ADD anyone?

[JW_Halverson]

dont really know if its a.d.d or the old timers settin in

I am beginning to resemble that remark!

I've haven't always been able to use age as an excuse, so I called it "Sometimers"...just one stage short of Alls-the-timers.

[vinemaplebows]

Sure you are not Badgers son?? 

[JW_Halverson]

Honestly I think a lot of ADD is people were made to be in the woods being stuck in class rooms.

Gabe

I have pondered that subject time and time again.  Think of someone in a hunter/gatherer society with what we call ADD.  Send him out in the woods where there are a hundred separate things competing for his attention.  He is hearing all the bird songs and cataloging them according to whether they are contented singing or alarm calls.  Then there is all the woodland or prairie flowers...tells you where you are in the season and what is ripening, file that away for later.  What tracks and scat are you seeing?  File that too.  Clouds?  Classifying them and noting what direction they are moving.  Put that in the weather report file.  The nose is constantly processing odors, is that a buck scrape you smell?  Another file properly organized. 

And all this happens simultaneously!  There isn't time to focus on just one input, and those that do often get a sabertooth hitting them from behind! 

Now take the hunter/gatherer that is able to fine-tune a focus to one task and stick with it for hours.  Set that person to field to harvest the roots/shoots/berries that are ready right NOW!  That person will dial in and stick to it to maximize the harvest. 

At the risk of sounding like sexist diatribe, more boys have ADD and girls typically can stay tighter on task.  Matches the usual organization of tasks along gender lines found in hunter/gatherer societies.  Something to think about, I guess.

[DGF]

I was only able to read half of JW's post without taking a break to sharpen a broadhead... so yeah, I'm ADD, and in a bad way.

I will say, like PD, I slow down when outside and try to take it all in. I wasn't built to be contained inside of 4 walls, and when I get a break from it I make the most of it.

-Dan

[JW_Halverson]

I was only able to read half of JW's post without taking a break to sharpen a broadhead... so yeah, I'm ADD, and in a bad way.

I will say, like PD, I slow down when outside and try to take it all in. I wasn't built to be contained inside of 4 walls, and when I get a break from it I make the most of it.

-Dan

Are you kidding?  I spent the better part of the last two days writing that post.  But I did make dinner, weed the flower bed, start tillering two diffferent bows (I have 6 going right now), call my parents to wish them a happy 59th Anniversary (dunno why they don't just kill each other and get it over with), make coffee this morning, lose the first and third cup, found the third cup this afternoon and another that is scummed over with a really interesting grey/green fuzz, yeah...you get the point.

[H Rhodes]

This post sure has been good for me - I don't feel so alone in my mania.  I may put off couseling and continue on with debarking these winged elms, white oaks, black cherry and persimmon logs, fletching another dozen cane arrows, tillering out three more bows (even though the rack I made is full and I don't know where the hell I will hang another one), sanding, chopping, rasping, huffing, puffing, sweating, tillering, shooting, My, my, my........  it is an illness isn't it?

Bow season will kick off in about 8 weeks and I will finally get some rest.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Its those guys that focus totally on one bow build you gotta' watch! WIERD-O'S!

[Pappy]

Way to use what you have,I once got 3 out a piece I thought I was only going to get 1.That's pretty cool when that happens,I have also got 0 out a piece I thought I was going to get 2,not so cool when that happens.
   Pappy

[blackhawk]

I was a ritalin kid in school  and yes I jump around from one to another and have oodles of staves/projects in various stages.

[tom sawyer]

So did you have a little split off the split of the split, that'll make an atl or something?  Maybe a small basket from the drawknife shavings?  Waste not, want not.

I save most all my little pieces that might have a bow in them, they don't take up much space really and some day I might get around to working on them.  That or somebody's going to have a really big, really hot fire when I go.

[Buckeye Guy]

Pearly
You know me !
The gap between my ADD and My Alzheimer's is just about 10 seconds so you have to hit it head on or I'm gone !!!!!!
Every time I turn around to get a tool I get distracted by seeing some other project I was working on ! 
I have finally gotten to the point I can't get my shop door to open from all the stuff in there , so something has to give soon ,I you need more projects come on down I am giving them away by the boatloads !!!
Guy

[Postman]

Honestly I think a lot of ADD is people were made to be in the woods being stuck in class rooms.

Gabe

I have pondered that subject time and time again.  Think of someone in a hunter/gatherer society with what we call ADD.  Send him out in the woods where there are a hundred separate things competing for his attention.  He is hearing all the bird songs and cataloging them according to whether they are contented singing or alarm calls.  Then there is all the woodland or prairie flowers...tells you where you are in the season and what is ripening, file that away for later.  What tracks and scat are you seeing?  File that too.  Clouds?  Classifying them and noting what direction they are moving.  Put that in the weather report file.  The nose is constantly processing odors, is that a buck scrape you smell?  Another file properly organized. 

And all this happens simultaneously!  There isn't time to focus on just one input, and those that do often get a sabertooth hitting them from behind! 

Now take the hunter/gatherer that is able to fine-tune a focus to one task and stick with it for hours.  Set that person to field to harvest the roots/shoots/berries that are ready right NOW!  That person will dial in and stick to it to maximize the harvest. 

At the risk of sounding like sexist diatribe, more boys have ADD and girls typically can stay tighter on task.  Matches the usual organization of tasks along gender lines found in hunter/gatherer societies.  Something to think about, I guess.

Very well put, JW. I think you hit the nail on the head.  I see "ADD" in various guises throughout my family. Especially in the males. The younger ones, including my two boys, have almost all been "acronymed" with something.  I do not see it as a disorder, just a normal genetic or epigenetic variation that can  make some aspects of civilized life more difficult.