How Do You Own Disorder?: “Toxicity” From The Eyes Of An ADHD Person
“Toxicity” is undoubtedly one of System of a Down’s most recognizable songs, right up there with, like, half of their discography. Despite this, however, I feel like the public’s understanding of the song, while on the right track, is generally incomplete.
Common interpretations of Toxicity stem from the 2005 Download Festival, where songwriter Daron Malakian claimed the song was about attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. However, while I think people’s hearts are in the right place, I think people have gotten led down the wrong path about ADHD’s influence on Toxicity’s message, and I’d like to go over some of that today.
To introduce myself, I’ve lived with ADHD for my whole life. It’s a very commonly misunderstood illness, and a far more severe one than most people realize. It’s given a name that gives the listener the idea of “Can’t Pay Attention Or Sit Still Disorder”, and while that’s definitely true (I am literally shaking my leg under my desk AS WE SPEAK let’s go) it’s also a LOT more than that.
See, the systems of your brain that helps you do things are called the executive functions. The basic executive functions are separated into five:
- Attentional control. This is the ability of the brain to choose what it pays attention to and what it ignores.
- Cognitive inhibition. This is the ability to “tune out” information or stimuli that’s irrelevant to the task at hand.
- Inhibitory control. The ability to manage impulses and natural instincts in favor of choosing a path that will get the task at hand completed.
- Working memory. This is pretty much the brain’s RAM; it stores information relevant to the task at hand. Some may call it “short-term” memory, but they’re not *really* the same. And,
- Cognitive flexibility. This is the ability to think about more than one concept at once, and to keep them both in your brain simultaneously. Multitasking at the cerebral level, essentially.
So! What do all of these things have in common??
ADHD fucks with ALL OF THEM! I tell you what, researching for this article was pretty validating, seeing as I have trouble with ALL of these things on an intuitive level. My ability to function as a human person right now is contingent on a bunch of hacks I developed through my childhood and am still bodging together into today. Shoutout to that whiteboard that I got from the grocery store on a whim, and have used, like, once.
All this to say; it’s kind of a shitshow. All these things that come naturally to the average person, I have to develop strategies to hotwire my brain into Kinda Being Able To Do Sometimes. It affects every aspect of a person’s life. Can’t Pay Attention Can’t Sit Still Disorder doesn’t even come close.
And while Toxicity isn’t exactly a perfect example of THE ADHD EXPERIENCE, I get the feeling that wasn’t really the point. I’d posit, instead, that Toxicity uses a narrator with ADHD to take a look at society from another viewpoint. I’d also argue that Toxicity is generally a more pragmatic piece than most interpret it as.
I would be posting this to Genius, as I’m wont to do, but the page for this song has been marked as “complete”, and has thus been locked, even though I think there’s still plenty to be said about it.
In this article I’m going to be looking at the song blow by blow, offering my perspective on what Toxicity means to me. It’s by no means a definitive interpretation, and the great thing about music, especially that of such talented songwriters like those that work for System Of A Down, is that there’s a million other ways you could spin it. I just feel like some folks could do with hearing the perspective of somebody living with the disorder that they chose to depict, with the goal of enriching their understanding of the song and the world around them.
Conversion, software version 7.0
There’s no annotation on this line. There’s a lot of ways you could spin it. But the way I see it: A lot of people with ADHD toy with the idea, or the fantasy, that they’re a machine. I do as well, it’s a comforting idea that, while it might not have basis in reality, helps us come to grips with our brains, and positions our condition in a way that has the potential to change. I admit this is a bit of a stretch, but I think it’s a good jumping-off point to get into the key of what I’m trying to get at in this article.
Looking at life through the eyes of a tire hub
Contributor Stepper had this to say, and I think it’s the most accurate to my interpretation:
Given the song’s topic of Attention Deficit Disorder we can look through the eyes of a tire hub and see that it’s hard to focus on anything when your vantage point is always turning. This could be a metaphor for how hard it is to focus on anything with this affliction.
Basically, our brains constantly shifting our focus is one hell of a way to view the world. This line is a metaphor that sets up the track’s subject matter.
Eating seeds as a pastime activity
The toxicity of our city, of our city
“Seeds” is commonly interpreted as being a metaphor for ADHD medication. For the non-ADHD folks, another reason people with ADHD are so often maligned is because the medication that we take to manage our symptoms can be pretty intense. I personally attribute some loss of memory from my childhood to Ritalin, which I took as Concerta when I was young. Nowadays, I’m on Adderall XR, which is a form of Adderall that releases slowly throughout the day, leading to better effectiveness and less intense side effects. It works for me. It’s the reason I’m getting a second article done in the same month right now. But it’s often associated with a somewhat related psychoactive chemical; methamphetamine.
I could go on about that, but the portion I just cut out of this article was about 400 words long, so I’m just going to put it in a Google doc and link it so you don’t have to sit through my infodump if you don’t want to!
The Genius page posits the line as being critical of “pill pushers”, doctors who throw medication at every possible problem. I can’t say whether or not this is true, but if it were meant to be critical, I doubt that “seeds” would be the word that was chosen. Instead, going back to the robot metaphor, I’d say that this line isn’t aimed at people who take Adderall for legitimate reasons, but rather towards people who DON’T have ADHD, that take it for recreational purposes. The narrator views their medication as essential to life, like a seed that sprouts into a tree, while others just gobble them up like it’s a game.
While it’s not my place to criticize people who take medications that haven’t been prescribed to them for any reason, I would more readily accept this interpretation. Widespread recreational use of Adderall makes it harder for the people who need it to push for better access, which is pretty significant. If I miss my meds for a day, it messes me up for a good week. A long week, where I wonder how the hell I ever got by before. By devouring seeds for no reason, the proposed city becomes toxic to what the narrator views as life.
The Genius page also makes a pretty critical error in their interpretation of the ADHD patient’s relationship with their medication. Another reason interpreting this line as being aimed at us doesn’t make sense to me is that I take my meds once a day, in the morning. It’s a single 30mg dose, which gets me through most of the day. I’m a pretty big person; this would be plenty for the average Joe.
Meaning that this annotation would be completely baseless.
…I mean, constipation, maybe, but I just… drink more water?
Annotations like that are why I’m writing this article. It’s pretty obvious that whoever wrote this doesn’t actually live with this disorder. C’mon, Stepper. Step your game up.
You, what do you own the world? How do you own disorder, disorder?
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence, sacred silence and sleep
Somewhere between the sacred silence and sleep
Disorder, disorder, disorder
The chorus is definitely the most debated part of this track, but I think I have it somewhat figured out. I’m actually going to come back to it later once I’ve more established the framework that I’m viewing this piece from.
More wood for their fires, loud neighbors
Flashlight reveries caught in the headlights of a truck
One of the ADHD symptoms I mentioned above is a problem with cognitive inhibition. We have trouble tuning out information that’s irrelevant to what we’re doing. I interpret this stanza as being somewhat literal, as if the narrator is trying to get something done, but the sounds and lights of life around them are distracting. When I was in school, there was a separate classroom that “special needs” kids went to when they needed a quiet space to work, or access to resources or staff trained in helping them. To this day, I have issues concentrating if my roommate’s kids are running around in the hallway, or if the neighbors are mowing their lawn.
Another commonality in ADHD is getting a spark of inspiration and NEEDING TO WRITE IT DOWN THAT VERY MOMENT or else it’ll disappear. I’d call one of those sparks a “flashlight reverie”; and perhaps the headlights are literal, a truck outside catching their attention before they’re able to catalog the idea and it becomes lost forever.
So now that I’ve laid out my key points a bit more, I’d like to tackle the chorus again.
You, what do you own the world? How do you own disorder, disorder?
Now, somewhere between the sacred silence, sacred silence and sleep
Somewhere between the sacred silence and sleep
Disorder, disorder, disorder
The first line, to me, is talking to the neurotypical people that run the world, that decide the framework in which we live, work, and die. It’s about the constant efforts of these people to erase our struggles, to make us fall in line, something we are chemically not capable of doing. You can’t own us, you can’t make us the way you want.
The rest is linking the experiences of the ADHD individual to life as a whole. My most productive hours are between about 4 and 9 in the morning, when the world hasn’t woken up yet. Everything is quiet, serene. I can finally create an environment in which I can focus and be productive. I’d even call that silence… “sacred.” You see where I’m going with this?
From the sacred silence of the dawn, to the moment we go to sleep at night, the entire world is disorder. The narrator isn’t the one with the problem; the problem is with the society that has formed itself around choking them out. Even if it’s successful, even if the narrator is driven to suicide, they’ll have eliminated one ember in the flame of disorder through the world.
Disorder is the natural state of the world, and while it can be controlled, it can never be extinguished, because to do so would be to eliminate the nature of humanity.
When I became the sun, I shone life into the man’s hearts
The final line, delivered in Serj’s signature wail, denotes to me a promise. That one day, things’ll be better, and we’ll be able to accept each other for the way we are. Shine light into each other’s hearts, and rebuild society for the intent of building each other up, rather than tearing each other down.
That’s what Toxicity is about to me. It’s another perspective on the tumultuous world we live in; one that the writers may or may not have fully understood, but definitely were intent on talking about. This song speaks to me as it has millions of others, but I think the corruption of the toxic society we live in has led some to assume a pessimistic interpretation, clouded by the very stereotypes that push down the individuals the song is intended to pay tribute to.
But that’s just me. I’m something of a radical optimist. I believe that hope is essential, and that it must be clung to at all costs. So I do admit that my interpretation is definitely biased. Again, my goal isn’t to say that if you interpret it differently you’re definitely wrong, or whatever. I had just read the piece pretty different from most other people, and when it comes to things like this, I think we could all benefit from learning about each other a little bit more.
