The best thing about having a stroke...
Yeah, there really aren't so many great things associated with having a stroke, but there are ways to "look on the bright side" of things and take from the experience what there is to take. So far, there are a few things that come to mind as to what has been okay.
It is funny when people talk to me, as they are always kind of searching my face and words for signs of dysfunction, weighing what I say differently. It is understandable and so far, I can hold my own in normal discussions, although I struggle when pushing into my normal discussions. It is going to take some time.
Writing is interesting too, as I know my "writing self" very well under many conditions and this is a new condition, but it is one that hinders my ability to evaluate myself a bit. It takes me longer to write and I make more typing errors (which means many, many), but functionally, it is okay. The main issue is being able to hold my concentration and keep my thoughts on track, as I am generally a freewriter who looks to meander through thoughts, but hold a common thread. It is now harder to pull thing together and intertwine concepts and thoughts into something relatively coherent. Coherent for me, possibly you.
Proofreading is something I normally just do on the fly as I go, rather than do after I finish, but I should probably attend more to this, but it further breaks my flow of delivery. Luckily, I don't care that much about whether something is grammatically correct or not. I also don't care that much about formality, which is why I shape my sentences more like my mind - loose and conversational.
Many people talk about quality of content, which is a very misunderstood concept on Hive I think, because most don't seem to consider what form the content takes. Comparing a personal blog to a scientific research paper just doesn't work, and then it has to be considered from other factors too. For example, I think we have all seen visually impressive movies with brilliant 3D animation - but the story line has been a basic and valueless clusterfuck.
On Hive, there is also a lot more to "quality" than the content itself, as this is a social marketplace, which means like it or not, quality of character also matters. This doesn't mean that highly rewarded means good person, it just means that people consider the person they are rewarding, not just the content. It doesn't matter if the content is good, bad, truthful or a lie meant to deceive the audience into believing something knowingly false - if some people "like" the person, they will reward it. Or, people will reward something that fits their preexisting belief system.
For me, I don't have to worry about quality of content in regards to the community, because I approach it from the perspective of myself. It is like an artist of sorts - if you care about what you do, why would you do shit work? I don't have to try to get to a minimum standard in order to pass judgement of the audience, I need to get to a standard that I am happy with, which is generally pretty high, depending on how I am feeling.
Currently, I am more critical of myself, but also more forgiving once I have judged, as I understand that my mind is not anywhere near the condition of normal and, it may never be where it was again. So now it is about finding the current potential and working toward developing a new normal. Hopefully, that new will be even better than the old, but that is very optimistic and also knowingly unlikely, given the current baseline.
Yet, I think in this regards it is better to aim high and fall a little short, than aim low and reach it. Too often we might do what we know we can do, because we are scared of the possible failure, rather than stretching ourselves out to see what we can actually do.
In a few weeks the Olympics will start and I am "seriously" considering getting a new and larger TV so that I can watch a lot of it. I love the Olympics, because there are people doing a lot of relatively small sports very well. They didn't do it for the fame or fortune, as for many of those sports, there is very little financial incentive. But what there is, is the incentive to be the best at something, to be one of the most highly skilled in the world.
My favorite moments of all Olympics and sports in general is when the unexpected happens, when the rank underdog, the unknown wins. It is part of the victory of rising to the challenge, but for me, it is the understanding of all of the hurdles overcome just to be there in the first place. The Olympics is a collection of thousands of athletes' and their families' personal victories over their worlds, pooled together into a mass. Millions upon millions of hours over the space of lifetimes - all looking to be the best the can be.
I think there is beauty in it.
One thing that is common to all humans is, we all face challenge and we each have the ability each day to do our best to meet it, no matter who we are, what we have, our background or what others think of us.
There are many ways to consider quality.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
