Every media celebrity has it. Boys have it. Girls have it. Cool kids have it. Weird kids have it. Old timers have it. I have it. Little Spacebuns has it.
It’s everywhere these days.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a situation of “too many interesting things and too little bandwidth to process them.”
We are not inherently thick. Science says so.
The fleeting attention span creates a peculiar feeling: that you never get to go to the bottom of something unless you have a very powerful reason. And that reason, I believe, is personal passion for the knowledge and abilities you are gaining, for the work you are doing, or for the pleasure you derive by seeing others benefit from the fruits of your work.
Otherwise, you live in a floating world.
ADHD is not about the complexity of the process -people with ADHD can follow very rigorous and complex instructions if they believe in the outcome. Our cognitive abilities are similar to the general population, so it can be deduced that ADHD is not a constraint.
The problem is belief.
When you are a kid, ADHD can be a serious challenge to life and limb and a very serious impediment to the acquisition of knowledge. This last part is the scariest.
Example: in my primary school years I was terrified of Maths. I hated the subject. I could not understand why it was so important to sit out a boring and almost incomprehensible test, just to find an answer of “x=zero”
Why would I want to waste time doing this, instead of doing something more interesting? Why in the name of all that’s good in the Universe do I have to find a value of zero: that does not make any sense. And with no interest and no passion about the results, the whole field of mathematics is shoved in a dusty forgotten cupboard.
It was only much later -already in university- that a kind teacher took the time to explain certain things to me in a language I could understand. And since then, I have a lifelong interest in Maths, logic and mathematical puzzles to the point that I have successfully mentored high school students on the IB test.
My ADHD derives pleasure from writing and cooking, it feel good about solving problems related to science, data, code, education and parenting. It adores playing with music, photography and circuits. It feels elated when travelling and discovering new horizons.
Even changing a light bulb is a more interesting task than a lot of the junk I see in the TV and Internet.
I have got more pleasure from washing the car, than from reading a profit and loss statement -even though the lasting achievement of the investment will surpass the utilitarian value of washing the car.
But that is what I have. I love washing cars. My conclusion is “we live in a boring world.”