Growing Up: ADHD & man's search for meaning

"He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how" - Nietzsche

Guys, hi! How are you?

This week I read: Man's Search For Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl

I know this book is only 150 pages, but I read it start to finish (without starting to read it, getting excited about it, writing to you guys about it, and then getting distracted by the next shiny object on the bookshelf and jumping into that book instead, and letting the cycle repeat... that's been the pattern for the last two books I've told you about. woops...

On that note - I just started listening to Huberman Lab: ADHD & How Anyone Can Improve Their Focus

I've mentioned Andrew Huberman a few times... he's the neuroscientist / professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine who says the word dopamine a lot (you won't regret clicking this link).

I'll have to tell you about Huberman's sunlight thing I've started doing every morning since I had that very low week a couple of weeks ago. Another time! Onto ADHD and focus...

Wait, sorry, one more side note about Huberman.

He starts his podcasts explaining 'This podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford, it is however part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost-to-consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast...' and then he reads ads, (e.g. for supplements. But he prefaces it by saying 'while supplements aren't necessary for everyone...')

I love that. If I grow my podcast to the point that opportunities to work with sponsors present, and that's something I decide to do, that's probably the type preface I'll include. (Not that I'll be in a research role at Stanford, the bit about this content is free and to allow it to be way, I'm reading an ad for (a product that is aligned - e.g. a meditation app), in exchange for giving that product exposure to my e.g. 10k listeners, they pay (e.g. £20 per thousand listeners for a 1 min ad), the proceeds of which I use to 1. cover the costs of creating this content, 2. invest in making the platform better for the audience's benefit. Business school 101.

Great. Okay what's the thing about ADHD?

Oh yeah.

Huberman intros with 'Quick reminder, anytime we discuss a psychiatric disorder, it's important to remember that all of us have the temptation to self-diagnose or to diagnose others. So as I list off some of the symptomology of ADHD, some of that symptomology might resonate with you. You might think oh maybe I have ADHD or you might decide that someone you know definitely has ADHD. However it is very important that you don't self-diagnose or diagnose someone else.'

So yeah, definitely not self diagnosing.

'However many of us have constellations of symptoms that make us somewhat like somebody with ADHD. And if you're struggling with focus nowadays, as a lot of people are, because of stress because of smart phone use, which turns out can induce adult ADHD... then pay attention to the symptomology.'

So yeah, I'm just paying close attention to the symptomology...

'People with ADHD have poor attention and they have high levels of impulsivity. They are easily distractable. But the way that shows up is very surprising. You might think that people with ADHD just simply can't attend to anything. They really can't focus, even if they really want to. But that's simply not the case. People with ADHD, yes, they are distractable. Yes, they are impulsive. Yes, they are easily annoyed by things happening in the room. They sometimes have a high level of emotionality as well. Not always, but often. However, people with ADHD can have a hyper focus, an incredible ability to focus on things that they really enjoy or are intrigued by.

Now this is a very important point, because typically we think of somebody with ADHD as being really wild and hyperactive, or having no ability whatsoever to sit still attend and while that phenotype, as we call it, that contour of behaviour and cognition, can exist. Many people, if not all people with ADHD, if you give them something they really love... they will obtain laser focus without any effort. So that tells us that people with ADHD have the capacity to attend, but they can't engage that attention for things that they don't really, really want to do. And as we all know, much of life, whether you're a child or an adult, involves doing a lot of things that we don't want to do.

I've paid attention. Conclusion = thank you for explaining how I operate precisely. Damn about life involving doing things we don't have to do. I was hoping there was a way around that. Pity I got distracted and never listened to the end of the podcast for the (Adderall free) solutions... will do that later. In the meantime it's time for these brackets to finally close and to get back to Man's Search for Meaning...)

Wow. What a preamble.

And guys, I know. For some reason we keep coming back to Nazis in this newsletter.

Viktor Frankl's "The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust" (9 million copies sold, first published in 1946) tells his story of survival in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Frankl was a psychiatrist, and the founder of a type of psychotherapy called 'logotherapy', which he introduces in the second part of the book. (Logotherapy focusses on finding meaning in our lives... in 1983 Frankl wrote "Edith Weisskopf-Joelson once expressed the hope that logotherapy "may help counteract certain unhealthy trends in the present-day culture of the United States, where the incurable sufferer is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading" so that "he is not only unhappy, but also ashamed of being unhappy." ). I have a strong urge to tell you every minute detail about this book but I am resisting. Instead here are a few of the bits I furiously underlined:

Finding meaning in suffering:

"It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is. Each must find out for himself, and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes. If he succeeds he will continue to grow in spite of all indignities. Frankl is fond of quoting Nietzsche, "He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how."

In the concentration camp every circumstance conspires to make the prisoner lose his hold. All the familiar goals in life are snatched away. What alone remains is "the last of human freedoms"—the ability to "choose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances." This ultimate freedom, recognised by the ancient Stoics as well as by modern existentialists, takes on vivid significance in Frankl's story. The prisoners were only average men, but some, at least, by choosing to be "worthy of their suffering" proved man's capacity to rise above his outward fate.
(Preface by George W. Allport (formerly a professor of psychology at Harvard University, and through whose work that Frankl's theory of logotherapy was introduced to the US.)

On being successful:

And so it is both strange and remarkable to me that— among some dozens of books I have authored—precisely this one, which I had intended to be published anonymously so that it could never build up any reputation on the part of the author, did become a success. Again and again I therefore admonish my students both in Europe and in America: "Don't aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run—in the long run, I say! —success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it."
(Viktor Frankl, preface to the 1992 edition)

On finding hope:

So I began by mentioning the most trivial of comforts first. I said that even in this Europe in the sixth winter of the Second World War, our situation was not the most terrible we could think of. I said that each of us had to ask himself what irreplaceable losses he had suffered up to then... Whoever was still alive had reason for hope. Health, family, happiness, professional abilities, fortune, position in society—all these were things that could be achieved again or restored. After all, we still had all our bones intact. Whatever we had gone through could still be an asset to us in the future. And I quoted from Nietzsche: "Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich starker." (That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.)"

On reasons to live:

I remember two cases of would-be suicide, which bore a striking similarity to each other. Both men had talked of their intentions to commit suicide. Both used the typical argument—they had nothing more to expect from life. In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them. We found, in fact, that for the one it was his child whom he adored and who was waiting for him in a foreign country. For the other it was a thing, not a person. This man was a scientist and had written a series of books which still needed to be finished. His work could not be done by anyone else, any more than another person could ever take the place of the father in his child's affections.

This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

On the power of visualisation:

I became disgusted with the state of affairs which compelled me, daily and hourly, to think of only such trivial things. I forced my thoughts to turn to another subject. Suddenly I saw myself standing on the platform of a well-lit, warm and pleasant lecture room. In front of me sat an attentive audience on comfortable upholstered seats. I was giving a lecture on the psychology of the concentration camp! All that oppressed me at that moment became objective, seen and described from the remote viewpoint of science. By this method I succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment, and I observed them as if they were already of the past. Both I and my troubles became the object of an interesting psychoscientific study undertaken by myself. What does Spinoza say in his Ethics?—"Affectus, qui passio est, desinit esse passio simulatque eius claram et distinctam formamus ideam." Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future —was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.

Attitude: The last of the human freedoms

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

On cancelling the German language:

As for the concept of collective guilt, I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behaviour of another person or a collective of persons. Since the end of World War II I have not become weary of publicly arguing against the collective guilt concept. Sometimes, however, it takes a lot of didactic tricks to detach people from their superstitions. An American woman once confronted me with the reproach, "How can you still write some of your books in German, Adolf Hitler's language?" In response, I asked her if she had knives in her kitchen, and when she answered that she did, I acted dismayed and shocked, exclaiming, "How can you still use knives after so many killers have used them to stab and murder their victims?" She stopped objecting to my writing books in German.

This week on the Growing Up podcast:

Ep. 14 - I feel very privileged that Gareth Shanthikumar came on and shared his story with us - figuring out who he is, managing the urge to self harm, losing a close friend to suicide and the inspiring work he does with young men in Perth. Men struggle too and it's okay to talk about it. As Frankl pointed out - having shame in suffering only makes it worse.

Ep. 15 - Then Gideon came on and told me that he loves Celine's work (Gideon is Jewish, and Louis-Ferdinand Celine was a Nazi Sympathiser... remember?) and that I don't need to background check every person whose work I share in case they were actually a horrible racist!

Search Growing Up with Delia Burgess wherever you get your podcasts

That's it!

Except. Oh yeah. The website! Wowwwwww who knew there were so many decisions involved in building a website, and a fair bit of learning / work.

I made this for starters: deliaburgess.blog

and you can find all my newsletters here: deliaburgess.blog/posts

I've started basic, but check it out and let me know what you think. And then send it to 5 other people. That was our deal wasn't it???

xxx Delia

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Hi! I'm Delia Burgess

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