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I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

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Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#221

I'm also a "slow thinker" in this regard. It's not in my view anything other than your thoughtfulness being influenced by your personality. Folks like us are attempting to be thoughtful but without trying, and we have the capacity to hold back our impulses from the cerebral cortex. People who are "quick tongued", are not always coming up with the right answer, their personality is simply more dominant. What's always…

I bet you're a lot of fun at parties.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not like to put random people on the spot like that. That is frankly a supremely inconsiderate thing to ask along the lines of "Are you wealthy?" "Do you have a lot of sex?". Fine if your answer happens to be yes, or fine if you happen to be quick with some deflecting come-back about the metaphorical "interesting times". At least now, thanks to this post, I can -slowly, haha- develop an angle on an answer, al…

Therapists are people to you pay to talk to you when you've got no one else. Why spurn free therapy? It's a great question because if it draws out a rude response like yours, the questioner knows to not waste more time on small talk.

Therapists are people you request for such help. Parents are among the very few other people with any right to offer it unsolicited.

Would you really accept being asked my imaginary question about your spouses sex life from any ordinary aquaintence? Why not? It's free help! You should always want your spouse to have as full and rich a life as possible, and it's too easy to forget that a big part of their life is actually subject to your level of effort and imagination and bravery.

The original question is essentially personal on the order that we usually place on sexual or health matters.

The best word is "inconsiderate" in that it literally fails to consider, or considers and ignores, that many, perhaps most people's honest answer would have to be no, and further, the process of being asked and answering forces everyone who had to answer "no" or "not enough", to recognize that "no" isn't just a harmless answer like what flavor of ice cream you like, where chocolate or vanilla or "I don't like ice cream" are all equally fine. No they are forced to confront that "no" is a failing, and therefor that they fail at something, and that what they fail at is nothing too important, just life itself.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#223

I feel this way too. Someone once told me about their Google interview and mentioned one of the problems. I spent a fruitless 20 mins flailing around trying for a good solution, then stopped thinking about it. 5 hours later on public transit the entire (and, as it happens, perfect) solution popped, unbidden, into my head. I always thought that would have been particularly galling if it had been my interview...

I had an interview question like that once. I managed to come up with an ugly-but-passable solution at the time.

Later that evening a much better solution occurred to me so I coded it up and emailed it to the interviewers.

I got an offer the next morning.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#224
post #221

I'm also a "slow thinker" in this regard. It's not in my view anything other than your thoughtfulness being influenced by your personality. Folks like us are attempting to be thoughtful but without trying, and we have the capacity to hold back our impulses from the cerebral cortex. People who are "quick tongued", are not always coming up with the right answer, their personality is simply more dominant. What's always…

I bet you're a lot of fun at parties.

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Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#225
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be surprised how often people don't even notice if you respond to "hey, how are you", with "hi". But, really, the script you're meant to follow goes like this: Hey how are you? Hey, good, how about you? Pretty good Then, if the conversation is meant to continue, which it most often is not, one of you says "So ... what's up in your life?" or "So ... how's that thing you're working on going?" or some other mo…

It's just a standard greeting. Personally, I find it weird if people actually tell me how they're going when I ask them. It's even more peculiar/banal in French, where the conversation goes: Salut, ça va? Ça va, et toi? Ça va. "Ça va" translates to "it is". So in essence, it's a completely meaningless exchange.

Absolutely not. In case it's someone you don't know a colleague, you open a communication channel allowing them to switch to a different topic and indicating you are not currently busy or annoyed (in which case you would have added it to the "ca va" - "ca va, mais un peu presse/occupe en ce moment").

If it's someone you know well or who knows you, in the timings of responses and the expression of the face you are able to pick up how they're feeling, if something is going on in their lives or is bothering them.

It's much less scripted than the American "hi, how are you", which can only have one answer and always need to have the same expression.

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#226

I'm the same way! I have to train myself not to think when people give a casual "hey, how are you?". The book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts" has an interesting message about how introverts struggle to fit into an image of society where one must be a quick-witted extrovert in order to be successful and powerful. I think it's the same for fast vs slow thinkers. It's important to know your a slow thinker, and accept i…

> I'm the same way! I have to train myself not to think when people give a casual "hey, how are you?". I know, right? I knew I couldn't be the only person around that gets annoyed when other ask this of me and I have to divert resources the answer the annoyingly irrelevant question. even more so when after careful considering and answering, the answer is essentially ignored. every. time.

I can't fathom why you've been down-voted on this comment! I feel the exact same way and I think you've elaborated on the parent's comment in a usefully specific way.

And I, too, find the exchange irritating and have now taken to a stock response of "hi" as a form of "nonviolent resistance"[01] to the question!

[01] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance

Re: I’m a very slow thinker (2016)

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Creativity is not a team sport", an observation from Prof Vincent Walsh on neuroscience of creativity: [There's] a very long and well-established literature in psychology that getting groups of people together is no way to come up with ideas. Creativity is not a team sport. What you're looking for is somebody's individual, intellectual trunk to make new connections and come up with something new. Let's imagine billi…

Creativity is absolutely a team sport. It's just not a timed sport.

I came here to say something similar. My creativity will be fairly good when I'm engaged with others. OTOH, if I need to be more than just creative, i.e. thoughtful, I need to be offline.
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