Thom Hartmann, author of The Edison Gene, argues that Attention Deficit Disorder is no disorder at all, but a gift – in his words, “the Gift of the Hunter Child.”
He points out that in prehistoric times, tribes of humans would have necessarily been cognitively diverse – that the tribe was much more likely to survive if highly-varied cognitive skill sets were present.
On the one hand, there’s the rock-steady fellow who can attend a single task for hours on end – the guy who keeps the fire burning through the night, so the tribe can sleep without fear of being eaten by large cats, who fear the fire. That guy’s attention is unshakeable.
On the other hand, there’s the hunter – the hyperfocused tracker who knows all the subtle signs that tell where the herd is headed, so the hunting team can bring home a few gazelles for dinner. The more hyperfocused the tracker, the more successful he will be – yet he is necessarily all over the place the rest of the time, utterly distractible.
Now – imagine what would happen to the tribe if those two guys switched jobs.
We’re a mere 250 generations removed from exactly that scenario. It’s been but a blink of a moment in evolutionary time since the tracker and the fire-tender and their very opposite attention properties. But their genes live on.
Today, we don’t hunt gazelles and we don’t fear sabertooth tigers. But we still need the rock-steady spreadsheet wizard who can stare at numbers for days on end. And we still need the up-and-down hyperfocuser who can make the innovative leap when no solution is obvious to the rest.
ADD doesn’t represent brokenness; it represents not only a personal wholeness, but an indispensable component of the wholeness of the community.
Put another way, ADD person, we can’t do without you. Let’s hope we never have to.
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