Processing Thoughts + Brain Dumps
I do not know when I fell in love with writing. What I do know is that I have always been writing. I used to write in journals as a kid and I graduated to a computer and tryping to write stories when I was sixteen. The truth is, writing has always been apart of who I am. The notes I used to write to my friends in middle + high school were long. Like pages long, I used to wonder if my friends actually read the whole note, they were that long. Now, I just write novel long texts. I’m not sure if those are fully read either. It’s okay though. I may be a writer at the deepest parts of my soul, but that doesn’t mean everybody I know is a reader.
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”
In my lifetime of experience though, I’ve learned something really important. Writing is more than that annoying thing our teachers made us do. Writing is a craft to be studied and an art to be enjoyed. More importantly, writing is a process to think.
Joan Didion once said, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”
While writers will use their skills and love of writing to craft stories, create narratives, and even share the powerful stories of others, that doesn’t mean that writing should only be left to the writers. As I, and as Joan, has figured out, writing allows us to process our thoughts.
How can writing help us think? Glad you asked, let me break it down.
“Writing is a craft to be studied and an art to be enjoyed. More importantly, writing is a process to think.”
Now, for this article and for the point I am making, we are talking about physically writing. We are talking amazing pens and beautiful notebooks. We are talking about luxuary paper and pens that never bleed. We are talking about open windows, maybe even some rain outside, and the scent of happiness wafting through the air. We’re talking about a cozy seat, a favorite blanket, and some quiet that allows us no distractions.
Wasn’t that a wonderful picture? That is what we are talking about right now when I say writing. Now, onto the points:
Writing helps us slow down our brain.
Let’s fact it, we live in 2024 and we are in the era of technology. I’ve been in computer and typing classes since the 6th grade. Most elementary schools are using iPads if they aren’t using Chromebooks. Computers and smart devices are literally everywhere. I went to a restuarant a few weeks ago where a robot delivered my food. We are surrounded by things that allow us to keep moving forward, to not slow down, to run at something full speed. Technology allows us to believe that we don’t need to slow down.
But we do. That’s why I painted a specific picture about what I was talking about when it comes to writing because we need a place where we can slow down. We need a place to slow our thoughts even. That’s what physically writing does. It forces us to slow down. We can type as fast as we think (or close to it) but we cannot write as fast as we think. When we were taking some time to put pen to paper, we are allowing our thoughts to fully form, fully process, and we are allowing ourselves room to literally think.
Writing helps us process.
Slowing down really helps us put our thoughts together instead of letting one thought run into the next and into the next and so on until we wish we could turn our brains off. I wonder if the rise of technology and all the things that are “freeing up” time is actually making us more busy and trying to get us to go faster instead of giving us the time to slow down. I would be interested in some form of study on that. There are a lot of benefits to technology. I’m not a full out technology hater. However, I think we’re doing ourselves a disservice when we force ourselves to keep going and going that we don’t take time to think or breathe. Writing things out, even if it is just streams of consciousness, helps us process whatever is running around in our brains. Slowing down our brain helps us process situations better. We see more options, we don’t feel like we have to make a decision right away. Slowing down and processing probably helps us make better decisions too.
Writing helps with that.
Writing is great for brain dumps.
You’ve probably seen the meme about how people’s brains are like web browsers with a hundred tabs open. If you haven’t seen the meme, you’ve probably heard it as a joke or maybe as an analogy. We laugh about it but why is this something that we’re okay with? Why do we purposefully try to keep so much in our brains that we feel like we have a million tabs open? Why aren’t we putting that stuff down somewhere? Hello brain dumps. Brain dumps are great for getting all the thoughts running around your brain out. In my experience, brain dumps help me prioritize better. Brain dumps have also helped me figure out what things were important and what ones were distractions.
So now what?
If you’re not someone who naturally picks up blank pages and wants to write, let me be the one to challenge you to start. Keeping a diary sounds childish and old school, so we’ll call it a journal. If you don’t like either of those terms, call it something else, probably something that doesn’t make you cringe. It doesn’t really matter what you call it, all that matters is that you try.
Find some blank pages, find a blank notebook, buy a composition book from the store and keep it on your nightstand. However you acquire some blank pages, fill them up with words. Fill them up with words that need released. Fill them up with thoughts and ideas and next steps. Allow yourself the time and the space to fully think, fully process, and fully plan.
As we have seen in our society today, it seems like critical thinking is a skill that is hard to come by. Our ability to write has deteriorated, especially with the onslaught of AI. There is a part of me that wonders though— are those two things connected? Have we stopped being able to critically think because we cannot write?
So challenge yourself, start writing. Perhaps think about the question I just asked and try to figure out what you think about it.
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash