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The ability to pay attention on a specific thing for more than a few seconds doesn't feel "natural" to me. Evolution does not favor long-term attention for anyo

The ability to pay attention on a specific thing for more than a few seconds doesn't feel "natural" to me. Evolution does not favor long-term attention for anyone who is not a top-predator. Imagine a deer paying too much attention to grass It's eating and not able to be distracted by the slightest of the noise a predator may make is not going to reproduce. We, humans, are close to top-predators, so, maybe! I've not thought about it too deeply. But I still feel that the ability to focus for a long time is a bug, not a feature in the natural environment. The economic system has turned into a must-have feature and lack of it a bug that is to be cured by medicine. I wonder if early pioneers (not the sciency/nerdy kind) all had ADHD?

andrei_says_ 4y ago
There’s also a correlation with childhood trauma and attachment. Grew up in mostly harmonious and safe environment? Better focus and easy control over attention. Unsafe, startling environment demanding a deer-like constant awareness and adaptation? Less control over more scattered attention habits and the related issues with memory.
Jensson 4y ago
I can't pay attention to anything at all, its all reactive. You can get through college that way, just memorize and build intuition for everything, no need to work for that, but after college I couldn't do shit since nobody pays you for just knowing things, so got an ADHD diagnosis, got pills. Without I can't even read a single line of text without losing focus, I just read fragments. Then when I got pills after college everything became super easy. My intuition was already an expert at reverse engineering technical facts from fragments of documentation, so when I suddenly could sit and realisably read things for hours everything just clicked. Maybe that came with the ADHD or the other way around, I don't think it is entirely free.

andrei_says_ 4y ago

There’s also a correlation with childhood trauma and attachment. Grew up in mostly harmonious and safe environment? Better focus and easy control over attention. Unsafe, startling environment demanding a deer-like constant awareness and adaptation? Less control over more scattered attention habits and the related issues with memory.

Jensson 4y ago

I can't pay attention to anything at all, its all reactive. You can get through college that way, just memorize and build intuition for everything, no need to work for that, but after college I couldn't do shit since nobody pays you for just knowing things, so got an ADHD diagnosis, got pills. Without I can't even read a single line of text without losing focus, I just read fragments. Then when I got pills after college everything became super easy. My intuition was already an expert at reverse engineering technical facts from fragments of documentation, so when I suddenly could sit and realisably read things for hours everything just clicked. Maybe that came with the ADHD or the other way around, I don't think it is entirely free.