Post #1343375

2026-04-18 18:30 UTC

i&#39;ve always admired and sometimes envied people who can think very quickly, in front of others. it&#39;s taken me a long time to appreciate slow and solitary thinking (which i relate to more naturally) as a complementary skill, but i hope i can do some good in the world by talking about it. if you process things slowly, you&#39;re probably noticing a lot more detail, taking less for granted. sharing what you learn, even at long delay, is a gift you may give others patient enough to deserve it

Replies (7)

@whitequark@social.treehouse.systems 2026-04-18 18:33

@chrisamaphone i found fast thinking of the kind you describe hard to value in sincerity, mostly because it was really highly rewarded in the academic environment i grew up in and the whole thing was inducing resentment since then i've come to learn the skill and appreciate when it works and when not, but i'd guess (if i had to guess) that the slower mode is probably the more dominant one, it just isn't flashy enough to be overexposed culturally

Open ##1780155
@flippac@types.pl 2026-04-18 18:41

@chrisamaphone i only ever pulled off what i did because of all the thinking i wasn't having to do and wasn't getting to do in the environment i was in (plus sometimes it's an old line of argument or snark) i mean, does it affect my taste in games? absolutely! but my best stuff is the stuff where even if people didn't see the slow thinking it absolutely happened and i'm taking smaller steps than it looks like in the moment

Open ##1780156
@mra@mathstodon.xyz 2026-04-18 18:57

@chrisamaphone i didn't really notice just how slowly i process things until i had to take oral exams during my master's degree, where an inability to think quickly in front of others is punished quite harshly. i do absolutely find value in being a relatively slower thinker. i get a lot out of ruminating on things for a long time

Open ##1780157
@kevinrns@mstdn.social 2026-04-18 19:21

@chrisamaphone This is true.

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@platypusparent@aus.social 2026-04-18 21:03

@chrisamaphone I feel like a slow thinker on some topics and a fast thinker on other topics.

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@KentNavalesi@mstdn.social 2026-04-18 23:08

@chrisamaphone I'm the same way. In school we would play class games where you had to think fast, and I always just forfeited because I didn't care to think that fast. It didn't even make me feel stupid. I thought the emphasis on speed was stupid.

Open ##1780165
@vzaliva@mastodon.acm.org 2026-04-19 03:21

@chrisamaphone There is this quote from more than a decade ago that stuck with me: "Among highly intelligent people, there are two kinds of minds, the sharp and the soft. We expect smart people to have minds like swords, made to fight and slash and slay. Soft smart minds, though, are of another, rarer kind. They absorb great quantities of data and opinion, often silently, even sluggishly, and turn them around slowly until a solution appears." https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/28/music-to-your-ears

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