I may be stepping in it, but I agree with the OP 100%.
There is two sides of the brain.
Left and right.
Left is linear step by step thinking, text and organizing.
Right is intuitive, multiprocessing, graphical.
web-us.com...
borntoexplore.org...
www.funderstanding.com...
Depending on genetic and environmental variables. One side of the brain usually takes dominance. There is some where both sides are evenly developed,
but they are few and far between. The degree in which the dominant side dominates your brain will vary from person to person.
So the general question is “Are you a left brain or right brain?”
Each type generally generates associated attributes.
What they call ADHD is symptoms of having a right brain dominance.
Our educational system is built about educating left brain people. It doesn’t know how to educate right brain people. So they classify them as
defective.
Our education system is so entrenched that when a heavily right brain person is subjected to it, they literally appear dysfunctional (the person that
is).
They can learn, and they can learn at a far faster rate than any left brain person, but they can not learn in any modern institutions. Their rate of
information consumption far exceeds that of a left brain type. That is why they easily get bored.
If I was in school today, they would of had me on Ritalin so fast your head would spin. I found all that social studies stuff plain ass boring. I
found my calling in technology and how things worked. That field provided me with enough information to keep my brain occupied. And occupy my mind, I
did.
I was tearing apart lawn mower engines when I was 5.
When I graduated high school, I couldn’t write worth crap. But… I could read faster than almost anyone in the school, and I could apply that
information almost instantly on anything. I was the one that did maintenance on the school’s computer network. It was an odd thing. Walking into a
classroom to change out their computers with ones I had personally assembled and programmed, but I was kicked out of that class not three years
earlier for being developmentally disabled.
At any time in the day, I could walk to any part of the school and start ripping electronic stuff out of the walls, and it wouldn’t so much as lift
an eyebrow of anyone walking by. I knew more about the networking system than the people that run it.
The thing to learn when you are right brain is thinking about multiple things at once is perfectly normal. That is the basis of how the intuitive
right brain works. It doesn’t stand out on left brain people because their left brain keeps the process subordinate. The key is training those lines
of thought on different things about the same subject you are working on.
When I am looking at a piece of malfunctioning equipment, part of my brain is contemplating the mechanical side, part is working on the hydraulic
side, part is working the electrical side. And I bridge those lines of though together to see how they interact. When one of the thought process
starts running into a conflict, I divert attention to that line of thinking and spread it out into more detail.
I start from a broad macro view, and slowly peal back the systems in my mind until I isolate the possible problem in my mind then I go in physically
to see if I am right. Usually I am.
To keep your entire mind occupied, you need to feed the beast(your mine). You need to give it information about everything relating to every subject
you deal with. When I deal with a piece of mechanical equipment, I go through all the documentation on it. I want to know how the complete system
works as a whole. When something goes wrong, I can compare the mental model in my mind against what it is doing and draw conclusions on what my be
wrong.
My comprehension of the inner workings of a piece of equipment is far deeper than any left brain person could have. I can actually build a complete
replica in my mind and run it.
And the fun part is, I can throw all my thoughts back in the back of my mind and switch to another subject entirely, then when I am done, jump right
back,
You have to give your mind a better understanding of the world around you. Think on the macro level, not thread by thread basis. The global picture
is what I look for.
The interesting thing I have found about that in the technological world is once you have dug through a couple different (fill in the blank) then you
can pretty much walk up to any brand of (fill in the blank) and you know how to fix it. That is because design practices carry though the entire
industry. When you see how it’s built on the outside, you pretty much know how they built it on the inside.
I dig into every detail of the world around me. Nuclear, electronics, power, hydraulics, mechanics, radio, political, social, and any other subject
that could be named. It all gives me a better, more complete mental modeled of the world around me.
MY mind is a beast that needs knowledge. I feed it.
Just because they look at something for a few seconds, then jump to something else, does not mean they are not paying attention, and have not learned
anything from it. With a right brain person, everything you see is integrated into you concept of reality. You could see something, and 5 years later,
see something else that relates to the first thing, and an image of what you seen 5 years ago will pop into you mind like it was 1 hour ago, and your
mind will integrate what you seen then, with what you see now, and draw conclusions from it.
When you see anything new, it serves as the mental building blocks for everything else relating to that subject for the rest of your life. Everything
you see is woven into the fabric of your mind, and how you think.
Any description of the monumental effect on my understanding of the world that that old Briggs and Stratton engine had (that I tore apart when I was
5) would be a colossal understatement.
I was one of the lucky ones in this world that normally has a heavily controlled access and flow of information to young people. My parents allowed my
to dig in to and learn about anything I wanted any time I wanted to. When I wanted to see how something worked (as long as it was already junk) they
let me. They encouraged me to apply what I learned. For that I am forever grateful.
*cont*
[edit on 2-9-2010 by Mr Tranny]