17 Comments

*I swear to God Grammarly, you had best start minding your business. I already have a competitor loaded up. You are about to be replaced if you can’t shut your damn mouth with your suggestions… I wrote exactly what I intended to write, and no, you do not know better than I do*

LOL. There is a reason I don't use Grammarly - or, for that matter any other similar utility.

But to the post at hand, I think super-intelligent people often end up doing multiple things at once, because doing only one doesn't occupy their mind holistically enough, even if they don't have psychopathy as a neurological condition.

Expand full comment

You are likely correct

Expand full comment

I would also like that anime list 👀

Expand full comment

I will post it for you when I put it together

Expand full comment

* To NOT be a menace to society…

I don’t think Grammarly is doing its job.

Expand full comment

Thank you for catching that, I fixed it, and no, Grammarly is asleep on the job

Expand full comment

OMG> I saw that absent "NOT' too.

Clearly, you meant in a "Athena Walker" positive sort of way!!

Thank you for your work on boredom. However, I am way over my head to understand it.

This idea of "boredom" seems to me very subjective. I am clueless to quantify or even identify if I experience it.

When it comes to this, I certainly can not compare myself with anyone else.

That is a good thing for me to know. Again, I thank you for it.

Expand full comment

I should make a playlist of things I should do when bored. Push ups were a go to for years and I would do a lot of push ups out of boredom

Expand full comment

Playlists help

Expand full comment

Hi Athena,do you have movies when you are bored?

Expand full comment

Yes, I do keep a list of films to consider watching during these times

Expand full comment

Can you share?

Expand full comment

The entire list? That would take too long to put together. Here is a small part of it, all documentaries:

65 Red Roses

Under Our Skin

Night Will Fall

The Unbelievers

The Red Pill

Autism in Love

Holy Hell

The Rape of Nanking

The True Cost

Twinsters

Auschwitz: Blueprints of Genocide

Hiroshima: BBC History of World War II

The Slanted Screen

Alive Inside: A Story of Music and Memory

Living on One Dollar

The Seven Dwarfs of Auschwitz

Sex, Death, and the Meaning of Life

Sriracha

I am Jane Doe

Born into Brothels

How to Die in Oregon

The End (this one is hard to find)

The Impostor

Kumare

If you are interested in another genre, ask me specifically about that one.

Expand full comment

No need for that,enough material here,thanks

Expand full comment

Jesus, there's nothing wrong with your writing style, or your grammar either for that matter, like you said it's YOUR writing style!

Junior schools in the UK have become grammar Nazis in recent years too - when I was at school, English was all about creativity, imagination, characters & stories, now all they seem to care about is teaching degree level grammar that most people are never going to use, for no apparent reason.

The lessons they sent home for my daughter in lockdown were enough to make anyone want to go throw themself off a bridge, they were so dry and dull. She used to get frustrated cos they kept telling her to put more adjectives in her writing all the time, and I had to explain to her that good writing is just INTERESTING writing, and that can mean lots of things, but mainly originality, personal style and meaning. It's not something you can get by following a formula. I even resorted to reading her passages from Booker prize winning novels, to show her that writing can be captivating and gripping without needing to be stuffed full of adjectives. It almost feels like they're trying to turn English into a branch of maths sometimes...

Anywaaaay..... psychopathic boredom sounds bloody annoying, but also kind of fun, the way it makes you throw yourself into everything without a second thought. The more I read your writing, the more it hits me how incredible it is that one little genetic mutation, knocking out one single brain chemical, can have such a profound effect on the way someone experiences the world, and therefore their character. It literally changes almost everything. Makes you wonder what other genetic mutations might be out there, knocking out other brain chemicals, that we don't know about yet - and what conditions they might be causing. One day we will find out I guess!

Expand full comment

It is very unfortunate that your daughters lessons are so boring that you would have to resort to giving her outside perspectives instead of the school itself engaging her mind.

Expand full comment

Absolutely - but I should probably clarify, in case there are any UK teachers reading, that none of it is really coming from the school, or the teachers themselves - it comes from the National Curriculum and SATs tests, which are designed and set by the govt. So it's all coming from a bunch of (mainly) men in suits in Westminster, who apparently have never met a child :o(

Expand full comment