Day 2: The Gift of Restlessness
The Neurodivergent Philosopher: Daily Meditations
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.20
Your restlessness has been pathologised your entire life.
Sit still. Pay attention. Stop fidgeting. Focus.
But restlessness isn’t resistance to the world. It’s responding to it.
Your nervous system is designed for pattern detection, novelty-seeking, rapid environmental scanning. What looks like distraction is actually high-bandwidth information processing.
You’re focusing on everything, not failing to focus!
The Stoics understood that what appears as an obstacle is often an advantage disguised. Your restlessness isn’t the problem. The problem is a world that built itself for neurotypes that process sequentially, slowly, with sustained narrow attention.
That’s not you. And that’s not a deficiency.
Your brain evolved for environments that rewarded rapid attention-shifting. Hunting. Gathering. Threat detection. Creative problem-solving under pressure. The ability to hold multiple possibilities simultaneously. Simulate multiple outcomes. Experiment mentally before acting.
You’re not broken. You’re built for complexity.
The work isn’t to eliminate restlessness. The work is to channel it.
Today:
When you feel restless, ask: What is my nervous system trying to tell me?
Not “what’s wrong with me” but “what does this energy want to do?”
Restlessness is information, not condemnation.
Your body is speaking. Start listening.