I am a creative.

A creative is someone whose brain refuses to run on standard issue.

Creatives run on different batteries. We have our own alternative fuel. We don’t keep the same hours as everyone else. We certainly don’t see the world the same. We notice the odd, the overlooked, the “huh, that’s interesting” moments most people breeze past. We tinker. We question. We turn the ordinary into something worth looking at twice—or thrice.

We live in the spaces between rules. Our curiosity is insatiable, messy, and sometimes exhausting. A creative will paint a mural, build a fort, compose a song, and rewrite the instructions for the IKEA bookshelf, all in the same afternoon—and somehow it works. Somehow it’s brilliant.

And yes, there are many of us out in the wild. You might see us in the café sketching on napkins, in the park chasing ideas, in the classroom turning chaos into a lesson, or in a lab breaking everything apart just to see how it works. We don’t just think outside the box—we live there, eat there, nap there when no one’s looking.

A creative isn’t defined by a job, a degree, or a neat résumé. We’re defined by how our minds move, how we connect dots others didn’t see were even there, and how we make meaning out of noise. If you’ve met a creative, you know—they’re the ones whose energy is contagious, whose curiosity never quits, and whose ideas stick long after the caffeine wears off.

Me? I tinker. I question. I am insanely curious about stuff—this, that, everything. I don’t need to know how stuff works, but I want to. That same energy, that restless curiosity, that brain that never sits still? Yeah… it comes with a name.

Like, dude, I am ADHD. 

This is normal for me. My standard answer when someone asks how I’m always so full of energy—or how I can multitask like a one-person orchestra—or how knowledge just seems to stick? Been this way my whole life. Even that guy in the mirror has wondered about it. Heck, I’ve questioned it a time or ten.

My learning differences used to announce themselves to the world loud and clear. That energy, that curiosity, that “knowledge just sticks”—it’s like my brain’s running on its own high-octane engine. ADHD isn’t just chaos; it’s a superpower in disguise. I’m wired to notice, to move, to connect dots faster than most, even if it comes with a side of restlessness, distraction, and the occasional “wait, what was I doing?”

Long before I understood what kind of learner I was, I understood this: my mind was never silent when it was learning. For my crazy brain, that meant studying with the TV and radio on… the Dodgers game on one screen while Van Halen blasted from the boom box. In art school, it meant three drawings, two paintings, and a Lego set at play all at once, all while singing Vicente Fernández and listening to Elvis on my Walkman.

I grew up knowing I learned differently, no matter how often adults tried to fit me into a mold that wasn’t made for me. Desks in straight rows, worksheets in neat stacks, quiet reading time—they all felt like trying to squeeze a skateboard into a shoebox. 

I could follow the rules when I had to, but my brain wasn’t satisfied sitting still, waiting for the next instruction. I needed to touch, to tinker, to see how things worked in my own messy, sideways way.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to learn; the standard approach just wasn’t enough. I remember teachers asking me to focus on one assignment at a time—so I did, and immediately three other ideas started screaming for attention. 

I tried to explain, sometimes with words, sometimes with doodles sprawling across the margins of my notebook, that my learning wasn’t linear—it zigzagged, looped, and occasionally did cartwheels right over the curriculum.

For those of you wanting to know, this is what it feels like inside my head: forty tabs open at once, none of them will close. Try to focus? Impossible. Random pop-up ads appear in the corners of my thoughts. There’s music somewhere, and I can’t find the source—and honestly, I don’t want to.

My brain is like a café during rush hour: espresso machines firing, baristas calling orders, milk steaming, phones ringing, pastry trays sliding, and me trying to make sense of it all while juggling a laptop, a notebook, a sketchpad, and a full cup of ideas. 

Occasionally a delivery guy runs through with a tray of new thoughts I didn’t even order, and somehow, by some miracle, it all comes together—just not in the order anyone would expect.

Most ADHD people will nod because they know. The crazy thing for me? If I close these tabs, if I eliminate the noise, I can’t function. My brain literally learned to create the noise. It needs all ten lanes of the neural freeway open to run efficiently.

In my head, it made perfect sense. Still does.

People rarely understand this. A very select few actually do. My thoughts don’t fit into categories. Hell, they often don’t fit into their own space.

I took an IQ test once—or, well, a couple of times. The first was for fun, part of a clinical research project on attention deficit while I was in college. Truth be told, they offered me fifty bucks to take it and let them use my results. I thought, what the heck, fifty bucks. The results? Surprising, to say the least. 

Yeah, I bet you really want to know what my IQ was. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

So I did what people like me do after such experiences… I grabbed a Coke and a Hershey bar, headed straight for the arts building, and got lost in my own thoughts while painting.

Sometime later, curiosity got the best of me, and I enrolled in a seminar on IQ and how it impacts learning. Snoozefest. But I did manage to pull a few nuggets of wisdom out of it—stuff I wouldn’t realize the value of until much later.

And here’s the thing: that high-octane, multitasking, “brain-café” chaos? It became my teaching superpower. Leading day camps for Parks & Rec or creating learning spaces as a teacher, I learned to design environments where curiosity ruled. Outside-the-box teaching, fully immersive, experiential learning. Kids building models, painting scenes for stories we read, exploring ideas hands-on—just like my brain, thriving in controlled chaos, making connections others wouldn’t see. 

ADHD didn’t just shape how I learned—it shaped how I could help others learn differently, too.

Turns out, a brain that never stops humming isn’t a problem—it’s a playground. And here’s the thing I’ve learned—something creatives do automatically, on the fly, without even thinking: we process, we connect, we create. While everyone else sips their coffee and plans the day, we’re already ten ideas ahead, sketching out solutions, stories, or murals in our heads.

So yes, I’ll take my chaos, my noise, my forty tabs… and my coffee. 

Because somewhere between the espresso steam and the morning sunlight, all the tabs line up just enough for the magic to happen. 

That’s what it feels like to live inside a creative mind: caffeinated, curious, and always, always learning—even when you don’t realize it.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I wrote this late at night, watching Landman on my iPad and playing Solitaire on my phone—just keeping the tabs open.

There’s more waiting at https://xinkblotz.com. Telling stories, sharing thoughts, and drinking coffee. A blend of fiction, reflection, and whatever’s brewing – one post at a time.