Thinking about thinking

So Chaz and I were having lunch with Toni yesterday (thank you Ms. Toni – I am remembering that lunch fondly and with some regret that it’s over) and we were talking about a mess of stuff.  Honestly, we are very interesting people.  At one point, we were talking about writing and talking, about the process of mashing ideas into words.  I mean, you have this cloud of concepts and conclusions and opinions in your head, and to get it all out, you have to—it’s like spinning wool, kind of.  You have to run it through your fingers and wind it down so it will fit into language.  Linear language – like, there has to be a subject that does something to something by some means.  In a split second, you have to analyze that mass of ideas and pull it to pieces, and then put the pieces all in order in order to talk about it.  Which I am not, at this moment, doing at all well.

But that started me thinking about thinking.

So, how do you think?  Do you think in words?  In pictures?  How?  I’m not even sure how I think.  I’m only sure that I never know exactly what I’m thinking until I say it out loud.  Which may be why I talk so much (write so much?).

And why the disconnect between a lot of men’s brains and their language?  Because it’s typical (according to science) of male brains to have more difficulty fitting what’s going on in their brains into words than it is for female brains.  It’s like, the more you think in vectors (a vector being a force with velocity, direction and a point of application), the more quickly you can shove your thinking into language, which also has velocity, direction and a point of application.

Except, men are the ones who are supposed to think in linear ways, while women think in arrays (more like clouds of points than like lines of points), which doesn’t line up at all with what I just said.  And I’ve lost EVERYBODY by now, huh? 

Okay, I guess what I’m asking here – we can’t see through each other’s eyes to compare my green with yours.  But can you put into words something about how you think?  Because I suspect we’re all different.  But I’m not sure.  So spill, will ya?