Limited use of the Plasticity of the Brain leads to our Modern Dis-ease of ADHD
I am reading ‘ The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Diodge. In this book there is a woman who was born with a great memory but little in the way of spatial ability. She eventually learns that because of the plasticity of the ‘brain’ she can develop her lack in spatial ability. She does this by looking at clock faces, the kind of clock face that uses hands to point at numbers. She studies, or remediates, as in attends to, the arms and the digits, studies the volumes as the measure of time. She gets to the point where she will have numerous clock faces in front of her, reading the times on all the faces laid out in front of her.
What she begins to notice in fine tuning her attention within reading this means of time, is that her behavior in reality improves, meaning her spatial ability in real time, the actual physical world improves.
Our ability to process symbols is great, but if for some reason we have a lag in development, we have to go back and ‘ paint the fence’ like in our karate movies, to re build the attentive capacity that was never developed, or was lost through accident. Accidents beings things that happen to adults, or developmental delays in children, or lack of development opportunity in children. Our minds are not fixed, they are able to change, they are able to use different parts to compensate for another part having been injured through lack, or through physical injury. We have the ability throughout our life to build near pathways.
We are so capable of taking in our world, but we must have the exposure to form and structure. Words are a form and a structure, little symbols that organize our communication, and as such, our measure of the world around us. Words are attention to detail, and order of that detail. They are symbols as much as the symbols of time on the face of a clock with arms and digits in a circle.
If we look at our from of education since the advent of public schools, we can see that in tandem with the application of public education we have the rise of attention deficit disorders. Given the plasticity of the brain, and given the importance of structural development of spatial ability as symbols within, enabling an understanding of the forms in life as symbols of life without, why is the disease of lack of attention and order growing?
I recently looked at real estate in an area close to New York City. The real estate taxes on a small house are up to 15,000$. 9,000$ of which is supposedly paid to the school district. Astounding that a small house would pay that much of salary towards the local school district, and yet, I hear adults of children saying to me that they and their child have been diagnosed with ADHD. This diagnosis seems to be the catch all for any lack in a person. I think to myself, ‘ what does this mean?’ Am I supposed to cover for the lack of attention and order in anyone who has been officially diagnosed with ADHD? Am I supposed to forgive all the problems lack of attention in another due to some named disease may bring in any relationship to that person? Is this a form of end game that accepts lack without realizing the lack of attention and using this to realize the blatant solution? I mean what happens when two people come together who have ADHD? Do they throw up their arms and say the cause of harm in this actual physical world is due to their dis-ease of ADHD? Who cleans up the mess? More ADHD people? In the end who suffers the most? The children. If we realize that ADHD is lack of attention and order, and that our brains are flexible and can build new neuro pathways, then we have the solution. What ADHD means is that there is an inability to focus here, in reality, thus the solution is to focus here, to order the within with the prefect tools of inner structure, as words, where the meanings are clear, practical, each unit a reciprocal of what that word means in physical reality.
Obviously, the very structure of our schools, is one of the the causes. Sending children into a room, a box, and placing information into them ONLY does not work. Children need order, real substantial order, and time to order. A school that breaks attention span with a bell every 50 minutes interrupts attention. It is actually a form of disruption. And we are asking households to pay 9000$ a year for this. And, I will not go into asking how a home that has two adults working at minimum wage pay can afford this, and a car, and health insurance etc. In reality someone has to be there to serve you that cup of coffee, so even what we call the little things that make our lives easier must be respected, so why not pay that person enough to live and support life? I mean that monetary value is created through labor from freely given resources ! Spatially, the numbers do not add up, but then we can say we are ADHD and therefor no longer responsible. What came first the chicken or the egg? Is this measure that makes no sense existent because we simply do not look? Yes. So, are we the fault of our own demise, especially because it is understood that the brain has great plasticity? I mean what happened to Helen Kellar? Was it that an innate plasticity as what she was as a human being simply given space and time to order itself? Yes. And yes, it really is that simple. Ignorance is as the word suggests, is a state of non-lookingness.
From the age of 1 to seven, when the brain is most flexible, taking in the form presented to it, we have how many hours in that child’s life? Let’s do the math. 7 years at 24 hours in a day times 365 is 61,320 hours. If we understand that it takes 10,000 hours to master something, then a child could come very close to mastering something by the time they are seven. They could come pretty close to mastering a few things in those first seven years, and we see this in many proteges. Given this understanding, why do our children have attention deficits? If we double this to the age of 14, then a child has double the 10,000 hours in their life and could master more than one thing. Or, at least, be close to mastering a couple of things, which in turn would create a structure within that enables a faster understanding of other areas to master. Therefor, there is really no excuse for ADHD in our world. By twenty two, there is no excuse for children to have not mastered language, none.
Think of the limited symbols in a gun fighting video game. There is the symbol of a man, and a gun, some rocks and green blobs in the back ground. Sometimes some sky with planets and stars, sometimes some hills etc. So, a video game presents very little form, symbol exposure. It is an extremely limited form, and the child becomes the reflection of what forms they confront. Thus, our very so-called entertainments are not what is best for us. and our children are spending hours doing this. When the real world hits, then, and they must make a living, what are they going to be capable of? Will they go to a doctor and be diagnosed with ADHD? And will they justify all their mis-steps as this diagnosis? What happens to the children that are to come in a world of such adults?
When we are exposed to structure and form, our innate capacity is to absorb it, to start to order it, but the exposure must come to pass. If we are exposed to compound forms, as knowledge and information constructions only, then we struggle because we are asked to understand a shape- so to speak- of which the details are not yet structurally clear, meaning the starting points, thus this is placing a square peg into a round whole, or hopping before crawling. As our knowledge of words reflects, there is variation in the degree of an ability to take in the format of knowledge and information presented through words in our schools which is obvious in our divisions into class. Here, our attention is focused on stories told from one point of view, the point of view of the person/people who financially support that text book. Thus the story will be told in their self interest, not in the interest of practical reality, because practical reality would be a different story all together, one that would demand common sense. And, anyone can realize that we are not systemically moving in common sense.
Thus, our children are a measure of mis-association, creating dis-association leading to a lack of self responsibility labeled as ADHD. The problem is inherent in this; a lack of self responsibility, thus the solution is to become self responsible, of which no one outside of us can do for us, each must become this for themselves, and we all know this.
It is that the one thing each fears the most, is the only solution. That one point. Thankfully, the solution is here, and it is to build the means of a clear self response- ability, as being structurally sound, as having a solid foundation as the words we know. Our words create our thoughts, create our actions, leading to our habits, that become our characters. And our characters determine our success in this world. Thus, given the generational dis-clarity passed down with each generation, compounding into ADHD, we can use technology to refocus us and build a sound mind as the words we know. This will build a superior memory, a direct seeing, and thus a very focused person who has the creative ability to order, see the parts and the whole, realize what would balance and be mechanistically possible in this physical world we express and live, and then dis-cover creative ways that sustain and build a world that becomes the functional clarity without, of this clear ability within as the very expression of ourselves here.
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