“Growing Up”

I’ve always been what I like to call an associative thinker. That is, when left to its own devices and not conformed to a prescribed pattern, my brain responds to sensory stimuli, and creates a thought path. It’s like word association, but so much richer because it can be triggered by a smell or a sound, and continue linking ideas and thoughts through that sense.

When I was a younger, I was sometimes perceived as an odd, random child. My inner monologue was continuous, and I had difficulty keeping it to myself. To compound my natural verbosity, I would often begin verbalizing somewhere in the middle of my thought path, and then lapse back into my mind without realizing it. In this way, I was random because the links between my verbalized thoughts were not always apparent. I was odd, and precocious, because when questioned I could always explain my thought path – which confused and occasionally impressed adults.

I’ve been doing this since I can remember, which is from approximately 18 months of age. I’ve been told I started speaking at 8 months, and haven’t stopped since.

As I got older, I learned to control my inner monologue. I also learned how to express my thoughts in a way that better included others. As I got older still, and learned Paradigms, I silenced my inner monologue because such thought was frivolous when I was meant to be conforming to a particular thought pattern.

As I got older still, that made me unhappy, because I realized that my inner monologue has value – that the way I think has value.

I decided that the stifling of my inner voice should end. It doesn’t have to be a part of Growing Up, even though we are sometimes taught that it should.

This blog is an attempt to capture those thoughts, because I believe that they are useful. If that wasn’t enough, imagine my recent surprise to discover that associative thinking is a real thing, and something that is valued.

Thank you for coming on this journey with me. I hope that by sharing my thoughts I can inspire you towards your own reflections and that we can learn together.