Throughout my childhood and my schooldays, I was told I had a Butterfly Mind. This was a Bad Thing and I must not have one. This is tricky, because you don’t choose it, it chooses you.

This has dogged me all my life.

Until now.

Suddenly, I realise that, far from being a handicap and something to be worried about, to be got rid of, this is a fantastic asset.

Problem is The Dull and The Stupid don’t understand what the Butterfly Mind is and what it does. To their dull comprehension, it flits aimlessly from topic to topic, never settling, never following through to the final solution.

Couldn’t be further from the truth.

The Butterfly Mind alights on a topic and perceives, in a network, all the possibilities associated. It sees the avenues of exploration and where they will lead.

It then assesses the potential intellectual interest in the exploration and if it is not enough, moves on to explore other possibilities in our quite interesting universe.

For example, some while ago, I wanted to make an electric guitar. I wanted it to look and sound the way I wanted. Very quickly I could see that cutting and shaping the body, making the neck, accurately and from a decent wood, aligning the neck to the body, would all require a lot more skill than I had. But, going to a secondhand shop and buying a rubbish guitar would give me a body and neck already made and tested. I could then strip it back, modify the body to my tastes, add the electrics I wanted, the paint style, design and finish I wanted, scallop the neck, change the head design and have a guitar that I wanted. And learn a lot about making guitars. After three or four instruments, I realised I must either become a professional luthier, or stop now. It was not an easy decision. My Butterfly Mind had taken me as far down the path as I wanted to go. Further would require the acquisition of skills, expertise and craftsmanship that would take up more of my life than I could spare.

There is so much more to see.

If you have been told you have a Butterfly Mind, be proud of it. Cherish it, encourage it. It will serve you well.

But you must learn how to train it. Not limit it, but train it to tell you when you are crossing over to Rabbit Hole mode and it is time to either dive deep or walk away. Sometimes it makes the decision to move on before you are consciously aware of it. That can be confusing.

Usually, you will reach this point while the D and the S are still trying to define the issue. Admittedly, you will grow tired of telling them the answer and being called a Knowall, so you learn to keep your trap shut.

This does mean you have to watch a few train-wrecks, but there is no alternative.