Attention Deficit Creativity?

Jonah Lehrer at the Wired.com blog, The Frontal Cortex, gives insight into why distractability may be helpful and even supportive of creativity:

The association between creativity and open-mindedness has long been recognized, and what’s more open-minded than distractability? People with low latent inhibition are literally unable to close their mind, to keep the spotlight of attention from drifting off to the far corners of the stage. The end result is that they can’t help but consider the unexpected.
-Jonah Lehrer

It is interesting to realize that at times we make negatives out of what can be positives in some people's lives. That is not to minimize the consequences of ADD in many individuals- it can certainly get in the way. But many people, diagnosed or not, have found ways to be quite successful even with ADD. Perhaps that brief quote from Lehrer above is part of the reason why it can be done.

But of course there is also the ability to see the world in all its many facets. Sure, it may be frustrating those trying to make sense of us, but, hey, it's all...

Squirrel!