Traditional handcraft and ADHD
ADHD and several other behavior disorders which can express in similar symptoms of concentration inability, restlessness, problematic learning are getting more and more. During the 1970s there were a few such but now there are at about 300. Some critics are worried that any human emotion will be stamped as a behavioral disorder because modern scientific norms compare humans more and more with robots. If you see a machine, a robot as a perfect creation because you can program it however you want, then humans might scare you. This would lead to a misanthropic attitude to the world. Do you know why the AI- and robot-fanatics and gurus are somehow afraid of humans and would very much like to replace as many of us as possible with programable copies? It is because humans have a FREE WILL. We are not completely programable as machines are.
I have four high school educations but non from university. Society has done its absolut best to program me as a usable citizen. Well, everything I love to do and everything I do I have learned without conventional education or with private lessons. I was never good enough to study music and arts at school, but my angel-like uncle Emanuil (R.I.P) has paid a lot of private lessons in music and literature. He was the one to see and invest in what is my natural talent. Official institutions and authorities never appreciated my talent. But I know how it works – connections, prestige, class, corruption and so on. That is why I do not devalue myself because the world does not recognizes and value all the talents out there.
At school and social institutions I met kids with ADHD. Some I had to work with. I have it myself – a light form of this behavior disorder which has appeared more clearly in my daily life during the last years. The reasons which abduct us from concentrating and do whatever we are demanded to do is that the modern social order is in total conflict with our natural human needs and talents. There are people who adapt to the robotic society 7-17, shift-work destroying the natural rhythm of sleep, constant demands to learn the wrong way and the wrong skills. We must do one and the same task at least 40 hours a week to avoid being seen as parasites and losers.
Personally, I believe survival of the fittest is an animal strategy and humanity should move forward and away from this rule. We humans can think abstractly and logically. We can develop a high ability of sympathy, and we are creative way beyond survival tools. But we have missed something – the ability to analyze entire systems and not only fragments.
Let me give an example about social order in conflict with natural order:
How shall women become as strong and as independent as man? First of all, they must do the same jobs, educate themselves in university, work as much as men. And men must do homework and take care of children as much as women. Well, it is a good idea or not… We have different talents and some things are not changeable:
Very few women have the raw physical strenght of the body that modern male professions demand. Here in Sweden we have this massive campaign to reeducate women in traditional male jobs like construction, truck-drivers and so on. While there is an acute shortage in staffing health care work. So instead of improving the conditions, terms and wages within health care which are organized in a robotic not a human perspective, the politics are encouraging women to go gainst their nature and compete with men. We are multitaskers, farmers and hunters deeply in our nature. We are created to build one or two houses in our lives, to take care of two or four sick and old people. No one is meant to do that 40 hours a week – a whole life. We created and formed by evolution to do diversified chores in balance with nature and individual potential. I do not think the modern society from industrialism to postindustrial social structures really considers those crucial factors.
Let med give another example:
Traditional female handcraft is sewing, knitting, twining, weaving, gathering herbs and fruits, conserving food, cooking. All these creative chores the major enterprise and industry have devalued economically and moved to Asia where people work for slavery-like wages. The most horrible thing is that the majority of postmodern society does not respect these honorable professions either. The regular people would not pay for handcraft what it is worth a western wage. Well, I find this socioeconomic syndrome a tragic development. Millions of humans in the western world must torment themselves to work with things they hate, they never are good enough at, to provide themselves. Most of the professions and the organisations are in total conflict with our natural call.
Well, being isolated from regular social activities and having pain in the hands did not prevent me from training the small muscles. If you do nothing all the time you will end up in muscular atrophy. If you repeat the same moves with your body according to an unnatural schedule you will wear out your tools – the particular part of your body. That’s why training and moving according to your own capacity is very necessary. When we can combine healthy motion with creativity then life feels valuable to live. Today you can find thousand of creative videos on social media. Millions of people around the world have realized that creativity is what can give balance. Then getting paid in money for what you do is rarely an option in the western world. We have other choices and advantages here.
ADHD in many of cases is defined by restlessness, inability to concentrate and learn, even aggression. These are symptoms of forcing yourself into the wrong chores. This is not the truth in all the cases with ADHD. I noticed that many individuals with psychopathic behavior (lack of sympathy) are diagnosed with ADHD. I marked this while I tried to work in prison – the fact that lots of psychopathic individuals have creative potential as well. If you look at famous and genius individuals, many of them have both narcissistic and psychopathic behaviors. Psychopathy and narcissism are not only lack of the capability to feel compassion and understanding for others. These behavior-syndromes can be defined with oversized ego. Oversized ego can be brought up by spoiling and giving too much confirmation to a person or the exact opposite. It is complicated and I am not going to analyze this issue right now. But when we idolize people we make them narcissistic. Few have the natural balance to regulate the size of their ego. People have a tendency anyway to idolize the creativity of individuals and turn them into narcissists. Popularity and material abundance are very often causes to this negative effect.
There are minor cases of ADHD where aggression is not a problem and most of the negative effects are quite easy to handle with. I am this type of case. I treat my restlessness, anxiety and tiredness with traditional female handcraft. When I feel so sick, that I can hardly go up from the bed, I still need to do something. Either I write or knit. It takes time. I am slow and I can not manage complicated patterns but a mantra, an algorithm or 1,2,1,2 och 2,2,2,2, I can handle no matter how tired and weak I am. So instead of pumping my body with medicine causing drug-like dependance and other side effects, I use knitting and writing to distract my mind from anxiety and physical pain.
This is what I have produced for the last two years.
