A few years back, I read a really good chapter in what I consider to be one of the best text books on personality. In it, Dean Keith Simonton, a professor of psychology at University of California, discussed how difficult it is to empirically define both genius and creativity. What has stayed with me since then were two things. One, I was surprised by the fact that research shows I.Q. is not a good predictor for creativity past I.Q.’s of 120. Two, I felt personally challenged to find empirical fractals with which to define these two parts of personality; genius, and creativity.

With regard to the first point, my surprise comes from the fact that while a person with an I.Q. of 120 can be expected to be a bit more creative than a person with a more normal I.Q., say 107, that after that people can have an I.Q. of 200 and still be no more creative than people with 120 I.Q.'s. (Normal I.Q.’s are considered to be between about 100 and 110)

How can this be? For years now, I’ve wondered. Wouldn't it make more sense that higher intellect would allow for, and even correlate to, higher creativity? It doesn't though. Moreover, this points to a prejudice present in almost all of us; that being word smart is better than being street smart; in essence, that “factual knowledge” is intelligence.

Yesterday I found myself, in one of my sessions, offering answers to these two questions, first, as to why genius does not correlate to creativity, and second, the fractals within personality which would explain and support this seemingly counterintuitive conclusion. First the fractals.

Know I define “fractals” as “recognizable patterns which always repeat differently.” Thus I see them as being the polar opposite to the more common statistically based kinds of definitions wherein repeating identically is the holy grail. My fractal for “genius” then is, “the ability to use pattern recognition to solve problems,” and my fractal for creativity is “the ability to find problems that lead to recognizing new patterns.”

This makes genius and creativity polar opposites as well and to see this, consider this. As I’ve just defined these terms, a genius is a specialist who uses reductionism to find better solutions. He or she says "why reinvent the wheel? Let’s get things done.” Conversely, a creative person is a generalist who uses expansionism to find previously unnoticed problems. She or he answers the specialist's question, "why reinvent the wheel," with a rarely thought of answer; "Why reinvent the wheel? Why, to become a wheel maker, of course."

From this it may sound like I favor creativity and to be honest, I actually do. Perhaps this is because I’ve met so many very intelligent people who cannot notice the beauty in a baby’s eyes let alone think outside of the box. I’ve also seen too many teachers say that creativity is important while at the same time relegating it’s development in students to an after thought looked at only after the practical learning is done.

Like all things, of course, there is also a down side to being creative and a reason why we, in general, pay people in creatively focused professions like music and art much less than we pay those in reductionist problem solving professions like the sciences and law. This downside is simply that people who are, by nature, expansionists; artists and musicians and such, often digress so far, wide, and badly, they fail to come up with anything useful let alone with enough practical skills to live a normal life.

About this, one of my heroes, the American theorist and professor William James might say that to be considered valid, an idea or endeavor must have a “cash value.” And I agree with him. Thus while the creative person’s question; “I wonder what hasn’t been thought of yet,” can indeed be quite inspiring, it can just as easily lead young people to pooh pooh and or disregard the good practical work of previous generations.

So now, the question. Which do you consider more important, genius or creativity? Moreover, is there a way schools can actually awaken these two skills in people, a pragmatic method with which schools might actually make this happen more? What do you think?

Warmly,

Steven

Fear Monsters Column - Arpil 2008

Why does taking medical stimulants help people with ADD? Ask ten doctors and you'll get ten answers, most of which will bring to mind the proverbial blind men examining the elephant. It's not their fault. We demand of these good doctors almost god-like answers, including a pill which will if not cure ADD then at least make these kids appear normal. And yes, it's our children's lives we're talking about here so it's really this important. But when it comes to ADD, the only thing most people are sure of is, no one has god-like answers. Including me. So what do I have to offer? As a personality theorist, a lot really, including that a major clue to the actual nature of ADD lies in that medical stimulants help. Why? It's simple really. Stimulants alter people's sense of time and space in a somewhat predictable way. They speed things up and narrow the focus. Moreover, while in theory we're talking about how medical stimulants affect folks with ADD, in reality, we all take stimulants, which gives us all access to this clue.

Not sure what I mean? We consider this. When you take the family to Disneyland and finally get into your seat on one of the rides, what happens next? Obviously, you get stimulated, including that your perception of time speeds up and your focus narrows. And when you get up in the morning and suck down your first cup of coffee, what happens to you then? Why, the same thing, of course; your sense of time speeds up and your focus narrows. And when you hurry to a store so as to be first in the sale line, what happens then? Again, your perception of time speeds up and your focus narrows. And when you watch the Beijing Olympics on TV later this year, what will happen to you? Again, during the pivotal events, your sense of time will speed up and your focus will narrow.

My point here is simple. An inherent part of human nature is we all sense time and space. Not scientifically, mind you, nor even as accurately as watch or clock time. Rather, we each sense time personally, including folks with ADD. Moreover a part of our sensing time and space is that, whenever we get stimulated, our sense of time speeds up and our focus narrows.

What does this have to do with the nature of ADD? Simply put, kids with ADD perceive being stimulated differently than non ADD kids do; more abruptly at first, then more slowly, and in all or nothing increments. Moreover, this difference is especially apparent in situations wherein kids are expected to keep up with other quicker minds, including in almost all classroom settings from about first grade on and especially in situations wherein kids are asked to learn sequences of things, like learning to read and other complex tasks.

What do we know physiologically about kids with ADD when they're asked do this kind of learning? Basically two things. One, that when asked to learn things like reading; in essence, whenever they're called upon to do mentally sequential problem solving, the brains of kids with ADD show slower brain waves compared with the brains of neurotypical kids (Shedding Light on ADHD, The Lancet, Nov. 2003). Two, in these same situations, the brains of kids with ADD show a broader area of involvement as compared with the brains of neurotypical kids (His Brain, Her Brain, INR seminar, Nikita Katz MD, 2007). In other words, in kids with ADD, brain activity gets slower and spread out more thinly as compared to neurotypical kids whose brain activity is stronger and more localized.

The thing to keep in mind here of course is that while brain scans can imply things, they fall apart as far as being factual evidence for what people think and feel. In other words, while brains scans can reveal physiological fractal patterns in things like blood flow, no researcher can claim with certainty to be able to interpret these patterns. We're just not there yet. This means while brain scans can imply things, they cannot replace subjective and objective reporting.

So what kinds of things do people with ADD report? To see, I asked more than a hundred people trained in emergence-based self observation methods a simple question; what's your favorite color? From this, two clear fractal patterns emerged with regard to ADD. In pattern one, people instantly digress then abruptly blurt an answer. In pattern two, people abruptly go blank and cannot self-restart.

What does all this tell us about the nature of ADD? To see, consider this. Picture yourself in winter, standing at a distance from a very big maple tree. Now imagine you have been given a task; you must redraw the patterns of the branches from memory. How would you go about doing this? Most people, when asked to do this, try to memorize a few of the larger patterns of branches. Kids with ADD either reach out in all directions at once and then blurt out an answer or they immediately go blank and then pretend to be memorizing, all the while staring through the tree.

Slower speed. Broader scope. The very bane of mentally sequential learning activities like learning to read. No surprise this is the very kind of learning kids with ADD hate the most. Interestingly enough, no one seems to notice that these same kids excel at the very opposite kind of learning; the kind required to master video games. What's the difference?

Learning to read requires kids repeatedly cycle through a sequence of four mental tasks; recite (pronounce aloud), memorize (commit to short term memory), recall (pronounce to yourself), and interpret (comprehension). In a way, we could call this kind of learning, multi-step mental learning as in, "think about what you're doing now and at the same time, think about what you're going to have to do next" learning. As opposed to the kinds of skills needed to master video games wherein we need to focus on doing one task at a time as quickly as we can, a kind of learning we might call, "no time to think, just do it" learning.

Can you see where this is all going? The psychophysical skills needed to master video games preclude the very type of learning which causes kids with ADD to falter and quit; complex sequences of mental learning. Moreover to understand what's behind this, consider what happens to these kids when they play a video game. Across the board they report their sense of time speeds up while at the same time, their focus shifts from a primarily mental one to a primarily physical one, the fractal pattern Yogi Berra alludes to in his famous comment, "you can't think and bat."

This pattern in fact is quite similar to how stimulant medications affect people with ADD, wherein they feel time speed up and become more aware of their bodies.

A major clue to understanding ADD then lies in discerning the differences between learning to read and mastering video games. What can we say about how these two kinds of learning differ?

• Any learning which involves complex sequences of mental activity will short circuit the brains of people with ADD. This type of learning literally causes the overall rate at which their brains try to process data to slow down, in part, the result of their focus widening beyond their capacity to track. Conversely, any learning which involves intensely focused physical activity will cause the brains of people with ADD to speed up and focus, similarly to what happens to all people when they play video games.
• In essence, these differences can be boiled down to three things; [1] that the nature of the learning is either mental or physical, [2] that the learning requires people to be aware of either sequences of tasks or single step tasks, and [3] that the learning differs markedly in how quickly or slowly people process time.
• What accounts for the difference in how quickly or slowly people process time? Primarily, this is just the result of the actual physics involved, body learning versus mind learning. Said very simply, it takes more time to move the body then to move the mind. Nothing wrong here, it's just simple physics. What this means however is that, by nature, people differ as to which type of learning they are better at; body-based learners versus mind-based learners, and the main difference here is in how people sense time.
• In a general sense then, we could say that people with ADD are more naturally adept at body oriented kinds of learning whereas neurotypical folks are more adept at learning mind oriented tasks. Moreover, this difference has nothing to do with people's native intelligence. It merely describes the type of learning to which each type of person is best suited.
  

So is there any fractal-based evidence to support these claims? There certainly is. Moreover, this fractal-based evidence also reveals the solution to one of the greatest mysteries of all with regard to personality; the nature of the self. What is it that makes us feel we are separate and apart from others? More important, how are our feelings of separateness a factor in both ADD and Asperger's? This will be our topic for next month when we discuss The Nature of the Self as a Factor in ADHD and Asperger's.

[for more thoughts on learning and learning disabilities, click here]

the Myth of the "All White" Philosophy
Every generation has their "how to get everything you want in life" book. Each one claims to offer the ordinary person some kind of millennia old secret with which to quickly and easily get a good life. Sometimes too, such as in the case of James Redfield's The Celestine Prophesy, people distort a book into that it can do this. Redfield himself never claimed this for his book and even tried to correct this impression. Redfield had integrity.

What does this have to do with Rhonda Byrne's book, The Secret?

Rhonda Byrne is this generation's "get everything you want" girl. Her "secret?" The Law of Attraction. Picture good and you'll attract this good to you. Unfortunately she adds to this that we must also steer clear of anything or anyone negative. Friends in trouble? People in need? She says we must not take part in their negativity and avoid them like the plague.

The problem of course is that if you buy into this, you make getting what you want the road to happiness, which it's not. At the same time, if you simply dismiss it all, you miss the part of what is true about what Byrne is saying; the law of attraction.

Then too, there's the other problem; that if you use the law of attraction as Byrne suggests, your life will probably get even worse. Why? Because what Byrne fails to realize, let alone tell us, is why this law worked for her. At the time she used the law of attraction, her life was pretty bad. She openly admits this. Thus what she actually did was use the law of attraction to rebalance an already bad life.

What happens if you take Byrne's advice during normal times? Well this depends on how well you can follow her all white philosophy. Most people can't, at least not for long. Good thing too. If you could, what you'd probably get is a few good things followed by a bunch of awful things. Think I'm wrong? Then consider this. At the time Byrne first appeared on Oprah, her book had sold some 18,000 copies. A week later, Oprah's positive endorsement raised this to over 100,000. Nice. The power of the law of attraction at work no doubt. A subsequent mention by Oprah then raised this total to over 190,000, and to many this too appeared to be the law of attraction at work. But was it? I'm not sure. Oprah's a pretty influential lady.

Whatever the case, not long after this, things began to reverse. A woman with cancer appeared on Oprah who said she was going to use Byrne's advice in lieu of medical treatment. The law of attraction at work? Yes. Although this time, Byrne seems to have attracted some pretty ugly energy. Including not only that Oprah had to hurriedly amend her endorsement, but also that the Internet quickly flooded with anti-Byrne blogs and articles.

Where's the problem in what Bryne is saying? Essentially just this. By telling us we must avoid the dark side of the law of attraction, Byrne and her crew of all white philosophers have perverted a genuine spiritual teaching into a recipe for personal disaster. Moreover, while she certainly is the latest to try to cash in on good people's free lunch dreams, she's far from the only person doing this. For instance, most diet books advise the very same, all white thing. Eat all these good things. Avoid eating these bad things. In no time, you'll be healthy and fit.

Ever try to stay on one of these all white diets? My experience has been that trying to follow an all white diet is like trying to use will power on diarrhea; in the long run, you're going to have to shit no matter how hard you try. And yes, when you first go on one of these diets, many people do quite well. But inevitably, the rebalancing comes and you end up even worse.

Sound familiar? Don't get me wrong. Like the good which does exist in Rhonda Byrne's book, many of these diets are based on genuinely sound advice. Unfortunately too few of them teach people to also embrace their failures, let alone that it's the all white philosophy which makes many of these failures happen.

Still not clear as to what I'm saying? Then consider this. How many times have you thought you'd found a way a better way, the secret to a better marriage, or to fitness, or to managing your money. Filled with hope, you earnestly begin this program only to fall back into an even worse state of disaster, months or even weeks later.

Why does this happen to us? It's simple. Deny any part of your nature and you'll end up in an excess. Moreover, that this happens is not even our failure really. It is simply the Tao; the way it is. Including that the unrealistic nature of our hopeful feelings must eventually resolve themselves into equally hopeless feelings. Again, it's just the way it is.

Here then is what the Tao has to teach us about these "secrets." Introduce an imbalance, including an all good one, and you'll end up with an equal and opposite imbalance. Conversely, honor your nature and focus on being real, and you'll end up not only with balance but also with your chances for change improved.

The thing of course is knowing how to accomplish this balance. This is what we're about to look at.

the Law of Repulsion
So what is missing in Byrne's book? Actually, it's pretty simple really. Like all coins and other valuable things, there are two sides to this visualization thing, not just one. Moreover in order to have a genuinely spiritual life, you must honor and practice both.

What are the two sides of the laws governing visualization?

The first is the law Rhonda Byrne refers to in her book, the law of attraction. I refer to this law as the "all white law." Or as it's commonly known, like attracts like.

The other law then embodies what Byrne claims you should absolutely avoid, the law of repulsion. In this case, we're talking about that opposites attract, the law I refer to as the "all black law."

How do these two laws of visualization work?

• With the law of attraction, you draw to you the good things you picture.
• With the law of repulsion, you push away from you the bad things you picture.
• And when you seek balance by embracing both, you stimulate the very energy Dickens refers to in the opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities; "It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." Which is why the two sides of the Tao symbol are separated, not by a straight line, but rather by a transverse wave. Very wise dudes, those old philosophers. In physics, transverse waves are the nature of change, and equal and opposite waves create the greatest changes.
  

Can you see why spiritual change always involves a pair of opposites? It takes what Dickens refers to as the best of times, worst of times. This is what creates the potential for change; the two roughly equal sides.

Said another way, these two laws are simply two ends of a single continuum, a natural pair of opposites. They each exist to balance each other out, and if you use visualization to tap into this power, you maximize your chances for getting a better life.

How would these two laws of visualization apply to a real life situation, for instance to dieting? In essence, you'd devote some time to picturing yourself successful and thin while at the same time picturing yourself overeating. Sound crazy? Well consider what it accomplishes. By picturing ourselves as thin and fit, we identify our goal. At the same time, by picturing ourselves overeating, we identify our starting point; where we are now. This then allows us to visualize our whole journey from what we are now to what we want to be. This greatly enhance our chances for success, as you can't very well change what you can't see.

In addition, by picturing ourselves overeating, we satisfy the body's need to overeat. How? By honoring an even more basic spiritual law at play here, something I call The Mind Body Law. Very simply stated, it says, what the mind pictures, the body experiences. I, in fact, have been successfully using this law to manage my anger for decades. Whenever I feel angry, I picture myself losing it and by doing this satisfy my body's need for release.

At the same time, my picturing harms no one including me. And yes, I do get mad at times. But since I began practicing this, I rarely feel anger build up let alone feel ashamed or guilty for feeling angry.

As for what the Tao symbol has to teach us, it is simply this. Great changes occur only in these kinds of times. This in part is why Dicken's words about the French Revolution are so timeless. It's also why picturing all white philosophies do work at times. They work when we're already feeling pretty bad. Conversely picture all good in times when we're already in a pretty good state and you inevitably end up in an equal and opposite state.

What does this look like when it happens? In my life, it led to angry outbursts. In fact, one of my worst faults has been that I have had a bad temper. Even as a child, I carried rage inside me. What I now know though is that a big part of my carrying this much rage was that I tried against hope to restrain my anger. To pretend to be calm and in control. Each time I would try to do this though, inevitably my anger would build up to a point wherein I would hit a last straw. Then my anger would burst out of me, often onto some poor unsuspecting soul who had merely bumped into me.

This changed dramatically after hearing someone share without restraint about anger in an Alanon meeting. This man openly and without shame puked out blatant negative wishes, words so filled with hatred I had trouble listening to them. No surprise, as he did, I judged him in the same way I had been judging myself; fiercely and with no compassion. After all, why give compassion to someone who was so openly negative? Wasn't this only making things worse?

Moments later though, I had an aha when I realized his point. He said he knew what he had been sharing was crazy and that it wasn't what he really wanted to do. Then he laughed, genuinely and spiritually, and in that instant I learned the secret to all white philosophy. If you want to change, you must be able to freely and without shame picture both sides of life, not just the white side. In this case then, it meant that when I felt angry, I needed to visually indulge this anger so as create the momentum by which things flow back into balance.

So did this change the way I handled anger? Very much so. In essence, it gave me an alternative to holding it all in, ending my angry outbursts.

In addition, it gave me the key to understanding balance, including that in order to satisfy my body's need for release, I must consciously picture myself letting lose. Here again, what the mind pictures, the body experiences. At the same time, I learned I also needed to clearly know that I did not intend for these bad things to happen. In this way, no harm comes to anyone, and balance is restored.

Does this strategy actually work in real life though? Years after my realization, I was sitting in a driver's ed point reduction class wherein a film on road rage had just finished. In the film, neat little boxes and nicely drawn arrows flow charted how to control your anger; basically that you should suck it up and think it away.

When the film finished, the instructor, knowing I was a therapist, then asked me to comment on what I had seen. "What do you do when you get angry while driving?" I said that whenever I felt like losing it, for instance, when I was stuck behind a little old lady going half the speed limit, I pictured myself driving her off the road, ripping her from the car, and pummeling her to a pulp. At which point, his jaw dropped and the whole room froze.

Seconds later, the air cleared as the whole room roared with laughter, including this instructor. At which point I went on to say that said I sometimes pictured the Mel Brooks' story wherein he once pulled the leather tie of an irate taxi driver through the taxi's little vent widow until the driver's head lodged in it. Again, the whole room roared with healing laughter. I then added that, of course, I never intended that any of this should actually happen, but that by momentarily mentally indulging my insanity, my anger would resolve into laughter at the thought of my doing these insane things.

To this, I would now add that no child nor mentally ill adult should ever be encouraged to visualize these kinds of things. However, when practiced by spiritually minded adults who know the meaning of "intending," using visualization to satisfy the urges of the body is indeed a very useful tool. As well as a spiritual practice rooted in a great ancient tradition; the balance pictured in the Tao.

Add to this that my life's work in and around emergence based theories and practices has been based entirely in that our suffering comes from what we cannot picture. Including that some of this suffering comes from being unable to picture the things we fear. This, in fact, is a lot of what underlies my almost twenty years of helping people. Including that by teaching them ways to use visualization to create this black and white balance, I teach them the simple wisdom of the Tao.

One last thing. Knowing these concepts in no way guarantees success. For instance, I still cannot picture overeating. Nor it seems can anyone else I know who overeats. Which leads me to believe this may be the piece missing in many of the diets which otherwise offer good advice.

What will change if I can figure out how to picture this? The truth? I'm working on it. Only time will tell. At this point, I can say this though. I feel more hopeful about overeating than I have felt in years. Including that I have not missed the irony in where this hope came from; it came from reading the Secret and allowing myself to find fault in it.

Will this work?

I'll keep you posted.

Steven Paglierani is a writer, teacher, personality theorist, and therapist whose work on human consciousness is read weekly by thousands all over the world. He is the author of the first fractal personality theory; Emergence Personality Theory, and his mission is to make the world better for children by restoring and deepening their love of learning. He can be read or reached at his site, http://theEmergenceSite.com