Are you above average intelligent, inventive and do you regularly feel inhibited by the limiting influence of the existing systems in society and their representatives? Do you experience a kind of social claustrophobia that prevents you from developing your full potential? Are you easily bored, do you like to find solutions and do you like speed and progress? Are repetition and predictability not your thing? Then you might very well just be a Gifted Hunter in a Farmer's World. The good news is that you have something special to offer that is much needed right now. The bad news is that society is not necessarily ready for you yet. Still, you can as a Gifted Hunter really start to make a difference and come into your own when you understand how you’re wired and, with that in mind, start actively influencing your environment. You can read more about this in this blog that concludes with the Gifted Hunter Hypothesis. Please note: this blog is also available in Dutch.
GULLIVER, STRANDED ON LILLIPUT
Gulliver stuck on the island Lilliput
Source: www.mediastorehouse.co.uk
The majority of the gifted are doing well. But for a significant portion of the gifted people I’ve counseled since 1997, existence is filled with frustration and inner, sometimes outer, struggle. As a 145+ person myself, I have tried to stay outside, or at least under, the radar of the systems as much as possible. Because early on I felt like Jonathan Swift's Gulliver stranded on the island of Lilliput. The systems of education and work seemed aimed at making and keeping me small. At least that's how I experienced it. But because my experience could come across as arrogant, I kept that image to myself for a long time. I adapted where necessary and went my own way as much as possible.
But never underestimate the power of a good metaphor: Clients with a similar experience invariably exclaimed “That's exactly it!” when I referred to Gulliver. As if something clicked into place and there was instant clarity, where there used to be mist. The problem is that in many social systems, think education and work, the dynamic, creatively gifted are expected to adapt to a learning or work style that doesn't suit them. They then feel held back, opposed and misunderstood; an experience that has broken many gifted people, especially in a country such as The Netherlands with standing expressions such as “just act normal, that’s crazy enough” and “never stick your head above surface level (lest it will be cut off)”. Maddening to say the least and to find the root cause of this predicament we have to go back in time many thousands of years.
“I don’t care two hoots about civilization.
I want to wander in the wild.”
HUNTING VS. FARMING
Humanity has had to hunt for most of its existence in order to survive. The hunt for wild animals, for the proteins and fats they provided, allowed humanity to evolve steadily. The hunters themselves, meanwhile, were at great risk, and their success or failure had a huge impact on the tribe they belonged to. They were, out of necessity, skilled go-getters who, battling with fatigue and harsh conditions, were focused on only one goal: bringing food back to the tribe.
The relatively recent evolutionary arrival of agriculture and livestock farming enabled tribes to settle in one place. Huts were built, societies sprang up. Farming turned out to be a much more efficient and manageable way of feeding people, creating time for them to develop new skills and tools. Trade in the proceeds of agriculture and livestock arose and social developments gained momentum. Means of transportation were developed and humanity began to ascend Maslow's hierarchy of needs, with the physical needs, safety and security now being fulfilled.
The linear nature of hunting meanwhile gave way to the cyclical nature of farming. From the everyday, uncertain eat or be eaten reality of the Hunter, to the predictable rhythm of tilling, sowing, watering, weeding and harvesting of the Farmer. Day in, day out, day in, day out, season after season. The industrial era led to even greater social developments, but at the same time reinforced the cyclical rhythm in our lives even more. Think of the curriculum year class system and the many methods of education, but also of the Demming quality circle: Plan-Do-Check-Act ad infinitum, protocols in healthcare, budget cycles, election cycles and a lot of measuring and testing to see if a schedule is still being followed. Systems gradually began to dictate our lives and the importance of executive functions for being successful in those systems became greater and greater. Parallel to that many boys in particular found it increasingly difficult to get into, and stay, in the systems. Already in 1993 Csikszentmihalyi devoted the following words to this phenomenon:
“(...) Hunter types find fewer and fewer niches in the modern economy, and many of them may become bitter outcasts from the system. Because of this, too much testosterone today is more likely to result in criminality rather than leadership.
(...)
It is fashionable these days to try to deny our evolutionary heritage. Now that men don’t go out hunting every morning, the argument goes, they don’t need to be any more assertive than women. Or, given that we have decided that all men are created equal, we no longer need dominant individuals.
(...)
To deny the bred-in-the-bone differences between people is one of the silliest conceits of our times. Pretending that we can be everything we want to be without taking into account how physiology controls the mind is not only useless but dangerous, because it only breeds disillusion, hypocrisy, and finally cynisism.”
To be fair, the current systems agree just fine with the majority of people. Because of their Farmer heritage they are already well prepared for this, but for those with a still/again active Hunter (DRD4) gene, the over-regulated society, based on the idea of the manufacturability of just about everything, becomes more and more a contemporary Lilliput. That this genetic explanation is not a nice metaphor, but biological reality, was proven many years after Thom Hartmann hypothesized this in 1993.
In his book ADHD: a Hunter in a Farmer's World, he describes how ADHD is not a disorder, but a collection of traits of an evolutionary Hunter adaptation, which clashes quite a bit with the Farmer's World we live in today. Consider, for example, continuously scanning your environment for food or threats (= quickly distracted), needing to be able to act without hesitation (= impulsive), needing adrenaline for a decisive action (= sensation seeker).
If you have these qualities, you don’t have many other choices than to become an entrepreneur, artist, top athlete or go into sales, the military or police force. And in some cases crime.
GIFTED PEOPLE: INTELLIGENT FARMERS AND GIFTED HUNTERS
Previously I wrote about possible misdiagnoses with giftedness in Bipolar or just gifted? ADHD is also a common misdiagnosis in giftedness and as a result Hartmann's view, ADHD is the result of an active Hunter gene in a Farmer society, is too limited for gifted people. Hence I introduce the term Gifted Hunter to make a clear distinction. In the many years that I have worked with the gifted, I have only encountered a true dual diagnosis of ADHD and HB once. However, I regularly see gifted people who have ADHD-like traits; especially in certain environments and situations. Some even have an official ADHD diagnosis, but are capable of concentrated and structured work. But only when their intrinsic motivation is tapped and they get ample space and the right support. When they can follow their own interests and be creative. They are often the Gifted Hunters among the gifted.
In my practice I roughly see, it is not an exact science, two types of gifted people: the Intelligent Farmer and the Gifted Hunter. The first group is very intelligent, well versed in the executive functions and basically school & work smart. Due to their high intelligence, speed, need for complexity and sometimes special interests, Intelligent Farmers need more than is offered in many places. If this is provided for, for example by compacting and enriching materials, then they are perfectly capable of participating in our society at a high level. For example, they become experts in a specific field or (top) manager. This group of gifted people is generally doing well.
Gifted Hunters have a harder time, they are more likely to suffer from overexcitabilities. They are often visually oriented and/or dyslexic, which is difficult in many environments. Often they are also more associative, complex and non-linear in their thinking than the Intelligent Farmer. There is clearly more at play here than just a high intelligence combined with sensitivity and ADHD traits. More than contending with clumsy traits left over from days gone by, the Gifted Hunter epitomizes qualities that fit current times or rather times to come. The hunt is no longer for food in order to survive, the hunt is for new insights, new creations, new solutions and new technologies that can ensure a good future for humanity. A hunt for answers to today's questions and challenges.
“The Gifted Hunter hunts for novelty:
for new information, ideas & answers, for new creations, solutions & inventions.”
In addition to the previously described Hunter traits, a high IQ and a preference for speed & complexity, you can recognize a Gifted Hunter by, among other things:
Photo by Norbert Braun via Unsplash.com
A creative, inquisitive mind that is always on.
(goal)focused on the new, whether that is an insight, experience, solution, answer, perpetrator 😉, art form or technology.
Hurricane learner, sometimes also an inimitable Hurricane doer.
Can't help but stay true to themselves and the ideal in mind.
Getting results is more important than following protocols.
To be clear, Gifted Hunters are not superior to Intelligent Farmers, they just possess a markedly different potential. Under certain circumstances, Farmer qualities are much more effective, but other situations call for pronounced Hunter qualities.
A striking parallel between Hunters and the Gifted Hunters who have a hard time in education: Hunters originally hunted an average of 2-5 hours a day. No more. Rest, physical recovery, material maintenance and communal activities, whether or not around a campfire, filled the rest of their day. This is very different from working in an agricultural or industrial setting, where you have to work almost continuously (often sitting down) for at least 8 hours a day.
Like hunters, Gifted Hunters often work in bursts: in waves of intense learning, experimentation, thinking and creation work, interspersed with doing nothing and other things (playing!). They can achieve in a few hours what others take days to do. The 7520 hour standard for primary education and a minimum of 3700 hours in secondary education in the Dutch educational system therefore does not suit many gifted children. It is too much and well past the tipping point of diminishing returns, it backfires. Less is more in this regard for this group. If they are in the flow, let them go. But if they need to do nothing for a while, give them that space.
But there's more that's relevant to bringing young, and not-so-young, Gifted Hunters to fruition. They have a strong need for a clear and understandable purpose of what they have to do. It must be meaningful in their eyes, lead to something concrete that they can see the added value of. As clear as that the proceeds from the hunt guarantee dinner or even survival. Simply 'doing what you're told because it's good for you’ in a system full of assessments, punishments and rewards will only do the young Gifted Hunter damage. Being patronized by, Intelligent or not, Farmers as well. And unfortunately that sometimes also includes giftedness ‘experts’. Participating well in a Farmer society has been elevated to the gold standard, the universal yardstick against which everyone should be measured and in which direction everyone should develop. You don't just short-change Gifted Hunters with that, you’re cutting yourself in the fingers as a society when the Farmer system itself runs out of steam (see below).
But perhaps the most important reason that Gifted Hunters don't fit well into a Farmer society is that it, as they experience it in their very core, forces them into a mind-numbing existence. They feel all too well the price of being part of the cogwheels of society. Above all, they crave authenticity, integrity, meaning and feeling alive.
Writer Maggie O’Farrell, © unknown.
“I’m desperate for change,
endlessly seeking novelty,
where can I find it?”
hUNTERS NEED TO FEEL ALIVE
Nothing wakes you up and makes you feel alive like standing face to face with a saber-tooth tiger. Hunting traditionally puts Hunters in situations that allow them to develop assertiveness, competence and capacity for impact. And to experience feelings of fear, anger and courage. In other words, the uncertainty and personal risk of the hunt make them feel alive. Or in a more modern version, new (sensory) information and challenges give modern Hunters what they crave, what they are wired for and what makes them feel alive. Novelty seeking Hartmann calls this and it is a basic need for Hunters, Gifted or not.
“With the characteristics of the ‘hunters’ in mind, Hartmann notes that Maslow, known for his ‘pyramid’ of human needs and thus the founder of humanistic psychology, has overlooked an essential need: the ‘need to feel alive’. (2019, p. 69).
It is this need, according to Hartmann, that ensures that a bored child in the classroom, who no longer understands what the teacher is saying, is activated to do something to experience liveliness again. That ‘doing something’ is usually something that is disturbing for the teacher, but is in fact a brain that seeks new sources of sensory information in order to ‘wake up’ again.”
Our contemporary society has provided so much stability, security and safety that Hunter types are getting less and less of what they need to feel alive. There is little new to experience outside the ubiquitous screen which provides only a simulation of life. A risk-free, predictable and repetitive life also feels fake to them, as if the essential ingredient is missing. The social drama, in which so many play little more than an automated role, is not in which they feel at home. As if they are players who are not given the room to play, in a game full of non-playing characters. It is not for nothing that many boys disappear in a digital, virtual game world where they are still allowed to be hunters.
Many Gifted Hunters display tremendous curiosity, intelligence, and creativity at a young age. They have insights that are far from standard for someone their age. But because their minds work so fast and they get bored so easily with routine tasks and uninspired activities, they tend to exhibit ‘problem behavior’. AD(H)D-like behavior can arise, while in essence we’re just seeing giftedness that’s not being catered for. In that context, it is good to realize that experience, expertise and sincerity, walking your talk, are important conditions for Hunters in order to accept your authority. Or to draw the parallel with gifted people: they only accept something from you when you understand them and their giftedness, not when you just know a lot about the two. It has to be real and meaningful. You must embody what it is you’re offering.
Authenticity, freedom, uncertainty and taking personal risks changes the relationship between you and life: more intense and personal. This is what gives life color, in Technicolor and Kodachrome. It’s not surpring therefore that many adult Gifted Hunters become restless after 2 years in the same job. Then ‘it’ starts to itch again, the image has become too faded, and they go looking for a new hunting ground with bright colors. The fact that this does not always harmonize well with existing management development processes and career paths means that they are not easily regarded as high potential, even though they can give organizations an enormous innovative impulse.
A DIFFERENT EVOLVING SELF PROFILE
Gifted Hunters are difficult to capture in a model developed for Farmers. After all, a gifted individual is more than a collection of properties or characteristics that you can map separately and then only have to 'manage' or cater for. With Your Evolving Self we therefore also look at specific creative talents, multiple intelligences, combined with the specifics of the gifted character and the individual’s focus on innovation. It is precisely the combination and integration of these dimensions that tells us what kind of education, organizations and functions suit someone and what this person needs to flourish.
For example, if someone possesses markedly strong Bodily-Kinesthetic and Spatial-Visual talents combined with high Responsiveness, Inner Drive, Integral Perception, and a tendency for Nonconformity, then that person is almost certainly a Gifted Hunter who should stay well away from Farmer jobs.
With the same talents but combined with well-developed Logical-Mathematical and Verbal qualities and less extreme scores on the other four characteristics, the person is more likely to be an Intelligent Farmer and will fit well into the current social systems. Their experiences in life, in education, work and relationships will then differ considerably, while at the core they possess the same distinct talents.
Of course this is just an example and there are countless variants of both types. The spread among gifted people is large, not one is the same. In terms of professions, I have so far mainly encountered Gifted Hunters among artists, police & defense employees, sales people, consultants, creative entrepreneurs, freelancers, traders / traders, engineers and (international) executives. However, the most outspoken Gifted Hunters I've encountered have dropped out or were about to drop out of the system. While they are the necessary ‘medicine’ against the ‘disease’ that has gripped our society.
WHEN THE HARVEST FAILS, IT'S the HUNTERS' TURN
With the advent of agriculture, the importance of hunting declined. Hunters had to stand idly by or inflict self-harm and conform to a role within the system. But when the harvest failed, those same hunters were relied upon to re-supply the tribe with food. Our modern post-industrial society is now in a similar situation. The unrest is omnipresent, the systems screech and creak.
Sitting still, only following protocols and procedures, over-adjusting and restraining yourself, endless talks and meetings, having to play a role in front of a screen and, above all, not being allowed to focus on what seems right to you, is the best way to externalize healthy life energy into violent (sexual or criminal) outbursts and misguided activism. Or internalize it into an addiction, such as gaming, or depression.
The systems that have made society great are becoming more of a burden to that same society. A burden that prevents society from taking a much needed evolutionary jump. The role of (legal) procedures, protocols, standards, rules, regulations, administrative obligations, insurances, accountability, KPIs, consultations, meetings and mandatory refresher courses, in other words the expanding bureaucracy, has become so great that it is at the expense of what really matters, such as time for the individual student in education and good care for the patient within health care.
The system cannibalizes itself. People have less and less time for their actual work. They are increasingly administering, managing and communicating, without actually adding anything. Meanwhile, the stress levels are getting higher and higher. The professional who wants to think for himself, who wants to form her own opinion and who wants to be able to decide the right thing to do, is getting more and more difficult. A trend that has also taken hold of science. The good ones burn out and leave. Or don't even start. The individual is being sacrificed for the maintaining of the system.
“Today, too many Gifted Hunters are the right people at the right time
in an unwelcoming place.”
The concept of manufacturability can be directly linked to farming culture. After all, management is farming and the idea that if you collect as much data as possible about something, you then get the subject manageable and can manage it, is an illusion that denies the nature of reality. Especially in an increasingly complex world, this strategy will always fall short. Just like the idea of organizing the world more and more centrally, which is precisely what is counterproductive under complex circumstances.
Where a hunter is forced to deal with reality, experiences first-hand that laws of nature must be respected and that the world is inherently uncertain and sometimes unsafe, the modern executive increasingly deals with a ‘screen reality’ full of model-generated indicators fed by extreme amounts of data and the ideology du jour. Meanwhile, the desire for certainty, predictability and manageability chains the modern Gulliver ever tighter to Lilliput.
From an evolutionary point of view, the way in which we have organized our Western society has had its day. The flip side of the prosperity brought by successive agricultural, industrial and post-industrial times is undeniable. From exhaustion of the planet to the mental and physical condition of modern man. In her requiem for the post-industrial world, the possibly last and final iteration of the Farmer’s World, 'Chained to the Rhythm' Katy Perry sings this as follows:
“So comfortable, we’re livin’ in a bubble,
So comfortable, we cannot see the trouble,
Yeah, we think we’re free (but)
We’re all chained to the rhythm.”
The pendulum has reached its maximum excursion and must now swing the other way. Trying to achieve this by relying exclusively on new technologies, such as AI and alternative energies, without tackling the essential systemic flaws, will only increase the downside, postpone the inevitable turning point even further and increase the ultimate price that we as a society will have to pay.
With the societal 'harvest' failing, it is up to the modern version of the hunter to lead 'the tribe' into a new age and a new earth. Exploring new paths, devising new solutions and solving problems are part of the nature of the Hunter not of the Farmer. Hunters are innovators and early adopters. Gifted Hunters can potentially become the forerunners of the new and the Intelligent Farmers the ideal people to anchor and perpetuate that new society. With that, the need for what Gifted Hunters can bring is greater than ever, but the demand is still small. They are alien to the system, and so far have had to conform to the system before they are given space, influence and mandate. However, that forced adjustment damages them and reduces their potential impact. And this while it is no coincidence that there are more and more Gifted Hunters among humanity right now.
WHY NOW: THE GIFTED HUNTER HYPOTHESIS
Although the jury is still out since Darwin wrote 'On the Origin of Species', evolution seems to be characterized by a form of natural selection for the best adaptation to circumstances and an increase in diversity and complexity. The Gifted Hunter hypothesis is based on this.
Source: Ian Morris (2011), CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Our social conditions have changed extremely in recent times, as the Social Development Index shows. This change is certainly not one 'of all times'. This is mainly due to opening up the world of information. New information always leads to change in a system, including in people themselves. It is therefore not surprising that the information society has caused such a great pressure to change on humanity that we find ourselves at a bifurcation point: either in the middle of an evolutionary leap or in the middle of a collapse. All this newly available information must be processed and applied. Gifted Hunters therefore have excellent information retrieval & processing skills combined with a wide range of creative outlets.
The Gifted Hunter represents a possible evolutionary step forward and is more than an above-average intelligent human who happens to have an active Hunter gene. Social conditions have changed radically, thanks to the extreme social development in the past centuries. The Gifted Hunter archetype is a response to that. We also see a jump in diversity and complexity of character in the gifted themselves, an enormous variation among themselves, so that they really differ on crucial points from the ADHD-Hunter type as described by Hartmann. Their sensitivities, complex character, inner experience, emotions, sense of justice and focus on creation would make them extremely vulnerable during the hunt in the classical sense. The added value of an exceptional talent for mathematics or music melts like snow in the sun when you come face to face with the aforementioned saber-toothed tiger.
Gifted Hunters are therefore an adaptation to future-proof humanity as a whole in the Information Age. A forward activation, triggered by massive changes in circumstances, by a massive input of new information. It is with good reason that many Gifted Hunter children have a clearly felt mission to accelerate the (especially spiritual and humanistic) development of humanity. From a very young age, they have life insights that amaze us adults. But they can also just as easily be swept aside by the same adults, negating the enormous value these children represent to humanity. Although we can help them to develop, they are the ones who have us a lot to teach.
The Gifted Hunter can therefore be regarded as a higher octave of the Hunter. You could say irreverently: they are a trial sample of nature to find out which human variation will be best adapted to the information society and can take it to a higher level. The ability to process much larger amounts of information and complexity than an average person certainly points in that direction. Perhaps it's the Huntergene now expressed in a specific combination with other genes. Or, and scientists can eventually determine that, a whole new gene has become active. What was originally and ostensibly junk-DNA may have suddenly started providing information that is now relevant for adapting to radically changed circumstances.
In the 2020s we are collectively entering uncharted territory and that’s when you have to rely on explorers, scouts and hunters. And on leaders who do more than just manage and keep up the system at all costs; people with a higher vision, strong ethics and enough tenacity to actually move society forward. These roles are ideally suited for Gifted Hunters and a sensible society facilitates them in this. Because just as the Gifted Hunter needs a Farmer to scale up, manage and perpetuate his 'prey', his initiatives, creations and solutions, Farmers now need the Gifted Hunter to give their Farmer's World a future.
TO BE CONTINUED
This blog is a start point. There are still many Gullivers to be freed from their Lilliput chains, there are still many innovators trapped on the Animal Farm. And there is so much more to tell about the Gifted Hunter itself - from specific qualities and pitfalls, appropriate environments, time perception, personal relationships, lifestyle and work style advice, to the importance for society and the overall evolution of humanity - that I started writing a book about it. There will also be a dedicated YouTube channel where I will upload vlogs about the many topics related to the Gifted Hunter .
I'll use summer 2023 to sort things out and this fall you'll hear more about how and what. So please be patient, to be continued. If this prospect appeals to you, I'd love to hear it. If you want to stay informed about the Gifted Hunter developments, sign up for the newsletter . You will hear from me this fall.
© Dirk Anton van Mulligen, 2023. This article is the result of regular and long reflection on this matter, supplemented with my experiences with gifted people. In other words, I put a lot of time and energy into it. No part of this article may therefore be reproduced without acknowledging the source and author. If you want to use more than a single quote or insight, please contact us for permission or not.
Bannerphoto by Norbert Braun on Unsplash.
Any copyright on the photos of Jane Goodall and Maggie O'Farrell is unknown to me. Should there be a copyright infringement regarding these photos, I'll remove them immediately when given notice.