2002-04-14 - 11:26 p.m.
Hunter in a Farmer's World

Been reading a lot more about AD/HD. (Tune out now, if you don't want to hear all about it; I'm aware that not everyone might be on board with my conclusions on this voyage of self-discovery).

There's this guy, Thom Hartmann, who theorizes that instead of viewing AD/HD as a disorder, it should instead be viewed as the Hunter mindset, which has become obsolete and maladaptive in a world full of Farmers. (He explains it much better, and more convincingly, than my brief synopsis has.)

He first wrote about this in 1995, and recently, science has backed him up. (Now, Christians may debate the validity of an "evolutionary" point of view, but the fact is, even under a "strict fundamentalist" worldset, people have been on this planet for ten thousand years or more, leaving room for at least some genetic drift. Personally, I don't care what date people place on the "beginning of the world"; it doesn't matter to me so much *when* God made things, or even *how*, just that he *did*.)

Anyway. He writes that some people have objected to his Hunter/Farmer theory of AD/HD, saying that they would be horrible hunters, always forgetting their spears or getting lost or failing to synchronize with the group. Mr. Hartmann carefully refutes these objections; after all, he says, people in hunter/gatherer cultures were usually indoctrinated and carefully trained in hunting methodology from birth, giving them a thorough confidence and instinct for it, whereas your average 20th century Westerner wouldn't have the least idea what to do.

Moreover, Hunter types in a Farmer culture invariably grow up broken. It's a proven psychological fact, borne out in many, many studies (not about AD/HD), that a child will live up to what is expected of him, or what she is defined as by those raising her. AD/HD children so often grow up, even when undiagnosed, being told that they aren't trying hard enough, that they aren't good enough, and so on and so forth. Small wonder that ego and confidence falter and self-doubt grows, which could indeed be fatal to someone in the old hunter/gatherer cultures.

Anyway. All this hit me like a ton of bricks, because it very thoroughly explains what has happened to my friend Jocasta. Her parents learned she was AD/HD when she was very very young, and she was constantly told she had a "severe disability" for as long as she can remember. Small triumphs were viewed as miracles, as if no one had expected her to perform well. Small wonder that she does almost nothing these days; to her, to try is to fail, so why bother?

She's not even consciously aware of that mindset most of the time, I think; she just resists any and all tasks that require effort as a matter of course. Only things she's been praised for, and is told she does well at, get her out of her chair; cooking deserts, sewing, and (recently) SCA heraldry are some of the few things that she gets excited about, and Jocasta in full enthusiasm doesn't just glow; she becomes incandescent. It's a beautiful thing to see, and it's sad that it's so rare.

I was a bit more lucky; I was never defined as flawed. On the contrary, I was defined as extraordinarily gifted. I ended up just as chained, however, by others' perceptions. When the number of people who tell you that you aren't living up to your potential grows beyond what you can count on your fingers, it's difficult not to believe them; it makes for a pretty hefty guilt/failure complex.

Elsewhere on the site, Mr. Hartmann discusses brain biology and the way all senses but smell funnel through the thalamus, and how some people's sensitivity is turned down, others turned up. How ADDers seem to be permanently set on low, which might explain their constant acting out and daydreaming; they're merely trying to break the surface, acquire a sense that they are truly alive, truly part of what's going on.

DING! I can clearly remember one particular spring day when in college, when I was walking from the science building to the student center along a sidewalk framed by flowering trees and bright green grass. It occurred to me all of a sudden that I was having a really clear, really good day, and that such days were few and far between for me, like islands in a sea of fog. I had recently read an article that if you laid out a timeline of your life, and took colored markers to it with blue for days dominated by negative or blank feelings, and red for high or positive feelings, blue days should only make up one in five, or else you're doing something wrong. For me, it was pretty much reversed. Blue dominated my life spectrum.

This explanation, that there's a need Maslow overlooked on his heirarchy, completely clicks with my experiences. It helps explain why I prefer spicy food, why I love Screamer rides at theme parks, why I actually concentrate better on something I'm writing when I have loud music in my headphones, and why I have a tendency to strike up devil's-advocate arguments on the smallest pretext. It makes me feel more awake, more real, more alive, in a way that ordinary life doesn't.

Of course, none of this helps me in my frustration with my current job. Can't bring headphones. Can't get a clear basic structure of the job from my boss to innovate within. Can't find enough of interest to me in the job duties to keep me constantly on task. Basically, I need to declare this job FUBAR and move on.

"Trying harder" doesn't work. Never has. Never will. At least my mother has learned that I don't respond well to such lectures; when I told her the other day that I was going to start scanning the classifieds again, she had a civil discussion with me on what kinds of jobs I might be "cut out for", if this one wasn't my cup of tea. My dad's response was much more to the point: If I'm not happy, then what am I waiting for?

Heh. My kind of attitude ... I just hope I won't black-mark my resume too much in the process.