November 11, 2023

I Think in Pictures

I think in pictures.

I thought there was only one way to think. Thinking was that loud running monologue. The voice inside my head. Feelings came from my body, my heart, my throat, my chest, my gut. Luscious and intriguing experiences. But thoughts spoke to me in the oft annoying narrative. Yammering on and trying to describe everything.

I tried to make the voice go away. I took up meditation and learned that I was indeed separate from my thoughts. We were inextricably linked. But getting just enough space between me and my thoughts created a dialogue. Helpful in ways but there was more I was missing. I could compartmentalize my thoughts. But I had trouble expressing them.

Writing was a step in the right direction. For better or worse it’s a filter for me. Everything flying around my head, squeezes through the bottleneck at my pen and only one thing can come out at a time. It certainly helps in a sorting process. It all feels so complex and takes so many words because none of them get to nuance. Which means I often stopped expressing long before the expression was complete.

This exploration went on for years. I have boxes of journals and logged countless hours on Insight Timer. Still feeling that none of it really got to the real thing. Words were a limitation to expressing my thoughts. I just figured I was “bad” at it. Resigned to not being able to get words around my what was inside of me.

Until…

A foggy, Thanksgiving day, 2022 I drove home from a beautiful meal with a dear friend’s family in SF. My favorite podcaster, Debbie Millman, was speaking with Dr Temple Grandin on Design Matters, one of my top 3 fav podcasts for sure. I was riveted. I won’t do it justice here so go have your own listen. My takeaway would change my relationship with my thoughts…forever.

Dr. Temple Grandin introduced me to myself. She said to me in the front seat of my Chevy Equinox that thoughts can be pictures. And that for many people they are. Mind. Blown. Holy. Shit. She and Debbie talked about how some people think in words, some people in numbers and others in pictures. Suddenly a piece of me I had long buried as unimportant, useless and childish woke up. She cheered and smiled and said, “Yes! That’s me!”

I’ll let Temple explain to you how we dismiss the picture thinkers in our society. How we’ve done ourselves a disservice by designing education systems and workplaces for the linear word or number thinkers. She is brilliant and does a much better job than I would.

I can only tell you of my experience. I think in pictures. I see it all first. I see the connections, the systems, the scenarios play out. This all happens first in vivid and expansive scenes. Then my narrative brain lumps along clumsily trying to explain it. That talky, talky part of me has gotten all the gym time. It’s the process that came less naturally so it needed more practice to accomplish what my over-educated lifestyle was asking of it.

Manifestation

The physical manifestation of thinking in words is writing. Books, poetry, maybe songs and podcasts. The physical manifestation of thinking in pictures is drawing, building, collaging, dance. We don’t practice these things in school. Not anywhere near the amount we do writing. We do it in damn near every class. I followed the lead of our education system and pushed harder in the areas in which I needed better grades and could receive the valued accolades. I put my natural way of thinking on the back burner til it was pretty much off the stove entirely.

Temple, unknowingly, also explained to me why the clients of my interior design practice would look at me sideways when I explained what we would do in their space. I used my words and I didn’t understand why they couldn’t see it. I could see it plain as day. I saw it all in great detail before I even opened my mouth to them.

Since I so long ago stopped practicing the manifestation of my picture-thinking, my skills have been underdeveloped. I use translators, also known as drafters, to show my clients what is in my head. I am getting much more practice now using tools for floor plans and collaging. My craving for journaling to calm my brain has diminished. That which needs to come out is being built in pictures and in real life in the form of art or tables or rooms or whole buildings being reimagined. My books are getting filled with sketches and many fewer words.

I think in pictures. The more I practice letting it come out of me in pictures, the more you’ll see it reflected in these pages. It can still be a challenge for me to take the complex pictures with their connections and systems in my head and put them on a page for you. I’ll find my way through. I’ll show you what’s in my head. The nuance. One way or another.

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