ADD Attention Differently Designed

What if Attention Deficit Disorder was redefined as ADD- Attention Differently Designed?

My Attention was always Differently Designed (ADD). I’m so thankful.

I am a wildly dyslexic gleefully happy man. Were it not for my rather astounding level of dyslexic perception, I would not be the Medical Intuitive that I am nor would I have had the visual skills to be the successful photographer and filmmaker that I have been.

My own unique form of perception is a gift I learn from everyday.

Thank God I was just called weird or stupid and wasn’t drugged like so many millions are today. My attention as a child by contemporary measures moved around a lot.  I was always drawn to the spaces between things and people. That’s where life moves, sings itself into being.

Here’s something I know if you are reading this. You have a unique world view. Probably, you draw outside the lines- yeah!! So did Einstein.

Your attention is differently designed because you are YOU.

Each person calls their life into focus in the best way they know how. Focus is another way of saying attention. As a career educator and ally for people navigating complex illnesses, I have learned a great deal about what attention really is.

I’ve discovered that if I honor that unique assembly of a person’s awareness learning is allowed and life blossoms.

On the other hand, if I try to hammer someone’s consciousness into a form that makes me happy and matches my requirements there is always a loss of creativity which our culture most desperately needs.

We have a cultural tendency to define difference as an illness. When someone’s attention doesn’t work the way we think it should, it becomes easy to label that difference as an illness.

Every human has a uniquely designed way of seeing the world. The fact that our perceptions overlap sufficiently to create the common ground of language, culture and community is in fact a miracle in my books.

What many now call ADD or dyslexia are more likely the simple adaptive responses of human consciousness to an increasing cacophony of informational inputs.

We’re surrounded by thousands of pages asking for our attention, our focus. David C. Mackenzie ©

What if we redefine ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder and refer to it as Attention Differently Designed.

Something isn’t a deficit just because the standard of measurement doesn’t allow for different perspective to be present. When we narrow our definition of what is acceptable then we risk losing the genius we most desperately need.

Perhaps rethinking and broadening our definitions of learning in the 21st century might allow better educational and social outcomes and might allow those with ADD- Attention Differently Designed or those with Dyslexia to be included as contributors rather than being pathologized.

Everyone has attention differently designed. Thank God.

Maybe that’s what’s normal.

Love,

David