Sun 03 November 2024

In Part I, I listed several things/places/events that felt magical to me in my life. In this article, I will discuss the most recent one, which I refer to as my "Socratic Sign."

Life, Rebooted

At 40 years old, I found myself without a job and without the desire to jump through the crazy corporate hoops to get re-established in my industry (why, hello ADHD, we'll get to you in another article soon, I hope).

So, I did what any dopamine-starved person would do: I hastily packed up my life, left the state, moved in with family and went back to college to re-invent myself... somehow.

I really didn't know what I wanted to do, other than the fact that I was utterly disgusted by my experiences in the corporate world and really wanted to do something different. My intention was to go to seminary to work towards a PhD in Theology (I'm kinda glad I ended up not doing that, but that's a story for another time). Since I didn't have a degree, I had to start mostly from scratch, being the equivalent of a college sophomore when all of my various credits from (I think) four different institutions were all tallied up. Since pursuing an accredited Bachelor's degree in a religious institution would have been insanely expensive, I went the sane route and started in the local Community College and then transferred to the local University once I completed coursework for my Associate's (two-year) degree.

In Community College, I had a lot of freedom to pick and choose subjects that interested me (like Geology, Sociology and Music). But once I got into University, I had to pick a major. I was a little tempted to go the General Education route (it was called "Interdisciplinary Studies" at that University) because I'd have the freedom to try many different fields of interest, but I felt that I would still enjoy Literature, and I would get a more useful degree out of it than General Education.

Still, I didn't have very strong opinions about any of my options, but I went for what seemed to have the most promise and hoped I wasn't going down a blind alley. That hope would be answered in the most unusual way.

The Socratic Sign

My course of study was initially pretty difficult. I was not a bookworm before I started my literature coursework (unlike a lot of my classmates), and I had a lot of trouble keeping up with the reading assignments. (Why, hello again, undiagnosed ADHD! So kind of you to drop in! 🤣)

But I stuck with it, and after the discomfort and adjustment of my first semester at Uni, I started to enter into this grace for my chosen field (or to put it another way, I started feeling more comfortable with where I was at). I enjoyed the reading assignments (ADHD be darned) and immersing myself into the literary world. Most of all, I loved the camaraderie and discussions among my classmates. They were a fascinating bunch of people, and I really loved being among young people again. At least, thinking young people. I didn't enjoy the Community College crowd as much.

As I got into my second semester, I had some once-a-week evening classes. One of them ran to nearly 10pm, and nearly every time I walked to my car in the evening, I felt like my head was on fire. It was like the ADHD Hyperfocus to end all Hyperfocuses. I felt like Rose Tyler after peering into the time vortex and gaining the ability to see all points of space and time as a single constant. Ok, I'm exaggerating (and I definitely wasn't on any recreational pharmaceuticals!), but it really did feel like that at the time.

I would walk to my car, and it just felt like everything in the world was perfect. My brain was fully stimulated and firing on all eight cylinders, and I had a feeling of incredibly intense-yet-calm satisfaction that nearly made my hair stand on end. And because of this... odd "divine sign," I felt assured that my path in life was the right one, that I was heading in the right direction, and that I wasn't wasting my time.

I haven't felt that way in a really long time, and I rather miss it.

Category: Life Tagged: ADHD Beauty Life Non-religious post Non-technical post Philosophy Prose WritingMonth