Rants from the Silver Fox

Welcome to the sporadic rants of the Silver Fox.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

ADD?

ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder.

Neither a deficit nor a disorder.

ADD covers a lot though. So I will deal with a subset. This is made up of those who have the following characteristics:

Capable of broad wide-ranging all-inclusive attention AND pin-point exclusive attention.

It is like there are people who have just these two modes and nothing 'in-between'.

Between the ages of 10 and 14 I read extensively and all the time I could find. My mum used to say that when I had my nose in a book, the house could burn down around me and I would not notice.

I guess in this mode, it looks very like a deficit of attention.

In my workplace, the day came when 'open plan' became popular. So I would be sitting at my desk doing my work and someone at the opposite end of the floor would ask a question. Not of me you understand. Just to someone nearby. But I found myself answering without missing a beat in what I was doing.

This is the other mode.

I hear that Alan Watts was at a symposium and for some of the time he was apparently talking with the person next to him. At the end, for 'any questions', he posed his question.

The presenter scathingly remarked that had he been paying attention he would have heard it covered at such-and-such a point.

So Alan repeated what the presenter had said at that point word-for-word and asked where in that was the answer he was seeking. Of course, it wasn't there.

I like this unverified story.

If you prefer verified, I was learning Welsh in a class, laughing sotto voce in a semi-flirting set of asides with another student. This was triggered when we were introduced in passing to the word for a frog and at the same moment, noticed only by me and my friend, the frogs in the pond outside starting their 'broga, broga' song. Both she and I had heard everything the persenter had said, every nuance and tut-tut from one or two class-mates, every 'broga', the velvet feel of the outside summer evening, the layout of the classroom, and so on.

This is the other mode.

Even this mode is deemed 'deficient' because the self-important person decides "He/she is not paying attention to me'. Get over it. You are right and you are wrong.

So as this type of ADD person I had to learn strategies.

Full awareness - my strategy became withhold response. Can't prevent being aware.
Pin-point awareness - teach other strategies to deal with it and with me in that state.

I repeat - it is not a deficit.

And disorder? I don't think so.

There was a particular paper published in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology some time during the '70s. Sorry. Don't have my copies with me at the moment, or even in the same country as me! Otherwise I would give the reference.

But the discussion was on 2 styles of meditation, which for here I will term Atman and an-Atman. Some schools favour one, some another. I think I recall that the sound of a bell was used as a stimulus with some long-time practitioners of each method.

But I will gloss and say that the an-Atman, non-self, approach will produce the full attention mode, eventually as a normal state of being.

The Atman, purified/perfected self method will produce the intense zero-point centred mode.

Some at least diagnosed as ADD have access to both of these.

It is not a disorder. From their point of view, not being able to do those things is a disorder. Not being able to understand and appreciate those modes is benighted.

Note: I am not saying that it is not difficult while these type of ADD are growing up. I guess it would be nice if they could be guided in that by peers or those who at least understand. When in one mode they are processing everything in their awareness. Please do not say they are 'easily distracted'. In the other mode they have excluded all from attention except the one thing of focus. Please don't say they are 'ignoring' you, 'refusing to pay attention'.

Please...

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