I am like a toolbox, with all the tools I will ever need laid gently and neatly in the box, ready for me to use them.
The toolbox is translucent so I can see them there. The key to the toolbox is locked inside of it.
Read the rest of this at: You Matter
Notes to the Reader:
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Putting the Mythology to Rest
So, though the image I have of Athena springing fully clothed from the head of Zeus has always captivated me when I think of it, mythology in the world of AD/HD is just one more hurdle to get over. If it isn’t laziness, then it isn’t superior creativity, either. It’s ironic that the very capacities that make us most human are the ones most strikingly sparse in the ADD brain.
It is an old, old compensation – though transparent – to attempt to feel “okay” by asserting superiority when one in fact feels less than “okay.” However, this is an unattractive, and potentially destructive, feature of our cultural habit of competitiveness. How much more congenial and functional, and friendly, to understand that all people have qualities that are more and less effective, more and less appealing; have areas of excellence and areas of incompetence. The world is so big and so populated, it never occurred to me to learn how to grind my own glasses, or repair the stucco on my house; we need not all do everything well, and there is no call for shame – or false pride – in that.
We are all born, there is room here for all of us, and that’s that. Now go set a timer for something.
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This series of posts was originally published as a column in Addvance Online Magazine, of which Betsy Davenport was managing editor for three years.
Notes to the Reader:
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Myth No. 4: ADDers are More Creative
As for creativity, it cannot be true that all the most creative people have AD/HD. There are more creative things to do than spend a morning searching for your woodworking tools, finding them dull and a bit rusted from the damp because you failed, in your haste last month to multitask your way to something more fun, to rub a bit of oil onto the blades. And, there are more creative things to do than have creative ideas; doesn’t “create” mean “to make something?” The ideas themselves might amuse us, but unless they result in something more or less material in nature, “creative” is a myth.
Those thoughts may travel fast, but if you can’t catch them, what good is winning the race for who can think fastest? We are generally frustrated when they go above the speed limit and disappear over our mental horizon before we can hitch a ride and guide them to a destination worthy of them, and our efforts. Details? They are important. The telephone call to the psychiatrist before a holiday weekend, registering for your child’s – or your own – summer drama class, having stamps in the house when you have things to mail, placing warranty papers in a file labeled for quick retrieval when the washing machine fails, turning off the oven when dinner is cooked, putting things away when you’re through using them… Dull, crashingly dull, I know; especially when your Brain (technically in charge of keeping track of these things more or less outside your immediate awareness) has taken a walk and it’s your Mind left behind to supervise. Your Mind has, indeed, much more interesting things to do, yet if you’re going to have a sensible life, you’ve got to press it into service anyway.
Notes to the Reader:
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Myth No. 3: ADDers Are More Sociable
The “sociable” person with AD/HD is likely to be offending people left and right without realizing it, if she is running off at the mouth and nothing to stop her; and at least one study cites childhood shyness in girls as a predictor of AD/HD (as childhood boisterousness is a predictor for boys). There isn’t much difference between saying everything that comes to mind, or nothing at all, if both options are a response to overcrowding of thoughts and the brain’s failure to sort through and automatically nudge forward the one thing one would like to have said. Similarly, chronic lateness and chronic earliness both are characteristic of people without an inner sense of time. The primary difference is that the early bird’s overcompensation may not inconvenience others as much.
People with AD/HD can certainly be inappropriate; and the sooner we accept responsibility for that, the sooner we’ll have good friends. Everyone else is not uptight, though some certainly are; but many have been able with enviable ease to learn and accommodate to our culture’s ways without any loss of spontaneity (which word, by the way, is often used by our encyclopedia salesmen as code for “impulsive”). Planning – yes, with some flexibility – increases the chance of getting to do the things we need and want to do, and at the times we later on would be glad to have done them.
Notes to the Reader:
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Myth No. 2: ADDers are Smarter than Non-ADDers
Now down the pike comes another set of rumors, like an encyclopedia salesman who, during the Depression, was instructed to “Sell them a set if it’s their last nickel.” This set is just as inaccurate, more insidious because some people with ADD – who can least afford them — are lining up to buy them, themselves. Shockingly, people with AD/HD have even created some of these falsehoods.
“People with ADD are smarter.” “People with ADD are so much more gregarious and sociable than other people.” “People with ADD can multitask better.” “People with ADD are so much funnier and more creative.” “People with ADD have to take medications, just to get on in a world where the so-called ‘normal’ people have ridiculous hoops for us to jump through.” “People with ADD aren’t inappropriate; everyone else is uptight.” “People with ADD can think at the speed of light and no one can keep up.” “People with ADD can’t be bothered with the details because we are thinking about much more important things.”
First, I should tell you, I think myths are lovely. Myths are filled with hopes and yearnings and they reflect our faces back to us, more beautiful than we are really. Myths have been around since anyone can remember, and though we enjoy the notion of the Greek gods, and of Athena springing fully clothed from the head of Zeus, her father, we chortle disparagingly over the primitive belief that spawned that image.
Now, if it is a comfort to some to believe myths, and if they do no harm to anyone, I have no objections. But there is nothing amusing about standing in your kitchen, tears streaming down your face, having forgotten what you were about to do, and knowing time is elapsing at the usual rate – that is, too fast. It is not “multitasking” to start and leave off — without returning to finish or clean up – four or five different jobs in the same morning; it’s a mess. So far, though the request has gone out repeatedly, none of our respected researchers has asserted that people whose brains lack the usual chemistry and even structure are, by definition and as a group, more intelligent than the rest of the population. Smart people hang out with smart people; AD/HD can occlude high intelligence and high intelligence can mask AD/HD, as the intelligence compensates for a compromised cognitive system. People of average wattage make up the bulk of the population; they have less “extra” wattage with which to compensate, and may be simply considered below average, “behavior disordered,” relegated to the fringe; who is noticing – and seeing — them?
Notes to the Reader:
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Myth No. 1: ADD Does Not Exist
These little rumors keep cropping up, have you heard them? “ADD is a made-up disorder.” “Everyone loses her keys.” “ADD is just an excuse for bad parenting.” “If you could do it yesterday, you can do it today.” “It’s just laziness; you need to try harder.” “If you’d just take more responsibility for your own belongings, assignments and work …”
The best thinkers, speakers, writers and clinicians, supported by the best researchers, are finally making significant inroads into these awful, archaic, moralistic, shaming remarks. We know more now; we can forgive the people who could not have known; and, filled with the confidence of the emerging truths, we can ignore with greater ease those who continue to campaign against things about which they do not trouble themselves to learn.
Those of us old enough to have children and grandchildren know the dreadful pain caused by those shaming, demoralizing, mischaracterizations. And a person suffering under the strain of swimming upstream every day, all day, and sometimes half the night, risks as a result the loss of an accurate concept of the self as basically good and decent and of good will. There is not enough therapy, or time, in the world to heal those wounds. Like the drip-drip-drip of water torture — was that real? or made up? — described in books of long ago, the slow erosion of the spirit can only end badly; and the world itself loses, as well, the contributions of, and the pleasures of being with, regular people whose brains function in a Quirky way.
Note to the Reader: This blog post was written by Andrew.
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I hate emptying and loading the dishwasher, but would far rather use the dishwasher than wash dishes by hand. Emptying the dishwasher falls into the category of mundane home tasks that I hate. Also in this category are brushing my teeth, shaving, hoovering and general household cleaning, tidying and washing clothes - particularly hanging up clothes to dry.
I have always been an efficiency freak. It’s as if I was born to be an ergonomics expert. If I can find a faster, shorter and easier way to do something, I will. I’m always studying what I do, to try to find ways to optimise my actions. Now in my forties I am very efficient at many tasks. Obviously I use an electric toothbrush, though it still bores me to wait two minutes to brush my teeth. When I cook, I immediately review all the cooking tasks and start the longest task first and do as much in parallel as possible. I fill idle moments cleaning up or watching TV. I think I am a pretty good cook but I seldom spend more than 10 to 15 minutes actually cooking, despite cooking sophisticated meals from scratch including several vegetables.
But I believe my dishwasher ergonomic-performance is undisputed. I can empty my dishwasher in less than 60 seconds. I have optimised the storage of plates, pans, cutlery, glasses and cups in the cupboards around my dishwasher in such a way that I can remove each item from the dishwasher and put it away without moving my feet at all. There is no redundant walking around the kitchen to put away a single pan or glass. I moved recently and found that the cutlery tray was missing. At first I felt I had to buy a new one but then realised that I could simply tip the dishwasher cutlery holder straight into the draw with no sorting into knife section, fork section etc. A saving of at least ten seconds, Eureka!
Reviewing this behaviour through the recent understanding of my ADD, I now realise why I have always been so efficiency minded. My ergonomic drive was based on two main neurological factors: (1) I suffer from low-activation, finding it very hard to initiate new tasks particularly those proving little stimulation to my stimulation-starved brain; (2) Low dopamine means mundane activities bore me more than other people, to the point of being painful. Long boring tasks are a nightmare, it is far easier to tackle a low stimulation task if I can complete it quickly. So by optimising my cupboards to make emptying the dishwasher easier, I am far more likely to bother to empty the dishwasher at all. Most adults with undiagnosed ADD have hundred of systems and work-arounds to help manage their symptoms, I’m proud of my dish-washer system!
From Seth Godin’s blog:
“Do you deserve the luck you’ve been handed? The place you were born, the education you were given, the job you’ve got? Do you deserve your tribe, your customer base, your brand?”
You can read Seth’s answer here.
"Paying attention isn't a simple act of self-discipline, but a cognitive ability with deep neurobiological roots — and this complex faculty, says Maggie Jackson, is being woefully undermined by how we're living."
"In Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age
"Of course, every modern age is troubled by its new technologies. 'The telegraph might have done just as much to the psyche [of] Victorians as the Blackberry does to us,' said Jackson. 'But at the same time, that doesn't mean that nothing has changed. The question is, how do we confront our own challenges?'"
Source: Digital Overload is Frying Our Brains
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I'm fascinated by the intersection of technology and human thought. I believe that we do not give sufficient thought to the role that technology plays in shaping our thoughts. Instead, technology becomes metaphor. We understand the world through our technology and, in turn, use that technology to understand ourselves. (For an interesting examination of how the computer-as-mind metaphor has, well, clouded our mind, see: Why the Mind is Not a Computer
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Additional readings related to this subject: Is Google Making Us Stupid? and also The End of Solitude
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"When you work at something day in and day out, you achieve huge positive change in your life. If you don't stick to it, your results can be disappointing."
"The Power of Gradual [doing a little bit every day] works because, quite simply, little things add up to a big thing if you have enough little things. Given enough time, the steady drip-drop of water becomes an ocean. Given enough time, small regular deposits [of money] become a small fortune. But here's the thing. We tend to be surprised by the Power of Gradual."
Source: The Power of Gradual (I highly recommend reading the entire article. I also recommend looking at the Beginner's Guide to Zen Habits)
Source: Japanese Proverbs
To be human is to be confronted with choices. Each choice, like a fork in a path, takes us in a different direction. Some choices are inconsequential while others are, literally, life changing. Collectively these choices make up who we are at any point in time.
We live our lives as if we know that a particular choice will lead us in a particular direction. In actuality we do not know this with any certainty. All we can do is imagine where it might lead.1 Each choice can, at best, be seen as possibly improving the probability that we will reach our imagined endpoint but, again, it is a probability, not a certainty.
→ continue reading
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"Sleep enhances performance, learning and memory. Most unappreciated of all, sleep improves creative ability to generate aha! moments and to uncover novel connections among seemingly unrelated ideas."
"Melancholia, far from error or defect, is an almost miraculous invitation to rise above the contented status quo and imagine untapped possibilities. We need sorrow, constant and robust, to make us human, alive, sensitive to the sweet rhythms of growth and decay, death and life."
Source: The miracle of melancholia
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