The Pooka Principle: Embracing my Insanity

If you've never seen the 1950 James Stewart movie, "Harvey," please rent it.

In the movie, Stewart is an easy-going bachelor who has one personality quirk: his best friend is an invisible eight foot tall rabbit named Harvey. Harvey is a "Pooka," kind of a anthropomorphic guardian angel/imaginary friend that accompanies Stewart everywhere. This, of course, upsets all the "normal" people around him, especially when Stewart introduces Harvey to others.

Old movies are great in that they make a point; and the message of "Harvey" is simply this:

Sometimes it is better to leave people's personality quirks alone.

Personally, I think a pooka is a great idea, especially in view of the lack of close friends, but I'd prefer a Golden Retriever or perhaps a bear instead of a rabbit..or maybe a 1920's professional wrestler named Hank or something.

I have started to take the message of Harvey seriously myself: from now on, I'm going to I'm embrace my insanity and not care so much what other people think about it. The point is this: unless someone takes the time to get to know me personally, they're just not going to understand me, so it's their loss.

I suspect that I have had Attention-Deficit Disorder for most of my life; long before the term was coined or popular among pediatricians or underactive parents. I've never been able to focus on anything for a long period of time and fondly remember having half a dozen scenarios going on in my grandmother's basement at the same time: a World War Two army battle, moon-landing (with aliens), situation-comedy in a dollhouse, Western scene (with Roy Rogers) and really cool Untouchables play set, all on the cold brown-tile basement floor, tied together with a circle of Lionel track.

Actually, adulthood hasn't been much different: I've had more careers and almost-careers and hobbies and interests than I care to mention, all of course still surrounded with the Lionel track.

I really can't expect everyone to understand but at this point, they'll just have to live with my sixteen year old emotional mindset, my sudden changes in topic when conversing, my deafness, my inability to smell, my cornicopia of interests and my list of crazy age-inappropriate things that I hope to do before I die.

Please do not fix me...I like it this way...I mean, we like it this way, my pooka and myself.