Winfried writes:
>John Zavacki said:
>
>>"I can listen to a fugue, pick off the highlights from the television,
>>carry on a phone conversation, and write a response to an email message
>>with little effort. No brag, just fact. "
>
>It sounds amazing and not at all like Attention Deficit Disorder. Is
>there any help to learn this ability (a sixth discipline) or is it "just"
>talent?
Winfried, and other learners;
It is no more a talent than being able to hit a fastball (which I can't)
or learn second, third, or more languages (which is part of my
hardwiring). It's a physical phenomenon, due, I suspect to the same
narrow neurotransmitters that make it so difficult to focus. I do this
because of a LACK of talent: the neurological infrastructure required to
filter out annoying or unimportant stimuli.
The problem with this "ability" is the ever widening hermeneutic spirals
which, like a fugue, perform all sorts of wonderful permutations on the
central theme. The major failing with the fuguing intellect is it's
inability to come to a conclusion. Theories need explanatory and
descriptive adequacy which is simple enough to be elegant. My
peregrinations across psychological space are cognitively baroque (in the
musical sense) and emotionally roccoco (in the architectural sense). For
me, psychological reality is embellished with imagined structure and
content which has attached itself to the central theme by accidental
association. It works well in my poetry, but not so well when trying to
apply Deming's Theory of Profound Knowledge in a small organization. My
mind is calmest and most focused when it is in nature and acting as a
sensor for danger or beauty. I seldom see more in a river than I need to
stay alive in a long rapid while I'm in a canoe, but sit me on a rock....
-- jzavacki@wolff.com John Zavacki The Wolff Group 800-282-1218 http://www.wolff.com/Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>