am able to sleep.  Needless to say this really sucks when I have to wake up early for school the next day.. thank God for late start days.

I do not know much about why I seem to get stuck in my thoughts so severely, other than it seems to be worse than the average person.  Another interesting idea is that, even though he criticizes me for it, my dad does the same thing.  My dad has been known to fall into these long periods of intense thought in the shower.  Many times my mom has to tell him to get out when he loses track of time and takes very long showers.  I don't think that I inherited this from him, but it's an interesting thought.  It doesn't seem like something that could be inherited.

I do my best to stay busy so that this problem doesn't affect me as much.  Sometimes it comes about in a really bad time such as when I am taking a test or trying to focus in class. Now that I am actually focussing on it, hopefully I can find patterns and reasons to explain why my mind does what it does.