Im wondering if this is a common adhd thing.
For example, I have always wanted to program, but I can’t let myself start with some easy gui building block code. I need to understand how the code is interacting with the computer itself and know how they did it in the 80s. Then of course it’s too hard for me and I give up.
Or if im making music, I need to do everything from scratch the hard way, making it as hard as possible (and killing any creative effort i had in the beginning).
It’s the same with anything. I can’t progress if I dont know the absolute reason why something is being done. And if I do it the easy way, I didn’t do it right and took shortcuts so it was worthless.
I am this way completely. If I don’t fully understand all the details of something, I have no chance of remembering it. Elementary math classes were difficult in college because they infrequently included formal proofs, but as I progressed into more advanced courses I found I really loved math. The formal proofs made the difference. I need to be convinced that something is true; I can’t simply take it at face value.
I failed algebra 3 times haha, never got a solid base on math sadly. I understand it if it’s applied to something, but I literally couldn’t even do long division right now if I tried
Algebra came easy to me. I came to realize even in elementary school we were doing algebra even if they didn’t use that name. Simple arithmetic like 2 + 5 = ? Is algebra if you think of the ? As X.
Then it’s 2 + ? = 7.
After that, at least to me, it’s order of operations and just moving things around.
Same. Geometry I had major issues with because of proofs, but could use algebra to solve almost anything they threw at me.
I’m this way 100%. Feels like I’ll be able to do it better and be less distracted by questions if I get to know something from the ground up, and just doing it a certain way because everyone agrees it works that way is never satisfying/I never feel like I can trust that completely.
I’m the same way. I can’t just know how to do something, I need to know why I’m doing something.
I can’t just blindly follow instructions or I’ll never learn. I need to understand everything so that I can find more efficient ways to do the thing I need to do. This is a common frustration I have in the workplace.
It’s put me at odds with some managers, until I got high enough where it became a target and I could determine the path to get there.
I hated managers who wouldn’t tell me the why, because I’d inevitably hit something that doesn’t line up with my training and I’d have to apply the why’s to determine what to do.
Yea, can strongly relate. Hindered me a lot during my school years. I just couldn’t do anything without knowing the reasoning behind it. In the way I function, any amount of work is dictated by a need, and if the need -or the rationale, is never presented to me, then I fail to tackle the problem. I love solving problems, but they need to be real, applied.
That’s why I never used Unity for anything but rather just started with raylib. And then went to pure Vulkan.
Yeah. I have found the prototype perspective can help. The idea being that this first attempt is part of the learning exercise and you will redo it “properly” the second time. It helps prevent building a emotional mountain of requirements to get started that only exist in my head. It’s kind of an mindset of knowing you will mess up the first one and that is OK because it is expected and a required part of the process.
Can you trick yourself into doing it the other way?
‘GUI building blocks let me see the shape of the finished code. Once I know the shape, I can work backwards to finer detail.’
‘Making music with the simplified tools lets me get the tune out so I don’t forget it, then I can replace parts with the proper instruments and tools.’
I’m still trying to get my head around coding, but I use the music trick to learn songs. I play them one note at a time on either bass or guitar to figure out the tune, then play them properly with chords or figure out the bass line once I know where the song’s going :)
In programming you do not need to know the inner workings in order to use something, in fact most people use abstraction to make a project more manageable and modular.
Also don’t learn anything before you start a project because it’s too boring. I always start a project and learn things I need to learn along the way
Starting a project which you actually find interesting and will really use, will also help with following through. There will be boring parts to it but the excitement of having something usable will overshadow any negative feelings.
I can relate. I have a natural aversion to “high level” languages that obfuscate a lot of the details from me.
I actually do know a lot about the low-level details of programming, how code interacts with hardware, etc. BUT - I didn’t start with that. I first learned BASIC (indeed - in the '80s). Then Pascal, then C. THEN I learned about assembly, computer architecture, etc.
Does knowing those low-level details make me a better programmer? Probably - but they’re certainly not necessary to get started or to even be effective. And if I started with them I may not have gone into programming.
I’ve learned to how to convince myself that “I will simply accept this as it is for now (and that’s okay) but I will let myself dive deep on it later”. A bit of a bargain to give me permission to “cheat” for the time-being. It’s helped when learning new frameworks which can be very complicated. And starting top-down can give you a better appreciation for the details underneath.
See this is why I always wish to had been born in the computing age and not the iPad age, would have actailly had a reason to learn the real building blocks ! Thats a good cheat though.
I’m sort of like this especially when it comes to math, but mostly because my memory is shit.
I can’t just memorize a formula, I need to know how something works and then I can work out what i need to do. The “understanding” is what triggers the memory to stick, not the need to remember “you need to use x+y-65bm(y+ba)/gap+5-13 when you have a problem involving bears.” I’ll never just remember that. I basically always barely passed my math classes in highschool…
So I never studied science and never followed my passions and am now in a factory lol stupid memory…
This is actually the goal of newer math classes, and is why so many parents have been complaining about “new math”. The new goal is to teach students the core components, then show them how to break larger problems down into those core components.
7x12 may be difficult to do in your head (at least without memorizing your times tables or counting by 7’s) but (7x10)+(7x2) is fairly easy. The goal is to move away from rote memorization like times tables, because educators realized that the best students didn’t actually rely on rote memorization. Instead, they relied on mental shortcuts derived from actual understanding. Plus, rote memorization only works up to a certain point. You don’t need to memorize what 15x13 is, when you can break it down into a series of smaller and easier (15x10)+(15x3)=150+45=195 style problems.
Personally, I haven’t had any issues with new math, because that’s how I always did math. I was one of those students who got bored with rote memorization and started devising shortcuts for math problems. And now they’re teaching those very shortcuts as part of the curriculum, because they realized that it gives a much deeper understanding of how and why the math works.
That’s actually really good to hear! Hopefully less people are left behind because of the dumb way we would teach things.
That’s the “new math”? That’s just how I always have done it. I’ve kicked ass at math because things were a logical progression and order of operations. I could always transform something down to simpler to calculate pieces.
Yeah, all of the former straight-A students (who excelled at rote memorization, without learning why the math worked) are now parents, struggling to help their kids with the “new” math.
I definitely relate. I also kind of have this obsession with using only open source software which also tends to hinder my creativity because some of the open source alternatives to things have steep learning curves.
Anyway, I think this is one of the things that makes me great at math but terrible at learning math. If something is complicated, I have to chew it down to the bone and then rebuild back to the original complicated thing.
As such, I’m really good at doing all sorts of math and even have some of my own weird identities/constants memorized, but it takes me a lot of time and effort to learn new math from a textbook instead of (re)inventing it myself.
It is ok to “cheat” even if you know the “real” way it should be done. It took me ages to come to grips with this but you can get over it too. There are still hobbies I won’t pursue because of this mentality though like drawing.
Yeah it’s hard. Because if I can cheat to do it easy, So can everyone, and then why do it at all.
I don’t know if it applies to people with adhd, but there is this theory that people with autism have weak central coherence. That is, they have a tough time dealing with broad strokes and assembling context into a comprehensive picture of reality. This manifests in simple things like preferring instructions like “buy one dozen eggs” over “buy some eggs”, to more complicated things like understanding that someone is joking when there’s a thunderstorm out and they say “nice weather”. Oftentimes, people with autism are very detail oriented, and uncomfortable with missing puzzle pieces.
For me, this reveals itself very similarly to what you describe. If I want to center a div, there’s a good chance I’ll be looking up how css works, then at the eBNF form of css, and then probably the Chomsky hierarchy, and then probably set theory bc the formal language theory book I picked up uses it, at which point I’ll probably be lead to learn about Russel’s paradox and so on. It’s debilitating.
I don’t know if you’re autistic (although there is like a 60% comorbidity with adhd), but I do know that folks with autism experience the same thing. I don’t have a solution for you, but you could potentially find tips on dealing with this on forums for autistic people.
Definitely could be. A specialist only deemed me mildly adhd. But I feel like I cover it up super well. And it’s worse than they think
I’ve wanted to learn the guitar my entire life, but I can’t just start slow and easy with some chords, I keep going all in trying to learn classical guitar simultaneously with music theory because chords seem too simple and I hate myself… I didn’t mention the research phase where I learned all about the origin of the instrument and its importance through history.
May I introduce you to prog?
Covet and CHON are a good place to start for instrumental math rock; I reccomennd effloresce and Homey, respectively.
From there I’d suggest Plini, Intervals, and Arch Echo to add some grit.
But if you really really want to hate yourself and break your guitar over you knee? Id like to introduce you to Tosin Abasi;
One thing I can help you with. If you learn bass first, you really learn the structure of songs, and it helps make guitar even easier. Don’t worry about theory honestly. My friend is super into theory and im not really, and we both make complex music. Theory is just words for what you’re already hearing.
Just start playing and keep playing. I’ve been playing 25 years and have only picked up basic music theory but still have a blast.
I’ve struggled with this mentally, especially when I first was learning how to code. Eventually I realized while it’s great to know the ins and outs, you can allow yourself to only worry about what you need to know to get your code running (and that’s okay).
Write a script to go a thing, then learn about how to automate that with a cronjob, then learn about coding in the cloud. If you start too big you might get overwhelmed
