Picking

As a kid, I would always pick at things. Sometimes it would be paint chips on the wall, sometimes scabs (which my partents hated), but most of all it was the specks of paint and glue that are ubiquitous in grade school art rooms. People would always notice it, ask me why I did it, and make fun of me for it, and still I couldn't stop myself.

It might have been my diagnosed but untreated ADHD that caused me to pick all the time, or it might be that there is just something innately enticing about picking. Small clearly defined tasks that have an achievable and obvious end point. In retrospect it seems similar to the Montessori school practice of washing socks. Maybe all I wanted was validation for jobs that I could do. Instead all I got was rebuked for taking interest in an activity that no one else saw as important.


Oddly, others' scorn was directed not only towards the peculiarity of my actions but also towards their perceived futility. Countless times I was told that I 'could never get all the glue off of the table'. So day by day, comment by comment, not only was I taught that I shouldn't do what I could, I was also taught that I couldn't do what I believed I could.

While originally I meant to touch on how satisfying the activity of 'picking' is (be it in a 4th grade art class or a freshman year intro to computer science lab) I think it's much more interesting to think about how every day we're given incentives (through praise or reprimand) not to do easy, achievable, beneficial things that don't tax our time or energy.

with lowered potential,
Noah