These days, my thought patterns are pretty circular and frenzied. They constantly churn, thinking they’re making forward movement, and then pass the same landmark they passed a few minutes ago. Frustrated, they look again at the crumpled maps and scraps of written directions in their hands. Surely this is the right way this time. They adjust their course. Start off confidently. And the pattern repeats.

In a more productive state though, I wonder if thought patterning like this could be beneficial. If I was up for it, or if my thoughts were a bit less bent on a specific outcome (and I’m not sure exactly what that is – whether it’s a particular conclusion, a state of understanding, or rest, or a satisfactory level of explorative rigor about the subject at hand?), circling around a subject over time might actually yield more interesting, complex conclusions than if I had taken into singular consideration the evidence or facets at hand. Rather than simply cataloguing available information, what if I consumed it, slowly and interspersed, the way some people thoughtfully eat a plate of food, tasting one dish and then another and then the first again?

I wonder what other thought patterns there are out there. How would you draw the way you think about things? It it a straight line? A curly-q? A scatter plot? Fireworks? A winding river?

-LS