This is your chance to reflect on what you will take away from Chapter 1: All about Scanners and to learn from or contribute to other book club members’ take-aways. You can also pose questions here about the chapter or what you are discovering about yourself.
Here, to remind you, are the exercises we completed in Chapter 1: All about Scanners.
- Create Your Scanner Daybook
- Your Living Quarters Map
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Finding out I am a Scanner was a huge “aha” moment. This book is helping to clarify it and help me navigate how I function and what “drives me.”
Some notes I have taken in the margins of the book ~ I am also writing in my Daybook. This explains why I enjoyed the classroom so much. I am an extrovert, so I liked the classroom more than going home or to the library to study. I like being able to learn actively and ask questions in real-time. [Personally, I wouldn’t mind a Zoom meeting once in a while for these groups. 😉 ]
There have been times when I have envied “Divers,” but I do think they, too, have a hobby or two or other interests, just not the breadth that a scanner does.
I do wonder how depression affects other Scanners. I know I am a scanner because of my history, but my drive to do things has waned. I am more tired than I was 40 years ago when my bucket list was 85 things, but lately, with many life “issues,” most interest lies in what the next series to watch on TV is. 🙁
I don’t worry about not getting to other interests as much as some of my interests have such a breadth of possibilities that it can be overwhelming. Does this happen to others? It seems that the more I learn, the more there is to learn, almost a bottomless pit of information (for example, I am “currently” in the health and wellness field).
I will need to be deliberate about writing in my Daybook daily and hope it becomes a habit. I am interested in seeing how this develops, and I pray that it will help me get out of my “rut.”
Many things you shared resonated Nan! There are so many layers to depression that I wouldn’t wanna pinpoint any specific examples but I do know that you are not alone! Many scanners talk about feelings of being overwhelmed by what’s available, so much to learn and limited time, projects that were started and not finished or projects that were never started, and that list goes on and on lol. Taking a look at your happiness levels and how high does watching TV rate for happiness? If it doesn’t rate very high, I would get curious about the purpose it serves. Sometimes we watch TV or play games to distract us, avoid something else, check out a life for a while, or because other things are overwhelming and watching TV is easy lol. Knowing your own purpose for watching it and the purpose It serves for you may offer you some food for thought!
Something I am finding amusing, is the lists of examples that Barabara gives of crazy, divergent interests typical of Scanners often include several ideas or interests that I have pursued at some stage, like deciding to learn Mandarin. I daydream my ideas to completion, walking them through in my mind and imagining my life in a rural Chinese village, teaching English to a small class of Chinese children. These imagineerings are my “parallel universes”, I imagine I am actually doing that in another universe, and sometimes I’m glad to be back in my own bed at the end of it all.
I must have started reading this book a long while ago. I have had my Daybook in action since 2019. I have a large, hardcover artist’s sketchbook like my brother used to have. I always thought I had it because he always had one ready to capture the world in a pencil sketch. But now I realise it was because of Chapter 1 of RTC.
So my book is full of my ruminations, business plans and outlines of novels. A trick I have used is to number each page and to keep an index of the topics with the page numbers so that I can find my ideas. When I jot down a continuation of a topic, I note the new page number against the original index entry, so I have a complete reference for each topic. Other than that, the book is completely unstructured.
Very cool Caroline!
Something that I am discovering or more so reinforcing is that mindset is everything. What I mean by that is I can think of something as a positive or a negative! The unfinished projects I have can be thought of as procrastination, or simply things that I’ve tried and have maybe made a prototype or two, and it will always be available for me to pick up again. I have a bit of anxiety doing the things that I want to be done; however, with every task that I do, it’s a reinforcement that it’s lovely to support myself.
Thank you Katherine!
I had to come back and share this with the group:
Last week I drew my living space and my storage, and noted a few projects to do around the house. On 8/2 I woke up and found my room flooded. Thankfully everything was salvageable and nothing lost (other than a box spring), but it was very interesting timing that I had just listed all these projects around my living space, and the universe FORCED me into action. Let the purgation begin. and I’m also redecorating the room once the new frame/box spring arrive. Definitely will kick up some new energy in the room.
Next, at work, someone’s last day is 8/7 and one coworker offered to bring in donuts from our favorite spot. I told her I’d bring her some cash. In cleaning up the room (Thanks, Barb) I found an old wallet in my car, and inside was $5. Hell yes, donut money! I’m on a roll on week 1. Let’s see what kind of stuff pops up in week 2.
Ha ha, love this J! Thank you for sharing.