Late. Missing. Straight up not turned in. These are the words that describe my academic career, from beginning to end. I was never a particularly good student. It wasn’t my fault, I had undiagnosed ADHD but was told that attention deficit problems didn’t exist. People understand better now, but even as recently as 10 years ago, teachers did not generally have a grasp on the ways in which their students were affected by the “Attention Parasite” as I’m going to refer to it going forward.

Writing is a very important trait of humanity. It is our greatest strength, and our greatest weakness. We have the ability to catalogue history— albeit flawed, and biased as accounts can be— we have the ability to tell stories, construct poems, write jokes, and sway people’s opinions when we do it right. Writing is the tool of the strong to outlive the weak. Writing, and the art of building something out of nothing but language is not something to be resented or dismissed.

Entertainment is not innately Human. Dogs are entertained by pretending to fight, and by chasing objects that are thrown; cats are entertained by various things, be it hunting, fake hunting, staring at their owners for hours, or patting a ball around a circular track for hours at a time; and elephants are entertained by Humans, feeling the same joy in their hearts when they see us, that we do when we see a tiny puppy.