
Laziness is a sin, or so they say.
Some high-minded pricks with their polished suits and their anxious eyes tell you that if you’re not working, you’re wasting your life.
They call it “laziness,” slap a label on it, and then they stick you with pills or therapy, as if that’s going to fix the mess of your soul.
Michel Foucault, if he were here, would point to this and say, “Ah, yes, the construction of illness. The pathologization of non-conformity.”
Foucault’s words would ring in the ears of anyone struggling with ADHD. You think you’re lazy? No, that’s too simple. You’re “disordered,” you’re “disruptive.”
Society can’t stand the idea of a person simply not fitting in, and so they create categories for those who don’t conform to the machine.
They stick their labels on us, as if that makes everything neat and tidy.
As if the noise in our heads is the problem. It’s not. The problem is the system itself—the one that rewards robotic behavior and punishes deviation.
Explaining It to the Apprentice (with ADHD)
“Alright, kid. Sit down. Let’s have a little chat about this.”
Imagine you’re sitting in school—those old, sterile desks with the thin metal legs. The teacher tells you to sit still and focus on the work in front of you, but your mind?
Your mind is like a car with the gas pedal stuck to the floor. You can’t help it. You’re staring at the page, but you’re really thinking about the sunset, or the way the rain looks when it’s pouring through the trees, or why the hell anyone would want to memorize these stupid facts.
You look up at the teacher and they call you lazy. They say, “Pay attention.” But you can’t.
“You know what they do? They slap a label on you, tell you you’ve got ADHD, and then they start shoving pills in your mouth like they’re candy. They want you to fit in their little box. But that box? It’s not for everyone. You’ve got a brain that works differently.
You’re not broken. You’re just not like everyone else, and they can’t stand it.”
The kid stares at me like I’ve cracked open the world, and for a moment, maybe I did.
Foucault: Power, Norms, and the Quiet Tyranny
Foucault had a knack for seeing the gears behind the curtain—those greasy, clicking cogs of power that no one wants you to notice.
The bastards, they don’t rule with swords and guns anymore, no. They’ve got something much more insidious: ideas.
They rule with norms, codes of behavior, the silent little whispers that tap you on the shoulder and tell you how to be. They don’t even need to raise their voices anymore. They’ve got us programmed, like puppets with strings so fine we don’t even notice we’re being yanked around.
You think ADHD is some freakish malfunction of the brain? Nah, kid. That’s what they want you to believe.
They say you’ve got a “disorder,” but that’s just a fancy label for not keeping up with the hustle.
In the world Foucault described, there’s no room for anyone who doesn’t match the script. Your brain doesn’t tick like the rest, so they slap a label on you—“lazy,” “disruptive,” “out of control.”
They don’t care if you’re a damn genius who just doesn’t give a shit about their boring little paper-pushing rituals. The real crime is not playing their game.
It’s like you’ve stepped off the conveyor belt, and you can see the whole factory grinding away, the little cogs all running at full speed—everyone around you whizzing past, eyes locked in that dead stare of focus, head down, ass up, the machine roaring on.
But you? You’re that one poor bastard, leaning against the wall with a cigarette in your mouth, wondering why the hell everyone’s in such a hurry to get nowhere.
Foucault wasn’t talking about illnesses, not in the way you’ve been taught to understand them. No, he was talking about the “manufacture of illness.” He was talking about how they make sure that any time you step out of line, they can slap a label on it and call it a disorder.
ADHD? That’s not a brain disorder—it’s a disorder of the system. A system that’s obsessed with turning every human being into a predictable little unit. They tell you: Conform. Or else. And if you can’t, well, you’ve got a problem. You’re sick.
You ever think about how stupid it is? The whole charade. They’ve got this idea that the human brain works like a machine—every part has a specific function, everything lined up nice and neat, all working together.
But we’re not machines. We’re flesh and bone, a mess of chemicals, thoughts, impulses, and dreams that don’t always play by the damn rules.
So when you can’t sit still in their meetings, when your mind’s wandering off into the stars while they drone on about profit margins or the next “innovative” product, they label you “inattentive.”
But you’re not inattentive. You’re just too goddamn smart for the nonsense they’re peddling.
And the worst part? They act like it’s for your own good. They tell you: This is how we make you better. They give you pills, send you to therapy, shove you back into their little cage and tell you to “focus.”
But it’s all bullshit. They don’t want you to focus; they want you to shut up and fit in. Your brain’s a little out of sync? Tough shit. The system’s the one with the rhythm, and if you can’t dance to it, you’re broken..
So let’s break it down:
Symptoms of ADHD | Reframed by Power |
---|---|
Inattention | Resistance to the tyranny of focus |
Impulsivity | Defiance against rigid behavioral codes |
Restlessness | Refusal to be bound by artificial stillness |
It’s almost poetic, really. ADHD—this supposedly tragic condition—is nothing more than the refusal to be molded by the grind.
Inattention? Nah, you’re not inattentive, you’re resisting the dictatorship of focus, the monotony of a world that wants you to give up your thoughts in exchange for empty productivity.
Impulsivity? Hell no, that’s just you saying, “To hell with your rigid rules and your little behavioral cages. I’m doing my own thing.”
And restlessness? They call it a symptom, but you know what it really is? The refusal to sit still in a world that’s falling apart and expects you to act like everything’s fine.
It’s not a disorder, it’s a revolt.
Here’s an expanded and more detailed version in a Bukowski-esque style:
The Dopamine Machine: A Scientific Perspective
ADHD isn’t some whisper from a conspiracy theorist’s tongue. It’s not a myth carved from paranoia. It’s science. It’s blood and neurons and misfiring pistons in the brain.
A different beast altogether, running wild, chasing its own tail in circles. The root of it? Dopamine. That damned trickster chemical, that snake-oil salesman of joy, pleasure, and focus. For someone with ADHD, dopamine is a double-edged blade—too little here, too much there, and always at the wrong time.
Now, Michel Foucault would step up and ask: Why does it even matter? Why does it matter that this brain dances to its own chaotic rhythm?
Because society, with its straight lines and nine-to-fives, hates a messy waltz. The answer, as far as society’s concerned, is to drug the dance floor.
Medicate the dancer until they move like everyone else. Shuffle them into line, dull the edges, polish the rough stone until it fits neatly into their pretty mosaic.
But here’s the million-dollar question: Who decided this was the only way to be? Who handed out the blueprints for normal and slapped a “standard issue” label on them?
We didn’t sign up for this. They did it for us. They handed us pills and programs and schedules with big, important names like Behavioral Therapy. All to make sure we shut up, sat still, and stared straight ahead.
We all know the symptoms, don’t we? Hyperactivity.
Impulsiveness. Inattention. Words written in neat little pamphlets handed out in waiting rooms. The same bullet points, the same list of things that make you different in the wrong way. But the truth? The truth is, these brains of ours—these messy, electric storms—are wired for something else entirely.
And maybe that’s the rub. We don’t fit into the boxes they built.
Modern life demands tidy corners, smooth edges, and brains that tick like clocks. But we’re jagged, sharp, alive. We’re fireworks, and they’re trying to make us into desk lamps.
Society wants to call it a disorder because it scares them to see something they can’t control. But maybe it’s not a disorder. Maybe it’s just different.
The Screens Are the Disease
If the system really gave a damn about ADHD, it wouldn’t start with pills or therapy or a list of coping mechanisms scribbled on a pamphlet in some waiting room.
No, it would start with the real culprit—the goddamn screens.
Smartphones, tablets, computers, TVs, whatever glowing box is eating your time and pissing away your attention span.
They’re the silent killers, the sweet poison you don’t even realize is rotting you from the inside.
Every ping, every notification, every stupid e-mail—it’s all designed to pull you in and keep you there, like a fish caught on a hook.
Once they’ve got you, they don’t let go. The system doesn’t just tolerate this; it thrives on it. It’s a big, greasy machine that cranks out endless distractions—videos, memes —and it’s all aimed at one thing: your attention.
And kids? The little ones with their soft, spongy brains? They’re the easiest targets. They don’t stand a chance against this digital avalanche.
The system shoves a tablet in their hands before they can even form a sentence. Schools tell parents, “Oh, it’s for learning.” Learning? Bullshit. It’s training them to be perfect little consumers.
They’re rewiring their brains before they even know what a brain is.
Here’s the thing they don’t tell you: Before the screens took over, ADHD was there, sure, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t an epidemic, a goddamn wildfire ripping through society.
Back then, kids got bored, sure, but boredom was a gift. You’d wander outside, climb a tree, kick a ball, stare at the sky until you saw shapes in the clouds.
Boredom made you creative. It gave you space to think, to dream, to figure out who you were without a screen telling you what to be.
Now? Now there’s no boredom left. Just the endless churn of content. Scroll, click, swipe, repeat. It’s all noise, and your brain can’t handle it.
You’re not wired for this level of chaos, this nonstop barrage of junk. And what happens when your brain can’t keep up? They slap a label on you. ADHD. A disorder. Something broken inside you. But you’re not broken. The system is.
You want to fix ADHD? Here’s the cure, plain and simple: Turn off the goddamn screens. Shut down the apps.
But you think the system will do that? Hell no. The system loves its screens because screens are money. Attention is profit, and the more zombified you are, the more you click, the more you buy, the more you feed the machine. It doesn’t give a damn if it fries every brain in the world.
And when your brain finally gives out, when you can’t focus, when you’re jittery and restless and staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m. because you’ve got a thousand bits of useless content bouncing around in your skull, the system doesn’t apologize.
It doesn’t say, “We’re sorry for doing this to you.” No, it hands you a pill. A little white lie wrapped in a prescription. “This will help,” they say. It doesn’t.
The pill isn’t for you—it’s for them. It keeps you functioning just enough to keep feeding the machine. It numbs you, dulls the edges, makes you manageable.
Because fixing the real problem? That would cost them money. They’d have to stop flooding the world with flashy garbage. They’d have to prioritize people over profit, and they’ll never do that.
They don’t want you cured. They want you quiet. A good little worker bee who swallows the pills, stares at the screen, and keeps the wheels turning.
That’s the system’s cure: sedation. Keep you numb, keep you scrolling, keep you too distracted to see the bars of the cage they’ve built around you.
And the worst part? We let them. Every time we pick up the phone, every time we shove a tablet into a kid’s hands to keep them busy, we’re feeding the beast. We’re letting it grow bigger, louder, hungrier.
So yeah, they could fix ADHD. But they won’t. It’s easier to keep us as zombies.
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