May 22, 2005
Why are we STILL discussing if it’s real?…
I was watching the Cal Thomas show for a bit last night and the discussion turned to whether or not ADD was a real thing or something made up so therapists can make a few dollars on it.
I was in shock! Of course ADD is real. How else do you explain me? Not just me, but zillions of other people.
Of course some therapists make money treating ADD. I make money on ADD too. So what? Who makes money on it isn’t the issue. Whether it is a real thing or not isn’t even discussable by intelligent people or at least it shouldn’t be. Of course ADD is real. These TV guys just don’t get what it is. They are thinking of it in the same terms as major depression or other forms of mental illness. I don’t think it falls in that catagory at all.
A guest on the show said “If Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were alive today they’d be diagnosed with ADD”. You know, I agree with that since the two of them did (especially Tom) did appear to have some qualities that people with ADD also have. I’d have no problem with that forensic diagnosis except for the fact that Tom and Huck never existed at all. They wouldn’t be alive today because they never were alive. They are fictional characters who came out of the brilliant, creative and wildly imaginative mind of Samuel Clemens who became Mark Twain when he signed his name that way on some travel papers. The guy faked his name as a joke! Jeeze, I’ve done that!
He was also so imaginative that he invented a couple of guys who some people believe actually existed. So I looked into Sam a bit. This is the very first thing I found:
“Growing up in the unusual rivertown of 2000 inhabitants, Twain was a mischievous boy, the prototype of his own character, Tom Sawyer. Though he was plagued by poor health at an early age, by the age of nine he learned to smoke and headed a small band of pranksters, and most of all, he detested school…..
But over the next few years, Twain was unable to save wages and became restless, deciding to leave Hannibal in June of 1853 to take a job in St. Louis. But instead of settling in St. Louis, Twain proceeded to travel back and forth between New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Iowa as a journalist. But after his wanderings, Twain ultimately switched professions after realizing an old boyhood dream of becoming a river pilot….
Under the apprenticeship of Horace Bixby, pilot of the Paul Jones, Mark Twain became a licensed river pilot at the age of 24. Earning a high salary navigating the river waters, Twain was entertained by his own position, travelling from city to city and never settling. But in 1861, Twain’s piloting days ended with the onset of the Civil War….
On his way to Nevada twelve years after the Gold Rush, Twain’s primary intentions were to travel and strike it rich mining for silver and gold. But after being unsuccessful and with resources diminishing, Twain once again picked up his pen and began to write….”
The guy wrote at least 14 books, did at least 20 different things for a living, got bored easily. It seems to me like it is quite likely Mark Twain had ADD. He sounds like a hunter to me!
Thom Hartmann’s theory is that people with ADD are the prehistoric hunters who evolved over millions of years to do something good and useful which helped assure the survival of the human race. The other people are farmers. They do good and useful things too. I have believed Thom’s theory since I first heard it. I still do!
I just wish these idiots on TV would start thinking about how the bizarre statements they make effect people. Now there will be people with ADD who will have to defend themselves again
because some idiot made authoritative statements about something they knew nothing about while portraying characters who never existed as real people.
Aren’t these the same guys who just got 16 people murdered by making up a story about the US military throwing copies of the Koran in the toilet at Guantanamo? I believe in a free press as much, if not more than the next guy. I’ve fought for it and was once part of it. My baby brother has been a newspaper reporter with the New Haven Register for 25 years. By the same token I also believe that the press has an obligation to be responsible. Cal Thomas and his guest were quite cavalier in the way they made these statements of “fact” . Thats my “opinion” anyway.
But it is still amazing that they gave us yet another example of what an especially brilliant ADD mind can do. I’m not saying that we are all that brilliant but some of us are. Mark Twain has people believing that Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were real people and that Samuel Clemens never existed (he did), but that Mark Twain (Just a made up name) did exist. Not bad for a guy who’s been dead for 95 years.
source of quotation: http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Authors/About_Mark_Twain.html
