Am I lazy???? | ADHD Information
[QUOTE=eicholtz]I've been thinking about this higher intelegence thing a lot lately. [/QUOTE]
Y'know, Tommy - sometimes I wonder... are we more intelligent? Or is it just that our brains are wired in such a way that is ideally suited to IQ tests?
Discuss.
Mark -
Tommy, you're right. I came from a small farming town, and there were LOTS of everyday Joes who were very intelligent.That brings me to something I would like to clarify, perhaps...
Maybe it isn't that we're more intelligent, per se, but we have faster CPU's. As a result, it seems like we are more intelligent. Compare an old Apple 2e with a brand new Athlon 64 bit with Windows XP. To someone who didn't know anything about computers, the newer/faster one would actually seem to possess more intelligence, and it can certainly do more things (but it's only an illusion, b/c they both work on the same concepts).
So, yeah, I think we should be careful with our language, or people may feel defensive and take a bad stance against "our kind" LOL, you're definitely right Tommy.
ChaoticCanadian (cathy?) also has some good points. I'm a college student and I can't write notes (only the important stuff I weed out). But since I started using a laptop, I find that typing notes at 80wpm is much better than writing them.
Oh yeah, speaking of that, do you find it easier to write or print words? I find that cursive takes to much concentration, and I can't keep up with my hand, so it always turns out sloppy.
Anyway, back to Cathy's post... I completely relate to being able to rattle off information that just dumbfounds people. For that reason, when I play Cranium (board game) with my friends, they always have do the useless knowledge part.
And as for the not being able to stand fluffy superficial conversations... yeah! I think that's part of the reason why I can't stand marketers and commercialism in general... it's so superficial and downright insulting, if you ask me. But that's a WHOLE 'nother subject! Coincidently, I've never liked the cheerleader type when I was dating, either, LOL.Tommy, you're right. I came from a small farming town, and there were LOTS of everyday Joes who were very intelligent.
That brings me to something I would like to clarify, perhaps...
Maybe it isn't that we're more intelligent, per se, but we have faster CPU's. As a result, it seems like we are more intelligent. Compare an old Apple 2e with a brand new Athlon 64 bit with Windows XP. To someone who didn't know anything about computers, the newer/faster one would actually seem to possess more intelligence, and it can certainly do more things (but it's only an illusion, b/c they both work on the same concepts).
So, yeah, I think we should be careful with our language, or people may feel defensive and take a bad stance against "our kind" LOL, you're definitely right Tommy.
ChaoticCanadian (cathy?) also has some good points. I'm a college student and I can't write notes (only the important stuff I weed out). But since I started using a laptop, I find that typing notes at 80wpm is much better than writing them.
Oh yeah, speaking of that, do you find it easier to write or print words? I find that cursive takes to much concentration, and I can't keep up with my hand, so it always turns out sloppy.
Anyway, back to Cathy's post... I completely relate to being able to rattle off information that just dumbfounds people. For that reason, when I play Cranium (board game) with my friends, they always have do the useless knowledge part.
And as for the not being able to stand fluffy superficial conversations... yeah! I think that's part of the reason why I can't stand marketers and commercialism in general... it's so superficial and downright insulting, if you ask me. But that's a WHOLE 'nother subject! Coincidently, I've never liked the cheerleader type when I was dating, either, LOL.I've been thinking about this higher intelegence thing a lot lately. The
conclusion I have come to is that while we are intelegent, we are not good
at making our thoughts and ideas happen. A person who is not adhd and
does not come up with the philosophical ideas, or figure it out 5 ways to
do something, but works hard, focuses on an idea, learns about it, and is
capible of making it real to everyone else is, in my oppinion, no less
intelegent, they are just intelegent in a different way. I know I started this
higher intelegence concept in this topic, but I want to avoid the attitude
moveing to calling those w/ out our way of thinking less intelegent. It is
in some ways defeteing our goal of having people accept us for who we
are and how we think.
There are many balances in the world. I worked for the parks and grounds
dept. last summer cutting grass as a summer job and met some of the
most intelegent and interesting people I have ever met in my life. most of
them never grad. from highschool but they were farmers and when my
towns tobacco market died they were a generation lost. they had a wealth
of knowledge in farming, but no farm to apply it to.
They are the guys in blue shirts cutting grass at the schools and picking
up middle class soccer mom's trash off the ground. Before working with
these guys I even thought they were just people w/ no ambition or were
lazy in school. Once you learn the circumstance it all makes sense.
just a few thoughts. Lets make the rest of the world understand us, but
lets not throw it in their face by saying we are more intelegent, lets look
at it as a diff type of intelegence
~TOMMYI'm recently self-diagnosed. Prior, I never believed "ADD" was a real disease. I always thought it was just some made-up "disease" to describe the problem that undisciplined children have, in order for the pharmaceutical companies to make an extra buck. After reading around the net and realizing how much the stories and experiences described my life, I became a convert.
Anyway, I've always had decent grades in school, and am an honors roll college senior now. I don't want to sound conceited, but I've always had an impression that I was much more intelligent than other people... not with facts and figures, but with what I like to call "useless information." In other words, I can't remember a dammned thing when it comes to things like dates, names, etc. But for logical deduction and abstract ideas... OMG!
I know exactly what you all are talking about! It seems like I am on a completely different wavelength than normal people... that I can think faster (even though mental math and stuff is VERY slow! - go figure) and that I definitely weed-out the unimportant information.
But, man, when it comes to philosophical stuff, I blow people away. It always seems like they just sort of freeze-up and not heed what I say!
Forgive me if that doesn't make sense... I'm a new user to this site, and this is my first post... and I'm excited that there are people that I can relate to. Hard to focus on what I want to say right now,
[quote]My (and I've been saying my, but I mean those of us with ADD/ADHD), brain has solved the issue 4 ways, considered 15 others and moved on to something else without giving me a chance to write, or say the answer of idea.[/quote]
wow, that pretty much sums it up! LMAO
I know for me a perfect example is shopping. I can walk into a store and within 30 seconds know if I want to buy something or not, I mean I can literally scan the store that fast, pick out all the details, make a decision and be done with it. It drives people nuts when they are shopping with me 
I never took notes in college either, I just couldn't, I was always amazed at these people who had pages of notes after a class and I had one or two lines of what was actually important to remember.
I love philosophical conversations, my whole family is like that, so that is pretty cool that we can all talk on the same wavelength so to speak. But my husbands family is all about fluffy surface superficial conversations and it drives me bonkers! LOL
I'm not conceited at all either, but I know I am highly intelligent person and I always thought that I was more intellligent than the average person. But being on this board, I've realized that we with ADHD are just more intelligent than those with out ADHD Because ADHD brains have the ability to pull in more information at a faster rate than those without ADHD it would just make sense right?
And as for useless information, I am the queen of useless info, I can rattle stuff off the top of my head that will dumbfound people that I would even know that, but throw me on the spot and ask me something like my phone number or good god, even my name and I actually have to think about it ROFL
Now when it came to papers in college, I too used to cringe when they had to be 10 or 20 pages, but on the other hand, I can talk talk talk talk talk talk talk away (like y'all haven't noticed ) so I would just B.S. away and had no problem getting 10 or 20 pages. It did irritate me too, because ya, I'm a get to the point person as well. And I did a whole paper on the importance of organ donation and it had to be 15 pages or something, and well, the bottom line is simply talk to your family about organ donation and let them know your wishes. Done. That's it. That was basically the jist of 15 pages. But being a "chatty cathy" does work to my advantage sometimes!
Okay, I'll shut up now and move on to another post! 
I do think our brains process things faster and more efficiently. We have an innate ability to pick and choose what is important and discard the rest in a heartbeat. It probably has roots in our impulsivity and lack of patience. "Get to the point" has been my life's mantra.
One of my best friends is working on her BSW (Bachelor of Social Work). I read a portion of one of her papers about societal oppressiveness, and it was such a load of CRAP. She had written 8 or 9 pages on something that can be summed up in a single sentence - don't base your treatment of a person on their race, religion, or gender. But these students were expected to get into the how's, why's, and when's this shouldn't happen. Aaauuughh!!! What a waste of time!!!
I also used to wonder why I barely took any notes when I was in university. The other students would be furiously writing out pages and here I was with only half a page. I chalk that up to two things - 1. I didn't pay 100% attention, and 2. I picked out what was important and only wrote that down.
I could give a million more examples, but you get the idea.
I know what u mean...I am a "good reader" as they say, but I can only read uninterrupted by my own thoughts if it is fiction or maybe an autobiography...I am REALLY lost if the info I am trying to read is brand new info with no internal refernece of my own. It is awful! In school, I wouldI feel alone and then too timid to ask for clariification when everyone else seems to be "getting it." One thing I do when I try to read is edit the writing because too many words seem to bother me and get in my way.
RE the learning...what u say brings back a lot of memories. I appreciate your sharing them. It got better for me once I learned by learning style. I discovered I needed multiple inputs to the same info: hearing it, writing it, hearing it again, writing it again, reading it then writing it again....Some of the strategies I have used in the past include:
1. Taking notes out the wazoo then read the chapter. (ususally with limited success); 2: take NO notes, focus on the lecture only (then read the chptr. - this only helped when I really loved the subject matter. Otherwise I would drift off into distraction or boredom); 3. Focus on lecture, take some notes, then read the chapter. I would highlight in my book ANYTHING that I remembered or sounded familiar and foucsed my reading around that...(this seemd to help me tackle the chucks of info I just could'nt seeme to get through typical lecture alone).
Hang in there with the art classes....it sounds like u have a lot to offer the art world.
I can never figure out whether my parents teachers and friends
statements that I am lazy and un focused are accurate or if they are
something that I should blow off.
Even worse I think that the constant stress on my sister who has always
gotten straight a's while I was getting my usual a's b's and one or 2 c's
has turned me into this creature that cant climb out of his own hole.
When they would say "she works very hard for those grades" yet she was
never able to hold a conversation with a group of adults until her junior
year of highschool, I would just cringe and hope for her to fail.
Dont get me wrong, I love my sister, and we are great friends these days,
especially now that we are both in college. But I still feel like I am much,
much more intelegent than she is. She never starts a conversation about
what she learns in her classes, and its her first year of college level
thinking. She never wants to continue a converation about anything
philosophical. And most of all she always says how much work she has
been doing, and how much time she puts into her classes.
I am begining to wonder if all of that time and effort that she is putting
in, ends in the same conclusion of thought as I would in a 20 min.
freewrite on the subject. she however streaches it out and thinks about it
for so long there is no way that she could write a bad paper, b/c she has
spent a week and a half writing it and revising it, and making sure
grammer is right and the puncuation is right, and the format, and the
structure and the bla bla bla is right. Where I could get the simple idea
out in about a page and a half without dealing with all of the bullsh*t
whatifs and whys.
This is getting a little long, but I am actually wondering if my brain just
works faster, and that all of the effort and "working hard" isn't really hard
work, its the same thing I did only I did it 10x as fast. My (and I've been
saying my, but I mean those of us with ADD/ADHD), brain has solved the
issue 4 ways, considered 15 others and moved on to something else
without giving me a chance to write, or say the answer of idea.
I think thats the feeling I had when I had when I was on stratera, it slowed
my mind down, and I had an opportunity to present one idea verbaly,
instead of actualy making multiple conclusion and moving on.
again a little long, lemme' know what you think about this theory, its late
and I have a lotta crap to get done tomorrow (will I do any of it, prob not.)
but I think I might try that sleeping thing for a night.
~TommyIts funny that those of us w/ ADD/ADHD have so much to say, b/c the
rest of the world doesnt want to hear it half the time, yet we could listen
to ourselves talk for hours, and I honestly think we could listen to
eachother talk for hours as well. I think when you get talking to someone
who thinks similar to yourself you can each follow the conversation better
b/c you are both moveing at a very fast pace, and the statement that is
about to be said by the other person has a great potential to have already
been considered in your own head.
The thing that frustrates me so much is that I can understand these
abstract concepts and i can discuss them only as far as I have learned
from a class, or a conversation, but it is a horrable thought to sit down
and read about the topic to try understanding it further.
I am taking two conceptual based art classes this semester and it is my
first time I have ever been exposed to the true reasons for conceptual art.
Most of the other students in the class have seen this type of material
before and it has been very hard to learn the concept of conceptual art
while also making conceptual projects. My mind went raceing so fast to
understand the ideas that it finaly manifested itself into this wacked out
surreal dream about monks and siamese(sp??) twins that were attached at
the back of the head.
I love our world too much to medicate, but I really do sometimes wish I
could just sit down and read a book for the simple pleasure of reading a
book, without my own story in my head taking over leaving myself
dissapointed that it didnt take the turn I wanted it to take on the 15th
page.
OMG Tommy,
So much of what u say is what I have experienced too...my brain works fast but my body and behavioral routines do not. I get such an explosion of thoughts and ideas once I learn something, that I am already thinking of 10 different application for how I can use what I just learned...
Here is the big difference I have come to know about my intelligence: I do not remember details such as names, who lived when or where, what date or time something was discovered or the date the Magna Carta was signed. But if u ask me a question about a partucular topic I have studied, I can converse with the best of them because I understand the core concepts of the subject matter. Philosphy, religion, human behavior, sciene/nature...
I remember reading something about Albert Einstein a long time a go. It went someting like this...someone asked Einstein if he knew the time and he said "No." He did not have a watch...when asked why he did not keep track of the time he answered (and of course I am papraphrasing) "why should I." If I want to know what time it is, all I have to do is turn to one of the peole in my lab and they will tell me...why would I use up precious time and memory cells to remember something I can access so easily from another source?" So...why should I use my precious memory cells to remember the time and date and place of the Magna Carta (for example) when I can ask someone else, OR look it up when I need to...the hard part comes in the discussion of what the Magna Carta was...it's significance, it's influence on Western Civilization.....NowTHAT is where MY capabilites shine and it sounds like yours too. And those who can recite the names and dates etc.....cannot usually keep up with he how fast our brains can climb the abstraction latter to answer the questions I just asked.
Sorry so long...you sound like a very interesting person with a lot to say...
Haley in Ohio