Another Martha: Daily Quick Cleaning Checklist

Ok, so hereʻs another thing I thought would be helpful.

The BEST thing would be to make your OWN checklist, or copy all the text out of this one & modify as needed. But we all know what happens when we wait for the ideal situation to manifest: NOTHING.

So hereʻs my suggestion: Take this list (or your own, when you make it), crank up a pumpinʻ CD, and go for it. In fact, if you always use the same CD, you can time yourself by the songs...a race is inspirational! And if you use different CDs, well, that gives you a chance to look at things differently.

Good luck!

Daily Quick Cleaning Checklist

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How to Fake a Clean House - Martha Stewart Style

This article is from RealSimple Magazine. Wonʻt quite undo the tornado damage my living room gets hit with, but I like it anyway.

How to Fake a Clean House

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Noa's ADD Poem at Re:Verses

Ok, this is a better version of Noa's ADD poem. This was the last Re:Verses poetry slam at Mark's Garage (Downtown Honolulu).

Noa's ADD Poem

Here's my 14-year old son performing his "ADD" poem at the Hawai'i Youthspeaks Grand Slam Finals. He made it into the last round. The sound quality is terrible, but I thought I would put it up anyway. Actually, HBO was taping that day, and I'm sure they would have better sound, but I don't think they'll air this one (because of the swearing! *%#@ kid!!!)

Attention Surplus Syndrome (A.S.S.)

My 14-year-old slam-poet ADD son came up with this one. I thought it was funny! I watch the poor kid struggling with the "gift" he inherited from me, and I'm glad he can laugh about it! He's getting pretty good at making other people laugh, too -- his slam poetry has a definite standup comic element to it. But if he goes down that path...boy am I in trouble!!!

Inventions

ADD people are pretty much all inventors by nature. Only thing is that our inventions don't always make it out into the world, because of all those boring steps involved in production, promotion, etc. Still, I'm sure that a lot of things everyone uses in their daily lives have their roots in ADD!

So just for fun, here are some inventions I'd like to see for ADD folks. Sometimes I'm kinda kidding, sometimes not. I don't have much time at this moment (as usual), so I'm sure I'll keep ADDing to the list. Feel free to ADD your ideas as well!

1. Smoke alarms...that ring on your cell phone
(or better yet, a remote beeper that goes off if the keys are stuck into the ignition while the stove is on!)
2. GPS object locators that come in sticker form
3. Magnetic W-2 Forms
4. An ankle-strap generator that makes energy from pacing (& related products for kids: the trampoline generator, the mattress generator, the sofa generator...)
5. A bluetooth earplug-fingertapping pad that allows musical creation (or some other useful multitasking, damit!) during dull meetings
6. Floorboard storage: lift & hide!
7. A talking gas gauge (& oil, brake fluid, handbrake, etc....)
8. Glow-in-the-dark contact lens cases
9. Illustrated tax forms
10. A hypnosis technique that lets you erase the last stupid thing that came blurting out of your mouth before it could be stopped!


(sorry, gotta run. will Keep ADDing later!)

Goals vs. Purposes

One of the "Alternative Dimensions" in ADD is the alignment of goals and purposes in our lives. If we're gonna get a grip on our own situations and change the world, it is very important for us to understand how we are different from non-ADD people in this respect.

Here's an example: Housecleaning. When my non-ADD husband cleans the house, his focus is on the purpose: it needs to be done. Great. He picks things up because they need to be picked up. He sweeps the floor because it needs to be swept. He complains about certain things that I do, because they need to be dealt with. These things align with the purpose of keeping the house livable.

For me, on the other hand, as much as I would like to believe that I think the same way, the fact is that I do not. When I clean the house, I am focused on the goal of having a living space that matches my vision of what I want to see, including my own personal "feng-shui standards" and many other sub-goals that comprise the picture. I clean the same way I create a painting -- which often means that there is often more mess than beauty until it's done! I pick things up and sweep the floor because these things are necessary to achieving the state of beauty and functionality that I am shooting for.

This difference is especially important in explaining why the decluttering "how-to" books that themselves clutter many ADD living spaces don't work for us. They are written for non-ADD people who are essentially driven by the purpose of having a clean space (there are also a number of other reasons why these books don't work for us; I'm sure I'll get to that later).

Actually, let me correct myself: those books usually work fine -- for that fragile, magical moment in which they initially feed our inspiration. We'll look at pictures, get ideas, "feel the fire", and, if we're lucky, get to work before "something else" happens. The transformation may even be miraculous. But then, once the place looks great, the book gets shoved in some corner and becomes just another part of the rapid decay toward dysfunction.

I'm not saying this to say that we're hopeless. I'm saying that the relationship between us and that book is just another part of the less-than-perfect relationship we have with the non-ADD world, and it needs to be set right so that we don't just get down on ourselves for the loss of utility of that book in our lives.

Does this mean ADD people are more goal-oriented by nature?

BAAAAHHHH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!!! Yeah, RIGHT!

OK, here's a classic example (for me) of the opposite: COLLEGE. Non-ADD people basically tend to focus on doing the paper, passing the class, getting the degree. Goals. Well, yeah, I have the same goals, too -- but, um...different! Those goals, for me, are like tiny lights at the end of a loooong tunnel, toward which I am more or less constantly navigating, at a speed roughly determined by my financial situation (and subsequent need for completion) at a given moment. Meanwhile, I am focused on fulfilling my purpose of being a student -- learning, arguing with professors, screwing off in class, meeting people, and scrambling to meet deadlines.

My point is that it is important for us to see these differences clearly and honestly in order to strategize real solutions for ourselves -- preferably, solutions that do not change who we are, but which allow us to be happy...and free to be, ADD!

Polychronicity

Know what that is?

The word is not in Webster's Dictionary. Or Cambridge. Or Oxford.

But you watch -- I guarantee it's gonna be in all three major dictionaries in five years. Or less. In fact, I think it may be headed for "household word" status a lot sooner than that.

Why? Because the ADD revolution is already happening, and new concepts are part of it. In fact, we are the new concept (as well as a very ancient one).

One of the best descriptions of polychronicity I've seen is on Harley Hahn's Page (b/t/w if this guy isn't a classic example of Alternative Dimensional Design put to constructive use, I'll eat my shoe. Except I don't own any shoes -- at least any that I can locate-- right now). I suggest checking it out; I won't even try to do a description of that level. But here's an excerpt:

"...polychrons prefer to keep their time unstructured, changing from one activity to another as the mood takes them. Although polychrons can meet deadlines, they need to do so in their own way. A polychron does not want detailed plans imposed upon him, nor does he want to make his own detailed plans. Polychrons prefer to work as they see fit without a strict schedule, following their internal mental processes from one minute to the next.

Monochrons relate to time differently: to them, time is discrete, not continuous. Monochrons see time as being divided into fixed elements — seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and so on — temporal blocks that can be organized, quantified and scheduled. Monochrons love to plan in detail, making lists, keeping track of their activities, and organizing their time into a daily routine. "

Even though it does not appear in the dictionary (yet), polychronicity is not a new concept. It has actually been in use in the field of anthropology since 1959, when it first appeared in Edward Hall's classic book, The Silent Language. Hall was a renowned cultural anthropologist who mainly focused on the "dimensional" perceptions of different cultures (no, I didn't get the "ADD" idea from him, but it fits, huh?). Psychologists picked up on the concept, and started using it in scholarly study by the 1990's. Now, it's getting popularized by people like Harley Hahn...and people like you & me.

If you are an ADD person, I don't even need to tell you how the concept of polychronicity is relevant to us. The fact that it came out of cultural anthropology is very important, because it points to the fact that human beings have very different ways of perceiving and working with time. This is not some fly-by "hippie" concept coughed out to justify ADD procrastination. It's established social science.

Moreover, thinking about this idea gives us a chance to zoom out to a world view again. Polychronic cultures tend to be ancient cultures. This means (amongst other things) that, except for colonization and that being-wiped-off-the-face-of-the-Earth thing, many of these cultures are sustainable. The fact that they haven't kept compulsively "evolving" (i.e. perpetually recreating an environment that fits them rather than the other way around) means that they have found something that works. They do not need to reinvent themselves at lightning speed in order to survive and be happy (or well at least they didn't before the Wal Mart opened...). And they really are where they are, not located upon some artificially imposed time/space matrix for the sake of synchronicity (hmm...Synchroni-City...isn't that the place where they invented the traffic jam??).

People might debate me on the "but are they really happy?" thing (I know, I know, Willie Wonka just had to rescue the Oomah Loompahs from eating those darn caterpillars or God knows they never would've found chocolate...), but it doesn't take an anthropologist to figure out that excessive reliance on a monochronic paradigm in our society is making a lot of people miserable and abusive. It's not that all monochronic people are lame. Lots of cool things come out of monochronic abilities, and there's actually a lot of creative potential in synchronicity. But living with a monochronic grid as the only paradigm, and the expectation that everyone will fit precisely in this matrix 100% of the time SUCKS...especially if you happen to be ADD.

Somebody's gotta change this beat already.

So do yourself and the planet a favor: take a minute (an ADD minute!) to think about one way that you can bend the music of the world around your beautiful polychronic rhythm.

Flow!

ADD and the Native Brain

One thing I learned how to do in my turbulent involvement in public health academia was how to read studies. And one thing that I have concluded by looking at the research in indigenous ADD is that there is very very little to conclude.

The reason for this is that native people are rarely studied, and when we are, we are often studied from the "sympathetic" point of view wherein we are presumed to "have" a terrible disorder, among so many other problems. There are exceptions*, but basically, that's the word.

The reason I was so interested in looking for this research in the first place is that I believe that the "attention deficit" in this picture is really in the attention lacking in the shoddy societal interface between a brain "design" that works well in particular environments, and a society that is in some ways the antithesis of those environments.

Of course, I started this hypothesis with myself. For example, I am personally at my best at land occupations, especially far away from civilization. When there's a lot of activity, a constant need for creative solutions, a constant connection to the 'aina, and a lot of focus on both ideas and basic human needs...I rock! I can cook for throngs of people, write press releases, compose songs, harvest foods nobody knew existed, organize supplies, do first aid, construct shelter, and hold meetings without even thinking. But in the rest of the world, it's another story. Ask me to do something simple like show up on time for work or turn in a rebate form, and it's like you asked me to run a marathon on one foot. I'll try and try, only to stumble over one obstacle after another in the obscene number of convoluted steps it takes to make these things happen. And usually, despite my best efforts, I fail miserably in the end.

Being a native person, I can't help but feel that my brain is better designed for native ways. Sometimes I get involved in events that require me to go gathering for days on end, and I'm better than fine. I'm in my element. Sure, I might forget to eat, but so what? The food will taste that much better when I finally get there! But do NOT send me on a Costco shopping run. I will stand there with that humungous shopping cart in the middle of the store, completely forgetting what I was supposed to buy and where I put my list, tripping out on the size of everything and the aggressive consumer manner of the people, hearing the tones of harmonic dissonance created by the collective sum of loud noises in the store, and panicking. Then I'll see something -- a package of towels, a new tent, or a set of tools -- that will spark an idea. And then...well, you know...it's all over!!!

There's been quite a bit of controversy about a concept, originally developed by Thomas Hartmann in the 1970's, that ADD is basically a "hunter" prototype, and that the rest of society fits better into a "farmer" type of brain. The idea is that "hunter" characteristics -- hyperfocusing, impulsivity, noticing "trivial" stimuli, etc. -- fit better into the hunting/gathering lifestyle than they do into the farming (and subsequently industrial) lifestyle that basically replaced it. Of course, large sections of the ADD community were offended by the implication that we are somehow less evolved; this offense was worsened by the fact that some serious (and seriously lolo) "social Darwinist" weirdos jumped on the idea, some apparently even saying that ADD people were so backward that we should not have children. Some native people were also offended that their traditions were being compared with ADHD. The whole thing turned into kinda a mess.

For myself, I've read Dr. Hartmann's original work and his commentary afterward, and I have to say that, while I think he could have been a lot more careful with his words in the beginning, he's pretty much on it. I somewhat disagree with the "farmer" part -- it's too broad. The industrialized farming we know of today fits the theory, and Euoropean feudal farming may have, too, but native farming such as -- generally -- that of my Kanaka Maoli culture is not so far from our ADD brain type (though, well, you might not know it by looking at my garden right now!). Anyway, I think the real point is that there is something to the relationship of person and environment, and ADD people are definitely ones for making decisions based on which way the wind is blowing.

I feel that, setting the hunter/farmer thing aside for a moment, there is something very indigenous about ADD. This is not to say in any way that native people who are not ADD are in any way less indigenous; it's just that I strongly believe that the ADD brain type has always been one important part of native cultures, probably fulfilling a role that is largely missing, at this moment in history, from our colonized worlds. I believe that the rebirth of this role -- in a functional, integrative paradigm -- will be a key to creating strong, spiritually grounded, truly self-sufficient native communities (you know, the kind that scare the shit out of the government, who then has to figure out ways to make life hard for us again), who will in turn be a key -- along with the other ADD folks, native or not -- to helping the world as a whole out of the disaster we're all in.

Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds kinda tan-taran, and all that -- are the orchestral synths gonna start playing now or what? But, well, lemme ask you this: Anybody got a better plan?

So, anyway, I think the hunting thing is partly true. Partly. What I think might be more accurate (and relevant to the present tense) is that we are the "niche" people -- whether hunters, healers, farmers, messengers, artisans, shamans, storytellers, navigators or computer-tweaking native cyber-geeks, who hold a particular kuleana in a craft or practice, which "normal" training alone cannot provide. As such, we are crucial to the function and evolution of societies -- especially those that are enmeshed with nature.

The problem is that the globalized, assembly-line society that is now colonizing us doesn't like niches much. Niches are bumpy in texture and they tend to jam up the conveyor belts and shopping lines. You don't need to train factory workers to be niche people. You don't need to train anyone to be a niche person if all you want them to do is follow orders. Just give them the damn drugs!!!

I believe that just as we need to make serious changes in our collective perception of what ADD is -- starting with the self-perceptions of ADD people ourselves -- serious changes are also needed in the understanding of what it is to be indigenous -- again, starting with native people, ourselves. Both paradigms need a helluva lot of expansion, and through this expansion I believe that they will come together. Indigenous cultures are far too often referred to in the past tense, even by native people. When we start to internalize our own self-understanding as that of the people who not only have been part of the land we stand on since time immemorial, but also the people who will continue that chain far far into time unforseeable, responsible for the integration of others into our paradigm, then I think we'll get a better grasp of the here-and-now, and I think that ADD -- as a dimensional design, not as a deficit or a disorder -- needs to be part of that picture.

But I'm biased, okay?

Just Say No to Ritalin

Look, let's face it -- ADD people are suckers for a drug problem.

Basically, drugs are often a shortcut to achieving a state of mind that we want to get to (or feel that we need to get to), but that is currently out of our reach, usually due to the circumstances in which we find ourselves at a given moment.

Our society makes people -- almost everyone -- feel dysfunctional. We're bombarded with messages that we do not have enough x, y and z to be okay, and that the reason we don't have x, y and z is because we are inadequate. And when people feel inadequate, there's usually a drug dealer or drug company ready with a solution via a convenient powder or prescription that will solve the whole problem and make the whole damn world look like a Sudafed commercial.

I myself am struggling with coffee addiction. If I don't drink coffee, I feel like I'm moving like a slug and I start to have fleeting thoughts that maybe burning my house down would be easier than cleaning it up. Lucky for me, my wonderful husband makes me an organic espresso almost every day, so I try to gratefully limit myself to that one shot.

Others, however, are not so lucky. Excessively close to my house is a big shiny Starbucks, where all the middle-class malihini of Kane'ohe line up for their daily dose of competence before fighting nasty traffic into Honolulu, where they all work competitive jobs, pretending to like all the people they're trying to boot off the success ladder. Half of them are late to work, and there's violence in their eyes. The fact that they are all paying ridiculous rents or mortgages so they can live on the "mellow" side of the island makes them feel ripped off, and while they wait in line you can see them meditatively honing their rage into a competitive edge to be used in the daily battle they call work, complete with friendly smiles for all the others in line, whom you know they wish would just go away so they could just get their fucking cappuccino and go.

About half a mile away from Starbucks is an old road where people dump trash and smoke batu (crystal methamphetamines). I take my dog there a lot, and no, the iceheads don't scare me. I mean, they sometimes rev their engines angrily and throw trash just to make like they own the place, but then again, so does the Starbucks crowd -- just in a different way. In fact, the only real difference between the batu smokers and the Starbucks sluggers is CLASS (and, um, the fact that the batu addicts are mostly native to the area and now renting from the Starbucks crowd). The tweakers started smoking when they felt ripped off, incompetent, and angry; batu made them feel like they could handle the world just a little bit better. Of course, the drugs made them even more genuinely ripped off, incompetent, and angry -- hence addiction. Same with the Starbucks ass-kickers (and other coffee addicts, like me).

My point is that feelings of incompetence lead very easily to drug abuse, which ultimately tends to make things worse, not better.

Our society makes almost everyone feel incompetent, and it makes ADD people feel very, very, VERY incompetent! Just achieving the level of self-improvement that would be required to function "normally" feels almost impossible (and the fact that it's so hard makes us feel like shit, too). Changing the society around us into something we could actually function in seems like as much of a fantasy as riding into town on the Loch Ness Monster. So the logical, simple, easy answer is...of course...voila...drugs!

I'm 40 years old now. When I was 10, 11, 12 years old, I drove my teachers NUTS. I happened to go to an extremely wealthy private school for Hawaiian children, so they spent lots and lots of money sending me to expert after expert, trying to "fix" me. I actually sent one psychologist packing back to the Continental U.S. after I squarely hit him with a plastic baseball bat (trust me, he earned it. My peacebuilding skills were not exactly refined in those days, okay?). Finally, a psychiatrist told the school and my mother that I should take these drugs (Ritalin) that would make me chill out and focus. And of course, the adults' answer was..."hallelujah!"

Well, I myself often wished that I could focus a little better, so I tried them. Bo-ring! As far as I was concerned, they just made life duller than it was before. And dull was just not my thing. But hey, maybe I just wasn't taking enough. So one day, I decided to do a controlled experiment, just for fun. My mom was an extremely busy, long-working single parent, so I didn't have to worry about her butting in. The control was, if I wigged out or died, then I would stop. Until then, I would take one pill at a time at intervals determined by the fluctuation of my curiosity level at the moment, until something interesting happened.

Well kids, let me tell you, don't try it, it's not much fun at all. Several hours later I was vomiting with a racing heartbeat and I had definitely had enough, but the euphoria I had hoped for didn't even twinkle in the sky. Not even numb, just sick and shitty.

Now, I'm not a believer in "gateway drugs" -- I think that the concept was just invented to justify the "drug war" that opened the floodgates to batu, which has been a real bad thing for all of us who have lost real people to that substance. I think that some people are just more susceptible to getting sucked into drug abuse, period, due to a whole bunch of factors usually stemming from an intrinsic mismatch of some kind between them and their surroundings. However, I have to say that the fact that the materials used in my Ritalin escapade, the first incidence of drug abuse in my young life (followed by many many others in my 'opio years...), actually came from the system itself somehow made the whole fix-the-problem-with-chemicals thing seem kinda legit, know what I mean?

Now think about all the kids who are right now at this moment forced to swallow a Ritalin tablet for the sake of the contrived ability to follow the tracings of a piece of white chalk on a blackboard, and to stop trippin' out on the harmonics made by the echo of its screech against the various objects at the back of the room. And then think about the names of the kids any teacher would put on a list of most-likely-to-become-a-future-drug-addict, if asked. Would the kid swallowing that pill be on the list? I think it's a little more than likely, don't you?

I should mention that in 1981-82 the "in-school" recreational price for Ritalin was $1 to $2 per pill (I tried to warn them that it sucked, okay?). I can only assume the price has gone up, although I could be wrong, due to severe market flooding between then and now...

My point is this: pushing drugs on kids at a young age is a really bad idea. Especially for ADD kids, who are headed for a life-long struggle with societal interface, unless either the society or the interface (or both) changes a lot, and I believe that it is very important to teach them at a young age that yep, they got a big problem on their hands, nope, the problem is not them per se, and nope, that problem is not gonna be solved with any quick fix, especially chemicals.

(However, I just saw a very interesting youtube video on medical marijuana for ADHD in children here. I'm not advocating, but it's less scary than chemical stimulants!)

Now, that being said, I'm not a blanket all-drugs-are-bad person. Peter Tosh, Santa Claus, and the countless indigenous shamans of the world are examples of great human beings, and certainly not abusers, as far as I am concerned. However, drugs are a subject that (ironically) must be looked at with much sobriety, much truth.

Is all Ritalin use bad? Truthfully, I don't know. I believe that there are adults who probably do make good use of the stuff in their ability to get through life, without relying on it for everyday use. Shoot, there are probably a few people out there who can do this with crack, too -- I don't know. Never met them, but I wouldn't rule it out, and I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that their cars are a helluva lot cleaner than mine. I mean, the ice addicts who park at the old road have cars a lot cleaner than mine is -- some of them look like they were scrubbed for hours on end with a toothbrush, in fact -- so who am I to judge?

One of the best things about ADD is that we're all different. One of the hardest things is that we're all struggling to cope in a world that is really hard on us. Everyone needs to figure out hir own answer, day by day, and if a drug works for someone at a given moment without becoming a long-term problem, more power to them.

What's really important is the power to choose, and the personal freedom -- starting really young -- that will facilitate good choices. And people should not be pressured or afraid to JUST SAY NO to ADD medication if they want to!! Myself, I choose to live with a certain amount of dysfunction, which I consider a small price for staying relatively chemical-free while I work out solutions for dealing with all this crap.

When I figure it out, I'll let you know!

Attention Deficit...or Alternative Dimension?

So is ADD a disorder or not?

Well, by looking at my car, my house, my desk at work, my bag-of-a-thousand-things, or my brain at any given moment, disorder seems pretty much like the word of choice!

But anyone who really knows ADD knows that that's only part the story.

I like the words "Alternative Dimensional Design" a lot better.

Most of the world is basically "two-dimensional", or at least it tries to be, and reserves "3-d" for things that are supposed to be universally accepted as "really cool". Non-ADD people are basically those who are able to fit into this mold, whether they are able to also form to other dimensional paradigms (with or without drugs) or not. Then there are the ADD people of the world, for whom fitting in the "box" is just not an option -- at least not without serious drugs or years and years of hard, determined struggle.

Try watching an ADD sister or brother in a checkout line. Everybody else goes through the line, puts their groceries on the conveyor belt, glances with disgust at the cheesy tabloid headlines, interfaces with the cashier in a friendly and mutually forgettable manner, picks up the bags of groceries in a seemingly effortless swoop, and walks smoothly to the car. You don't even see them search for their wallet, freeze with apprehension as the card is processed, or figure out what to do with the receipt. The entire process is so graceful, dancelike that it seems to take no thought at all. In fact, it probably doesn't.

Well, the extremely ADD person is another story. (S)he is probably the last person in line, as several other people in the store have already scoped hir out as the one that they definitely do not want to stand behind. I don't even need to tell you hir adventures, because each one is a unique -- and long -- story. But you get the idea. Even the mildly, or well-controlled ADD individual has a hidden story (the 2-second glance at the tabloid, alone, probably set off at least 20 different trails of thought about everything from ex-girlfriends to aliens to world politics, all of which need to be stuffed hurriedly back in the brain in order to find the debit card).

There is a problem. It's not easy being ADD, it's extremely frustrating to live with one of us, and heaven help any teacher blessed enough to have one of us in a classroom for hours on end (I myself was a teacher once with about ten ADD students at a time. I'm still recovering).

HOWEVER, I firmly believe that the "problem" is not primarily in the ADD per se, but in the relationship between the ADD person and the rest of hir world. And yes, it is the ADD person's kuleana to initiate the change that needs to happen, both in hirself and in the society that is crushing our spirit as it crushes the planet we need to survive.

That's why we need a revolution.

Why Revolution?

Look, we're in trouble. Global warming, overfishing, forests disappearing, GMOs, methamphetamines, nukes, McMansions and homelessness, undrinkable waters, wars without end, desertification, the same 10 songs on every Clearchannel station...in short, global suicide.

So who's gonna stop it? I hate to say it, but most of those with enough economic power to do something about the situation are a little to busy trying to find parking at Cosco, working their butt off to pay off the car and the overpriced mortgage, installing a new alarm system, and getting pissed at the people in the headlines. Politicians generally have other stuff to do, like kissing ass to other politicians. Corporations -- forget it! They'll give a get-off-my-back donation that seems pretty amazingly big next to what you and I could afford, but it's kinda small when you set it next to the damage they're doing to the planet.

Ok, so do we just do the lemming thing and shout "fuck it all!" while racing for the cliff? Or do we look for a way out?

I vote for the latter. But who's really gonna do it?

Well, lots and lots of people have major roles. Indigenous peoples, poor people, conscious people of all kinds, and, very importantly, people with ADD!

Think about it: our assembly-line society functions upon the compartmentalization of just about everything, and it's not working. Compartmentalization facilitates factory-like production, and lots of it, leading to loss of creativity and variation, high-speed resource burnout, and over-the-top waste. This assembly-line movement is fueled by a powerful "need and greed" cycle that cultivates and then compartmentalizes human fears and desires into units of energy. Undesirable -- but very real -- components of the system, such as war, nuclear waste, poverty, rainforest clearcutting, etc. are in themselves compartmentalized as "fringe" issues that have little real meaning for most of the people in this system, because they do not fall within the compartmentalized fear/greed matrix produced by the system for its own use, as do "high priority" -- but entirely society-constructed -- "need-greed" matters such as mortgages, car payments, stocks, fashion, board meetings, and insurance.

Well, not to say that those things aren't important, but times are looking a little scary on our little planet here. We can't eat insurance, so something's gotta change!

If society is a compartment train heading off a cliff, ADD people are the perfect ones to avert the disaster -- by breaking open those compartments and freeing the human beings inside.

Think about it -- the thing that makes ADD a "disorder" is essentially our inability to function within compartments. Specifically, we are unable to function properly in that famous, ever-more-rigid-and-assembly-line-like box known as a classroom. Attention deficit? Gimme a break. Everyone knows that if you set almost any ADD person in front of something (s)he's really interested in, (s)he'll focus so damn much attention on it that you won't be able to pry hir away with a crowbar four hours later! So who better to change the world?

The revolution starts now.

But first...where did I put those keys???