In this episode, Ash and Dusty explore the complexities of managing hyperfixations and hobbies as individuals with ADHD. They discuss the common experience of having interests that are “an inch deep but a mile long,” the guilt and shame surrounding inconsistent engagement or financial investment in hobbies, and the struggle to align identity with fluctuating passions. Both hosts share personal stories that highlight different patterns of engagement—from impulsively diving into new interests to learning to take smaller, manageable steps and focusing on mastery over novelty. They emphasize the importance of redefining what it means to be “into” something, allowing space for both deep commitments and casual, purpose-free enjoyment.
The conversation also delves into strategies for sustaining interests, including community involvement, mentorship, and deliberately choosing to deepen existing hobbies rather than constantly starting new ones. They highlight the value of “constructive” activities that replenish energy without demanding productivity or long-term outcomes. Ultimately, Ash and Dusty encourage listeners to reject self-judgment, embrace curiosity about their current phase, and find balance between exploring new threads of interest and committing to core passions. This episode offers compassionate insights for anyone with ADHD seeking to understand and nurture their unique relationship with hobbies and identity.
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Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Ash: Hi, I am Ash. [00:00:03] Dusty: I’m Dusty. [00:00:04] Ash: And this is Translating ADHD. [00:00:07] Dusty: I still have group spots in my coaching group. It’s starting in May, and you guys can message me if you want a spot in the coaching group.It is very affordable. It is very fun. It is very community-focused and it’s four months running from May to August. So hit me up or go to https://www.adhdstudio.ca/.
[00:00:28] Ash: I am currently taking new clients, so if you have been thinking about coaching and coaching with me in particular, visit https://coachasher.com, fill out my intake form, and I look forward to hearing from you.So Dusty, what are we talking about today?
[00:00:44] Dusty: Today we are talking about hyperfixations and I guess kind of hobbies as well, but more like pursuing your interests. [00:00:53] Ash: Yeah, which is really tough for those of us with ADHD because it seems like it is either a hyperfixation and something that we’re all in on, or it’s something that we have good intentions around, but struggle to engage with. [00:01:09] Dusty: Yeah, and I just wanna say as a note, that hyperfixation doesn’t even have to be like a thing that you’re into. I know sometimes people get really hyperfixated on a new crush or a new love. You can get really hyperfixated on a negative situation like drama that you’re going through, but I think for the purposes of this conversation, we’re largely talking about getting hyperfixated on a topic, new concept, new hobby, or like a new interest.Something interesting that I once heard somebody say was that people with ADHD have interests an inch deep, but a mile long. Have you ever heard that?
[00:01:43] Ash: I have heard that and that is something that my clients often beat themselves up about. There’s so much guilt and shame about money spent on hobbies that they’re not engaging with. Their desire to improve at something, but the inability to match intention with action or the guilt and shame that comes from maybe investing in a hobby upfront and realizing at some point or not realizing because of the guilt and shame, that they’re just not that interested in that hobby anymore, but struggling to let go because they feel like they’ve made a commitment to it, right? It goes from something that they wanted to do to this kind of should. [00:02:26] Dusty: Yeah, and I think when you’ve spent money on it, especially, there’s a lot of guilt. And then also it’s hard to know if you’re really interested in something or not. Like you pick something up, you’re really, really into it because of the novelty. There’s something about it that’s interesting to you, and I feel like it’s a bit impossible to know at the beginning if this what you might call a true interest or a true hobby that’s gonna sort of stick with you more or less consistently over time, or if it’s a thing you’re just gonna be into for a few days, a few weeks, or a few months.And so when I see people struggling with shame, it’s often because they mistook one for the other, right? They had a new, fleeting interest in something, but they invested a lot of money into getting all the materials to do that thing. And then kind of later realized that they’re not that into it, you know?
[00:03:21] Ash: Dusty. That’s been a pattern that I have repeated over my life because that thing you just said about interest and inch deep and a mile long actually isn’t so true for me. And I find that frustrating sometimes because I have to be all the way into something in order to engage with it at all.Sometimes I feel like I have periods of life where I’m between things – for me that was Jam Bands and Fish Tour. I still love jam bands. I still see them locally. But as far as dedicating a huge chunk of my free time and my money to traveling to see shows and making that my primary vacation, my primary social time, I’m just not there anymore and I’m not there for a number of reasons.
That left me feeling like I’m kind of between things and there’s not necessarily something that I am interested in doing. But as far as what you just said in that being a pattern for me, I am absolutely the person that can be terrible about buying all the things upfront. Like, ooh, I finally found a thing, let me get all the way into it.
One thing that I have done is I have learned to put the brakes on for myself and, and, and the way that I do that is like. I try to focus on taking one step at a time, right? What’s the next thing I want to do? What’s the next skill I wanna work on?
What’s the next thread I’m pulling on right now, and what’s the bare minimum that I need to accomplish that and then kind of work it from there, right? Which also allows me to see if this is something that’s going to stick or not without investing everything in it upfront.
[00:05:03] Dusty: Well, that sounds like a very good strategy. And it’s interesting because when you and I were talking about this, we were like, what’s important to talk about regarding this? And I think it does come back to issues with identity and with shame because if you are not really all that interested in your interest, like you have hyperfixations, but you never go too deep on anything, how do you make sense of your identity?What are you into? Because in a way you’re kind of not really that into anything, but you’re also a little bit into everything. And I don’t know about you, Ash, I mean, I heard you say that you don’t really have that problem. I certainly have that problem. So for me, it always contributes to that imposter syndrome of if I say I’m into this or into that and then if anybody asks me a question about it, there’s like a good chance I only know about 10% of that thing.
So do I get to lay claim to that identity and say I like this band, but I’ve only heard one album, or I like to do this hobby, but I’ve only done it a few times. At what point do you cross the threshold to being able to lay claim to it as something that you genuinely like?
And again, maybe this isn’t something that neurotypical people even worry about, but I especially think with ADHD and overthinking and the “rules brain” (what are the rules for getting to say that you’re really into something).
[00:06:21] Ash: So Dusty, I experience that too, just a little differently, right? I’m the person that tends to be kind of oblivious to things until I’m not. And so, one identity that people do know me for is being a huge music lover. However, people are always surprised, and sometimes I get criticized or teased for the fact that I hardly know any popular music.I do not know artists that everyone on planet Earth knows because I’m not on social media. I’m not plugged into pop culture in any way. Things tend to find me more organically, so it’s not even a snobby thing. And I think that people take it as a front, right? It’s a snobby thing that, you know, oh, you don’t like things that are popular.
No, I’m not aware of it until I’m aware of it and I’m not into it unless I’m all the way into it. And if I’m not all the way into it, then it just might as well not exist to me, if that makes sense. But I run into similar problems because of that, particularly when I feel like I’m kind of between stuff.
Like who am I? What am I into? If I’m having a casual conversation and somebody asks me what my interests are, there have been many times in my life where I feel like I don’t have solid answers because it doesn’t feel like I’m that into anything.
[00:07:35] Dusty: Yeah. It’s interesting because you kind of mentioned the term moralizing or moral aspect. I think there’s like a moral aspect here to this idea that there’s a right and wrong way to be into things, and that if you’re into things you have to be into them consistently, forever, or for a long period of time and you have to know all the things about it and that’s the right way to be into something.And I think even here, it’s important for people with ADHD and neurodivergent people to redefine the way that they relate to their interests because it’s just doing us harm for no reason. It’s hard enough to have so many things to do and to always be behind and to be living this life where you feel like you’re just brow beaten by your own tasks.
So many people that I coach Ash, come to coaching and they don’t know what they like to do for fun, and they never give themselves permission to have fun. They never just have downtime and fun time because they’re just crushed under the weight of all the things they feel like they should be doing to be a good adult.
And so when it’s already so hard to give yourself permission and to get access to life enjoyment because what is the point of all these things if at the end of it life enjoyment isn’t the goal? It’s hard enough to then on top of that be throwing up barriers to doing things because of ideological or conceptual barriers – like not being good enough or imposter syndrome or guilt about the money that you spent or that you wanna do something different now that is the thing that you spent all the money on, like you spent a bunch of money on this, now you wanna do that. So now you’re not letting yourself do that because you spent all the money on this, right?
We get so in our own way of just being able to enjoy our life. And that really is a shame ’cause it’s already quite hard for us.
[00:09:23] Ash: Dusty, this is for me where journey thinking really comes in. Coupled with the fact, and I’ve said this on the show before, more than once, ADHD people struggle to form a strong sense of identity. And when we don’t know who we are, it can be really hard to know what we like.My life 10, 15, 20 years ago compared to my life today looks very different in terms of who I am and what I’m into because I was missing so many pieces of my identity that I needed to find in order to have a better sense of what I might be into, what my interests might actually be.
And so my philosophy in those in-between periods has gone from a place of frustration to a place of curiosity. When I was kind of figuring out that I just wasn’t genuinely interested in investing the level of time, money, and commitment that I was before into seeing live music, I started trying new things.
This is a season to just try things and try it with low stakes. Go try a class, go try this, go try that. See what sticks or doesn’t stick. And for me that includes meeting people because a huge part of what defines a hobby and interest for me is the community around it.
Yes, it does have to be something that I am independently interested in doing, but I also need that piece of community around it. That is excellent and interesting to me and the people are interesting and a huge part of that for me is because I learned best from mentorship. So if there’s a community that I can connect with, people that can show me the ropes, people I can ask questions to, people I can run my dilemmas by or whatever else, that makes a huge difference for me.
So for those of you who might feel like you’re stuck between things or might feel like you flail between a lot of things rather than moralizing that is something you’re doing wrong, think of it as sort of the opportunity to do something, because the whole philosophy behind journey thinking is actually novelty seeking, right? You can’t find the answer until you do. So, in the meantime, the more novelty that you can find around the topic of interests or hobbies, the more exposure you’re getting, the more context you’re getting, the more you might get closer to what it is you’re really looking for.
[00:11:49] Dusty: I have some personal examples that are kind of a little interesting to me that we talked about before. I feel like I kind of go one of two directions on this.When I was younger, I had things that I genuinely enjoyed doing just to pass the time, and I was good at them. Drawing and learning languages, I’m just really good at and I’m interested in learning languages. I just like to learn them for fun, but I never get good enough at them to be considered fluent. So when I was a kid, I would pick up lots of languages and I would like to teach myself languages. And my parents were always like, oh, you could be a translator when you grow up.
So I started thinking okay, I have to be that. But at one point I realized that I’m not good enough at any given language to use it in any kind of a job sense. And so I stopped doing them because I was like, well, this is useless, this is pointless. I wasn’t even really that interested in getting super fluent in any of them.
Often when you learn a language, like in a class or something, people will assume that you have a strong interest in the culture or the geography or the history. So I would always hit this point in language learning, like in high school I took Spanish, French and German. Then in university, I took Spanish, German and Japanese. I would always hit this point where there was this expectation that I would want to learn more about the culture, more about the history and that I would have some vested interest in participating more in the culture of that language.
And it’s not that I’m against those things, but for me that was never the reason to learn the language. I just enjoyed the act of literally learning words in different languages. And so eventually I kind of stepped away from doing that because I thought I’m not doing this the right way. I don’t have an end goal in mind for this, there’s not like a bigger purpose to this. And so I stopped doing it.
Same thing with drawing, I really enjoyed drawing as a kid and so when I was young, I thought, well, maybe I’ll grow up to be a painter or an artist. And then at a certain point I realized that I didn’t enjoy doing it enough to want to do it all the time for a job. So I stopped doing it.
And now that I am an adult and most of my life is about doing things that I have to do, at a certain point I was just like, you know what, I’m gonna start learning languages again just because it’s a thing that is literally just an enjoyable couple minutes of my day to do on Duolingo. It’s not for any purpose, it’s just for me. It doesn’t have to be for something, but it took me like 20 years to get back to realizing that I could just have hobbies with no purpose because they’re things that I literally just enjoy doing to pass the time, which is so rare for me ’cause everything is either something I have to do or something I’m trying to get good at and it’s like work. Right?
So one direction is I used to have interests and I kind of forgot or felt like I shouldn’t have them ’cause they weren’t leading me somewhere. But the other direction is I’ve also had things that I want to get good at or want to be into, but there’s some startup cost or there’s some reason I don’t get around to it, or it feels like it’s gonna be hard.
And in those instances, it actually helped to do the opposite. So the example I gave to you, Ash, before we started recording is my dad gave me this antique banjo and I carried it around in my house for years and years. And I kept being like, I’m gonna learn the banjo, I’m gonna learn the banjo. I just thought it would be so cool to play the banjo and I just kept not doing it because I always had other stuff to do and it didn’t come naturally. I was trying to teach myself and frankly, I’m not very good at teaching myself. Being autodidactic doesn’t work for me.
So finally I was like, you know what? I’m not gonna learn the banjo unless I make it more high stakes. So I started a band in which I was the banjo player. I just was like, let’s start a band. I’ll play the banjo, and then you better believe before our first practice, I learned that frigging banjo. And then I started taking lessons, and then I had skin in the game. I had a reason to do it. I had a reason to work through the initial startup cost of being like I don’t really know what I’m doing here. This feels hard. And now, I genuinely enjoy it. I genuinely like it.
And what’s interesting is, like for me, it goes the opposite direction. The interest in banjo music is now coming. I didn’t start playing the banjo because I was interested in banjo music. I started playing banjo music and then got interested in the history of the banjo and the culture of people who play the banjo and bluegrass music and old time-y music.
For me, it goes the other way around but that has also given me a lot of shame and imposter syndrome because those things don’t necessarily go together for me in my brain. It seems like they do for a lot of other people but, I think just accepting that that’s the way that it is for me has been really helpful.
[00:16:32] Ash: Dusty, you said something really interesting before we started recording, and that was something a friend said to you. The idea of if you wanted to take on a new interest or hobby to ask the question, is there something that I want, is there an interest that I want to deepen instead? [00:16:50] Dusty: Yeah. Thank you for reminding me of that. So I was just chatting casually with a friend online one day, and I can’t remember what the context was or what we were talking about, but I mentioned something that they didn’t know how to do and I said like, oh, you should learn to da dah, dah, dah. Have you ever considered doing this?And they were like, no. You know what? I think that I’ve decided I’m just gonna stick with the interests I’ve already cultivated. I’d prefer to go for mastery over adding new things to my repertoire. I’m paraphrasing, that’s not exactly what he said, but I was like, for whatever reason, I was like, whoa. That idea really struck me. I was like, huh, that’s really interesting.
And I’ve never forgotten that comment. So now every time I get that leading urge to just pick up a new thing, I think back to what he said, and I think to myself, is there an interest I already have that I’m already not putting the time into? Do I wanna further subdivide the small amount of time that I have and spread it out and take away from time that I could be getting better at this other thing? Again, not that there’s any moral goodness to that or that you’re obliged to, but it would give me a minute to pause and think about the things that I was already trying to get good at.
And for me that made a difference because I do wanna be good at things. When I feel like I’m not putting the time in, I feel guilty, even if it’s something that’s supposed to be fun for me. So my point is, whenever I would think about this, I’d be like, oh yeah, you know what, I could be working more on hobby A or hobby B, or interest C and then that also helped me to not go too crazy, like spreading myself too thin and get to see myself achieve a little bit of mastery. But the thing is, it’s not just about remembering that I already have a thing I’m doing.
That’s the first level – remember that you already have a thing. That’s what I have to do for myself. Remember, you’re already doing things. You already got some open tabs going here. You already got some books you haven’t finished reading, whatever. But level two is that I would have to find creative ways to get myself to stay engaged.
So, if it got really boring to play a certain instrument or take care of my plants, I would make a project out of something new that I didn’t already know how to do. Some new, interesting, aspect of it so I would have a new angle to come at it and sort of reinvigorate my interest in doing it.
And that I found that once I figured that hack out, it really helped me stay with the same thing and also move forward and move through the feeling of the novelty being worn off. So I’ve come to realize there’s always something novel about the thing that you’re already doing if you look for it. But sometimes, you have to put in that effort and I like that.
For me, again, not saying everyone has to do that, but personally I feel with a few certain interests and hobbies that I have, I have moved through the phase of not being good at it enough to see myself get good at it, and to see myself have that deeper level of knowledge about some topics. That gives me a kind of satisfaction that is really what I was looking for, but it also creates the momentum to keep going. So I feel like I have established some sort of true interests but I didn’t establish them, they didn’t just happen on their own. It wasn’t like I consistently stayed interested in those things. I almost had to work at it, if that makes sense, but I’m glad that I did.
And then other things, like the language learning thing or drawing or I took up crocheting a little bit, I’m just giving myself permission to just pick those things up and put them down whenever I want to, as the mood suits me without feeling like I need to stay committed to it.
That’s also helpful because sometimes you just wanna do something that feels fun and it doesn’t have to have all this other crap attached to it. Just doing what you feel like feels fun at the moment, so who cares if it means anything?
[00:20:40] Ash: I appreciate that distinction and that statement at the end of just do it if it feels fun – who cares if it means anything?I had an interesting conversation with a coaching client over a number of sessions where he was lamenting that mile wide but inch deep thing, and we kind of came full circle.
He had this interesting perspective shift where he kind of realized that oftentimes in his life, things would come back around if they were meant to, and if they weren’t, that was okay. It didn’t mean that there was no value in the time spent. And oftentimes the value in the time spent would show up in unexpected ways.
Dusty, I also love your approach to mastery. This is actually kind of a new thread I’m pulling on because for a long time my hobbies were not creative in any sense of the word, right? Like, I’m attending live music, I’m appreciating someone else’s creativity, but I’m mostly just consuming. And that is something that I think bothered me more than I realized.
But I just didn’t have an interest or I didn’t think I had any interest. I often tell myself a story that I’m not creative or I don’t have skills, or I’m not artistic, and I know those things aren’t true. And so I’m in this interesting place now where it’s exciting to me to have a few different things on that list that I want to cultivate mastery on.
Stained glass is one that was a hobby of my dad’s, and what I really love about that art form is that somebody with no visual brain can lay your pieces out and see what they look like before you start putting stuff together. So I really do think it’s something that’s very accessible to me.
I haven’t yet started because this is the don’t skip steps thing. And I am in the process of, and have been working on pretty consistently setting myself up in a space where if I take a class I am able to actually keep engaging with that after the class and retain those skills because one of my toxic traits can totally be learning something and then never practicing it.
Then I have to learn it again, and then I have to learn it again, and then I have to learn it again. And getting stuck in that loop can be really frustrating. So this time I’m actually intentionally not skipping steps. The class will come when I’ve got the space set up so that I can then work on stained glass at home because I have everything that I need to do it.
[00:23:06] Dusty: So I have another hobby or a hyperfixation or interest that I’ve just come back to that was really interesting, which is wrestling. So here’s part of the imposter. You have to know everything about it.So wrestling is like a whole thing. Some people are really into it. They know all the lore and the history. And I started watching wrestling with my ex-husband back when I was married ’cause he was into it. And I found it very fun and very funny and it was entertaining enough. I participated in that for a while and then eventually I got bored of it because it’s kinda like a soap opera where eventually all the stories kind of loop around. I got bored and I disengaged from it. And then because I disengaged from it, I was like, okay, that’s not my thing, that was his thing. And I’ve participated in hobbies in the past with partners because it’s their interest.
But I happened to be watching TV and I saw some wrestling on Netflix and I was like, I’m gonna watch this. And you know what? I actually really liked it. I felt like I had a mix of feelings ’cause I don’t know enough about it to be into it. I don’t have any friends. What am I gonna do and how do I pursue this hobby and do it?
It’s funny, but I almost felt like, do I have the right to pursue this hobby because this was somebody else’s thing, not my thing? I’m not so into it that I wanna make it like a piece of my identity. But I’m into it enough that I don’t just wanna leave it behind forever. So I realized what would be helpful for me would be to reach out to one friend that I did have who I knew was into it and be like, could we watch some wrestling together? Maybe I could ask you some questions about it or you could teach me some things that you think I might be interested in. And of course the person said yes, so I was like, okay, this is so nice to get to have this again without having it be this big thing.
And I think that’s one of the things that makes the difference for me with hyperfixations and hobbies when they slough off right at first, when you’re really, really into them, you don’t need anything to be super into them. But when you hit that wall where you’re no longer that interested in them.
Like your client said, it’s okay to put them down for however long and when you wanna come back to them, that’s okay. I think the piece that I was always missing was figuring out how to learn more about them. Like I said, I’m not good at teaching myself things. It doesn’t occur to me that I could go on YouTube and watch videos about it.
Figuring out how to increase my knowledge or skill has always been really hard for me, which sounds weird, but it’s like there’s a gap in my brain where that piece is missing and what I figured out now is really to ask somebody else for help. Ask somebody else, tell them what I know, or show them what I can do and ask them where they think I should go or what they would do.
Getting other people involved has really helped me find a way back into things that I know I’d like to be into, but I feel kind of stuck on the outside once the hyperfixation wears off.
[00:26:06] Ash: Dusty, we are so similar in that regard. The language I use for that is I look for the people that can help me think about how to think about something, right? So help me think about what are the aspects of this thing? Like what could I be doing? What could I be looking at? Even just hearing things like, what draws you to it? Why are you so passionate about this? What makes this such a piece of your identity – can make connections for me that seeking the same information on social media or anywhere else online just doesn’t do, and I think that’s honestly so true for so many of us with ADHD.A huge source of support for a number of my clients, and this is in a work context, but translates directly to what you just said, is oftentimes talking with someone else and not necessarily because you need the other person to give you the answers, but because just that interaction of dialogue with someone else that is knowledgeable can help shake things loose, can help slow your own brain down enough to, and this is why I use this language to really start to think about how to think about it.
To get some clarity or perspective to take it from this overwhelming, sort of vague I wanna do this, but I don’t know where to go and there’s a million different directions I could take it to okay, now I see a path forward or maybe a number of potential paths forward, because for me, my other special interest is leather, which is a huge huge subset of things that one could get into.
One could get into the act of leather making themselves. One could get into specializing in any number of kink related things. And so for me, for a long time, my journey there has been just showing up and talking to other people and seeing what they’re interested in and not trying to rush, figuring out what it was I might want to do.
Now that I have figured out something that I actually want to do, which is learning how to use poi floggers. They are dual wheeled finger floggers, so you hold them on your finger and they’ve got a swivel, and it just looks really cool. Like if somebody’s even just swinging them in the air, like not swinging them at a person because you’re doing two of them and you have to be really coordinated.
It looks really cool and it also feels unlike any other impact tool when it’s hitting just because of the number of hits you can get because you’re using two and you’re swinging them in these different patterns.
If you would’ve told me a year ago that I wanted to learn how to swing poi floggers and that I was gonna dedicate myself to that practice, I would’ve been like what? Because there are so many things I could have done that I needed to spend some time cultivating my interests a little over time to figure out. What was the thing that I’m actually interested in here? And in that case, I’m really glad that I didn’t spend a lot of money on other stuff, right? I’ve been pretty careful in that scene to only buy what I knew I had a use for.
And that scene is really generous like loaning or demonstrating or otherwise. You can oftentimes find another way to have access to an implement or a tool or a thing without purchasing it yourself if you know somebody else. So my friend had poi floggers and was doing a demo night, and we had a break between people that wanted to be hit with them. So they let me put them on and showed me a few little moves and that was it for me. Like, that’s the thing I am going to learn in that space now, and I’m really stoked about it.
[00:29:29] Dusty: That’s very cool and so weird. I’ve never heard of that, but it sounds amazing. As I’m thinking about this, I feel like maybe it’s about, okay, you have ADHD, your brain is curious, it’s seeking novelty. It gets interested in different things, which is fine, you can let it, and then the questions are how do you know how much time to invest in something? How do you know how much money to invest in something? What do you do when that thing stops being interesting? How do you know whether or not it’s worth it to continue to pursue it or to push through the disinterest or to let it go? Like almost kind of what is the framework of making sense of your hyperfixations.None of us have that much time, and you can’t be good at everything. So I feel like it’s okay to have a couple of core talents, skills, or interests that you are trying to master, right? Like whether it’s one, maybe it’s three or four or whatever, things that you’re really, really good at and you should keep working on them to get good at.
And it’s okay to have things that you just pick up and put down as you like, whether you’re good or bad at them. Whether three months passes by, or three years, you know, like you don’t have to answer to anybody. You don’t have to make it part of your identity. It’s okay for it to just be a one inch deep thing, right?
I’m not going to ever be good enough at any language to translate anything to anybody, but it’s just something that my brain enjoys doing and I’m just gonna do whatever I want with whatever language I want as little or as much as I want. And then maybe there’s sort of a middle zone of things that you can kind of trial? You can curiously explore whether or not they might be added to the core interest. But you only have so much time. You can only be really good at so many things. So it’s okay to accept that there are some things that are not in that zone and they can still be part of your life.
Does that make sense? I don’t know.
[00:31:22] Ash: Dusty, that absolutely makes sense. And the way that I tend to distinguish is what are the threads that I’m pulling on?So for a long time, leather culture was a thread that I was pulling on. I didn’t yet have a direction I was going, and I knew that and I was okay with that. I was still very much in the learning and acclimating and talking to people so that I could think about how to think about it until I wasn’t, and continuing to show up and pull on that thread eventually brought me to something that I wanted to learn.
So what are the threads I’m pulling on? These are the things I’m not attached to. I’m just interested and curious and maybe looking for more ways to pull on that thread to figure out if this is something that I want to pursue, and if so, how? Versus what are the key things that I am actively working on pursuing. And for me that is stain glass writing and poi floggers.
Every time I think about adding something else, right now, I have actually been reminding myself that, hey, you’ve already got a few things on your plate that you have decided to dedicate yourself to. So maybe this is something you can either throw in the bucket of a thread that you’re pulling on or a thread that you wanna pull on in the future, or maybe it can fall into that third category you’re talking about.
Which languages fall into for you, Dusty, and what I like to call that category is the constructive category. We’re so productivity oriented in today’s society that if we’re not doing something that’s leading to some bigger outcome, some end, some skill building, some something, if we’re not accomplishing something, we can often feel like we’re wasting time.
So I like to counterbalance the word productive with the word constructive. And constructive literally means to build up. So the stuff that gives back to you, it puts something back in your tank, even if that’s all that it does, even if it never does anything else for you, that’s kickboxing for me.
I have no aims to even spar, much less get up in the ring and fight. I am not that interested in fight culture. I don’t go to fights when my friends are fighting to support them. And I like watching kickboxing matches, but I don’t really like MMA. I don’t really like the culture that surrounds it.
I like the culture at my one gym. And so really for me it’s just the community and the physical movement and my own improvement. That’s enough. There’s no bigger aim there. I don’t care if I ever get good or don’t get good. It’s the time spent and the time spent alone that is constructive for me and puts something back in the tank for me. In my case, it also has the side benefit of being something that’s physically active, but that’s not the primary reason I even do it. That’s just like a side bonus that also checks the box of taking care of my body, even though that’s not really these days why I show up to do it.
[00:34:19] Dusty: I know we’re gonna end soon. But on a side note, I just wanted to say on the topic of being like the person who historically has had the, the inch deep, mile long interests. The funniest part of being that person is that you sometimes literally forget the things that you did or had an interest in.The other day, out of the blue, I remembered that I once knew how to blow fire. Like I used to blow fire. I learned how to do it but I forgot. I’m not gonna do it now but I probably still could. But like I just decided I would teach myself to blow fire. And then your comment about the finger poise reminded me of that, ’cause it made me think of fire poise.
There’s so many things like that where I just learned weird things, like about carburetors and engines and then just forget them and move along. They’re all in there somewhere just at random intervals.
[00:35:16] Ash: Honestly, I think that’s what makes us interesting as people with ADHD and people who are capable of being social in a lot of contexts because we can be interested in a lot of things. And so it is really easy to be interested, at least in the moment, at least as far as a conversation goes, and something that someone else is really passionate about.So more than anything, the moral of this episode is wherever you are with your own hobbies and interests, however happy or unhappy you are with the current state of things, don’t judge yourself for it. We all struggle. We all go through seasons where you might actively be working on something and seasons where it feels like you’re a little rudderless.
What is my identity? Be curious about where you are. Be curious about the potential things in your sphere and of the three categories we talked about, where do those things fall? Is there anything that you wanna master right now? And if not, what threads can you be pulling on in the meantime in life in general, because I think all people need those things that are just for you and not for any bigger outcome.
What are those constructive things for you that put something back in your tank so that you do have the time, energy, bandwidth, etc. to devote to the things that you need and want to devote your time and energy to?
Dusty, I think that’s a good place for us to wrap for today. So listeners, until next week, I’m Ash.
[00:36:42] Dusty: I am Dusty. [00:36:43] Ash: And this was the Translating ADHD podcast. Thanks for listening.
