Different life circumstances exist in aboriginal (pre-agricultural) societies which favor a vastly different way of being in the world than modern Western society encourages. Hartmann suggests that our society is largely set up by and for those he calls Farmers. The types of attention and response to stimuli needed to easily and successfully farm are very different from those needed to be successful in a non-agricultural Hunting or Foraging environment. "For success in the field, forest, or jungle, a Hunter must be easily distractible, constantly scanning his [sic., see: Forager] environment. He must be able to juggle many tasks or or pursue many possible prey at the same time. He must feel unafraid of taking risks, as risk is integral to the daily life or a Hunter. If, after starting after one animal, he sees a better opportunity, her must then quickly (impulsively) have the ability to make the decision to alter course and pursue the new prey. A sense of impending doom would keep him aware at all times of the possibility of predators, and on the alert against them. And he would thrive on the adrenaline high of the hunt, while finding boring tasks like cleaning his living area to be so tedious that he'd procrastinate when faced with them. His sense of time would be either very fast or very slow, and he'd be either excited or bored 'just by life at the moment'.... "Prehistoric Farmers, on the other hand, faced different challenges. To live successfully in an agricultural society 10,000 years ago, a Farmer endured long stretches of boredom and stayed in one place. It took months for crops to grow, and Farmers spent much of that time in tedious tasks such as picking bugs off plants or pulling weeds. They developed good auditory-processing skills by sitting with other Farmers and talking for hours to pass the time while the crops grew, or during the winters when the crops were in storage. Their communities were more social and interdependent. They couldn't afford to be easily distracted, restless, or impulsive: If and impatient farmer pulled the seedling out of the ground every few days to see how it was growing, it would die. And the Hunter's sense of doom was replaced by a calmer sense of quiet confidence that even though the soil hadn't moved in a week, those seeds were germinating and would eventually break through. A Farmer's sense of time had to be linear and even..." Thom Hartmann, in Focus Your Energy: Hunting for Success in Business with Attention Deficit Disorder. Farmers also must also take the long view: their decisions will not "bear fruit" for months or even years - so every decision must be fully thought through before implementation.
In short, Hunters are able to:
While Farmers tend to:
Does this mean that you (or someone you know) have a disorder? Maybe. But maybe what you have is an adaptation to a different set of circumstances than are emphasized in your current environment. Many extremely successful people exhibit the characteristics common of Hunters/Foragers, and many notable historical figures were probably undiagnosed ADD "sufferers". Human society has derived great benefit from our creativity and relentless pursuit of novelty and innovation. There are many crucial social roles that Hunters/Foragers are particularly suited for. Hunters do, however, face some unique challenges in finding a comfortable place in our currently, predominantly Farmer society.
Wiild Minds can be exceptional in emergency situations or those
situations that require a rapid and accurate response, particularly if
the situation involves compelling or serious consequences. Wild Minds
have the ability to hyperfocus
and pursue something that interests them to the exclusion of all else.
The only hard part is capturing their interest!
So the solution, in my opinion, is educational. We can no longer afford, as a society, to waste the increadible potential, creativity and leadership abilities of so much of our population. Economic competitiveness in the future, in my opinion, may very well depend on how well a nation or group is able to mobalize it's human capital. We can no longer afford to consign - through racial, social or other prejudices - such a vast potential to be thrown away. In some very real way, most of the people now locked up in our prisons represents a potential solution to a modern problem that we don't have, because the person who might have found it has not, for whatever reason, been given the tools and strategies that would allow them to be welcomed into wider social success. Or, put another way, they are living the solution to the wrong problem: the problem of finding a dignified, rewarding place for themselves in a society that is inherently hostile to them.
Of course, the same educational system yeilds a "middle group" as well. There are countless people with Wild Minds who are in neither the privledged elite nor the prison system. These minds, by and large, are also wasted. They face the same pressures as the prison population, they've just found a different path through them. By and large, they are no living up to their full creative potential, and therefore, society does not benefit from the best that all it's members has to offer.
The fact is, schools were set up such that they "conditioned" children for the jobs that were most likely going to be available to them: boring, repetitive or, at the very least, conscously sensorily deprived work situations. The kids who couldn't cope with the sensory deprived and boreing school situation were "weeded out" of the job pool, by their lack of scolastic success. So schools served as a sort of pre-interview screening process for the bulk of the employment opportunities available. The social cost of what we, as a society, should or could do with those who "washed out" was not, in my opinion, adequately taken into account!
But jobs are different now. The work situations may be similar, but the pace of technological inovation has made the work that needs to be done vastly different than it was in the recent past. At least for an important segment of our economy. In addition, there is developing a cultural sentiment that is less and less content with the old "authoritarian" model of business, which is demonstrating itself less capable to respond with the flexibility that the new climate of dramatic, rapid change demands. New managment systems are arising that are much more friendly to Wild Minds. The very inovation and insistance on relavance and results that are halmarks of the Wild Mind are becoming essential to business competitiveness as well.
The qualities that an educational system that allows Wild Minds
to flourish include:
self-paced
relevant
sophisticated: "real"
multi-sensory
flexible enough to "go with the flow" when a student is hyperfocusing
and able to take in information at an increadible pace
The two main keys that distinguish what works for Wild Minds
and what doesn't can be summed up as: motivation and stimulation.
What saved me, academically, I now believe was Mr.
Harvey's class. The main gift he gave me was the understanding that
what I learned was up to me. He was able to reawaken that state of wonder
in the world around me that I'd had as small child - that had been driven
out of me with my exposure to "traditional" educational systems. We need
to enable kids to find the relavance of what they are being taught
to their lives in as immediate and tangible way possible. They need to
find the motivation to hyperfocus on the information they need,
and, thus, learn it rapidly and efficiently. And the best environment in
which to engage their abilities is one which is stimulating in a
multisensory way. If their environment is boring, they will seek the stimulation
they need either inside their own minds/imaginations or by acting in such
a way that their environment is less boring - usually to the anoyance or
actual physical peril of those around them!
Motivation
First, of course, you have to *want* to accomplish something at a basic
level. If you *really* don't feel like doing something, find some consequence
that you *do* care about (like not getting paid - or losing what your paycheck
gives you) and think of that to motivate yourself. Fear works. Get that
"flight or fight" adrelinin working for you and hyperfocus.
Use Deadlines
Once you've established some basic motivation, you can use deadlines
to your advantage. Use deadlines to help motivate yourself to get projects
done. Break whatever you need to get done into some sort of logical
chunks. Aim for chunks that can be acomplished in half a day's good hyperfocus
burst, or at most a day or two. The idea is to make the project not so
"impossible" that you feel hopless to even start. Writing sections of a
report, getting your ideas down on paper to flesh out later, collecting
resources, are all possible "chunks". Then take your list of chunks and
starting when the whole thing is due and working back, set sub-deadlines
for yourself. Allow yourself "rest time" or some slack in the schedule
- but not so much time that you don't believe in the immediace of any one
deadline. Then put each chunk in your calendar
and act toward it as if that were the formal "due date" for that "project".
Use your hyperfocus to your advantage. (If your up against the deadline
already, they figure out what blocks of time you actually have and figure
out what you *have* to get done in that time. Then still work on it chunk
by chunk: "I'm going to try to get this done in the next hour" - ignoring
the rest while you work on the chunk in front of you.)
Calendars
I've carried the smallest "pocket" loose leaf calendar that Day
Timer's offers (now called the "jotter" size) for years now. It's small
enough to easily fit in my pocket (they used to sell a binder that had
rings that were only 3/8 inches wide - they advertised it as a "shirt pocket"
size, and it was! I use a 1/2 inch ring now, though which still fits in
the pocket of most of the pants I wear, or in a belt pouch.) I carry it
everywhere. The loose leaf style allows me to carry a continuously rotating
section of the year that is most relevant (usually this week and one or
two weeks following) to me at any time. It also allows me to keep sections
for notes, phone numbers, reference pages, etc. It's *very* useful to have
a spot to jot down all those brilliant ideas I have daily! I use the 2-page
per day style and put things I am to do on future days right on the "to
do" list for that day. I only have to think about it once - just put it
on the day I have to think about it again, and I can put it out of my mind
until the calendar reminds me automatically. It helps me divide up projects
into a series of deadlines - so I can get me fear/adrenalin
going at sub-points rather than just a the "one long push" when a big project
is due.
Day Timers also has a downloadable version of their computer calendar program (it expires after 60 days). It's the best computer calendar progam I've yet tried, but I don't currently use it regualrly myself, because the computer they've given me at work is too old to run it properly. The program does, however, allow you to print out Day Timer pages in any size and format you want (within, by and large, the Day Timer formats you could pre-printed). I bought some "jotter" size paper from Day Timer - for less than the cost of a year's worth of pre-printed pages - and have run off a whole years worth of pages for my pocket binder on my ink jet printer. I now prefer them to the pre-printed ones and look forward to the day when I can run the Day Timer program on my desk at work and have a trully integrated computer/pocket system.
Leave notes for yourself
Most of you probably already thought of this one, but I put it here
just in case. I know this sounds crude, but when I *really* have to remember
something I write it on a big piece of paper then leave the paper where
I'll have to trip over it if I go any where. This works if I have to remember
something first thing the next morning - I put the note on the floor on
the way out of the bedroom, or on top of the slippers I put on first thing.
At work, I put the note between my chair and the door. I also call my voice
mail at work (or the machine at home) and leave myself messages to remind
myself of whatever it is I need to remember. If all else fails, I used
to write stuff on my hands, but now I just put in on the appropriate spot
in my Day Timer.
Medication
If you are really stuck in a farmer-job,
or otherwise *really* feel the need to make your brain function more like
a farmer's, then some people have reported success with medication. Ritilan
is the standard, but there are many kinds available now. Not all doctors
are aware of the needs of ADD people
- some still believe that ADD kids "grow out of it" and that there's no
such thing as a adult with ADD! Look for a local ADD support group or join
one of the internet mailing lists to get help in finding someone who will
work with you to make sure you get a prescription that works best for you.
The best arguement I've heard is that some, espically ADHD, kids can develop more appropriate social and other skills if given medication for a few years in early grade-school. The experience of haveing more "farmer-like" function for that crucial period seems to give them the ability to *understand* other's around them better (the basis for empathy, after all, is putting *yourself* in other's shoes - this process is impeded *dramatically* if your very brain function is vastly different than those you are trying to understand...) and to develop the skills needed to cope with the current educational environment.
People also talk about "self-medicating" in both positive and negative
aspects. On the negative side, alcoholism is sometimes atributed by an
ADD person's desperate attempt to manage
stimulus flow and/or be more comfortable with their extreme boredom. On
the more positive side, people have used coffee - and even nicotine! -
as a way to cope with the need to perform in a more farmer-like way in
the short-term, and/or to avoid the need for medical intervention/prescription.
This avoids the side-effects of the potent medications that are prescribed,
but, of course, entails all the negative side-effects of the "over the
counter" or "legal" stimulants that are used.
© 1997 Robin A. NíDána
Send any comments or questions about this page to: robinnid@netbox.com