Attention Deficit Disorder

I’ve had the opportunity for long drives the past few days… and long drives mean my active mind shuts off and the deep thinking begins… (Don’t ask, I think best in two places: the shower and long drives….) 

It’s also a wonderful feeling to realize that you can still finally put pieces of a puzzle together after a birthday marking another year on your age… 

There’s a war in love…. a war that has had many battles fought over it for years, decades, centuries, and millennia, namely the war between the desire for attention and the desire for affection… 

Attention comes in two subclasses: positive and negative… And then, is divided into two again between sought and unsought.   The difference between the positive and negative attentions is not as obvious as one might think.  Indeed, in place of one, most people will accept the other.   Sought and unsought has a bit more of a pull to it… The need to seek out attention, means that the person that now has to give it, may not have wanted to in the first place.   Therefore, it falls into the negative connotation and then, it begins to make the giver question why the attention is being sought.  Suddenly, this “attention” becomes a far greater deal than it should have been and, usually both parties end up angry at each other: one for not getting the attention desired and having to ask for it; the other, having to give attention that they did not want to part with to the seeker, and maybe, could not part with… 

In deference to that, comes affection… Affection is always positive, always given willingly, and has a depth that attention never will and never can have.  It is not needy… 

In the war of love, I know which side I’m on now… which side I believe in… which side I’m willing to seek out… which side is no longer important…. 

You can have all the attention you need… I’ll take the affection, anytime… because it is always given freely and lovingly….