It’s hard to know what’s going on in another person’s brain; after all, we’re mostly used to how our own brain functions. Researchers have tried to measure the brain and its capacity in different ways. Shape of the head, weight of the brain and electrical activity are some examples that can tell you a lot about the brain, but they still can’t measure our thoughts.
Since I have migraines every day and have done a bit of research from a non-professional perspective, my interest in the brain also concerns the neurological aspect. Why do I have migraine? What happens during a migraine attack? How does the medicine work? And I have also noticed that my mood shifts before and after a migraine attack. Sometimes I can get very sad before I understand that migraine is on its way, and then when I finally take my migraine medicine, and it starts to work so that my migraine disappears, then I get back to my happy, energetic and constructive mood again. Migraines and depression have a lot in common if you look at them from a neurological perspective.
But none of this can tell me much about why I think like I do. Am I a very rare person? No, not very rare, but rare enough to sometimes feel lonely when I understand that others find my way of thinking a bit strange, or unusual. They might say that I am ”so creative” or that I am a ”quick thinker” – but what does that mean? Some days ago, a woman said to me, ”It’s a bit strange with you, because on one hand you are so analytic and on the other hand so creative.”
I didn’t think much about that until yesterday, when I found this article about ”How Renaissance People Think”. Then it got so obvious.
The article begins with a test:
Do you think like a polymath?
Here’s a quick test: Are you more of a rational or experiential/intuitive thinker?
If you cringed as you read the question and thought to yourself ”I love constantly shifting between both modes of thought”, then you’re on the polymath path.
That was it. It has never been clearer to me that I am a polymath. That doesn’t mean I am smart in every situation, and it doesn’t mean my IQ is among the highest – actually, I find IQ tests quite boring; I can’t motivate myself to do them…
I think what’s bothering me is my need to constantly shift between these two moods. When I am in a serious and more rational, analytical discussion, I feel the urge to bring in some fantasy, a joke or whatever that is something else, and for me, that is like fuel to my brain. It helps me think more rationally and analytically. At least that’s what I believe. Maybe that is what some people refer to as ”thinking outside the box”? In that case, I have a strong need to get outside that box now and then.
Even if people claim to like it when some people think outside the box, it doesn’t mean they like it in the moment when it happens. I guess rational, analytical thinkers have problems with someone like me leaving the box right in the middle of something. They don’t realise that I will jump back into the box in a couple of minutes and then bring some new oxygen to the discussion.
It can also be the other way around: I discuss with someone who is a creative and intuitive thinker, then I step out of that box and start speaking about rational aspects. Then they have problems with me leaving the box, too.
But sometimes magic happens when I meet a person who’s also a Renaissance cross thinker. Before, I thought it was about meeting someone who is curious and interested in a lot of different subjects, but after reading this article, I realise it’s about the relief of knowing that“this person will understand and actually follow me the next time I jump out of any box”.
This doesn’t mean it’s better to be a cross thinker or a rational or intuitive thinker. Those who are mostly rational or intuitive get better and better at thinking like that, and they can find solutions because they are so specialised. We need all types of people and thinking.
But, reading this article made me understand that it’s not a matter of not concentrating or, even worse, escaping, when my mind jumps out of the box. It’s my way of thinking. My brain needs to jump like that, because in the end, it makes my thinking better.
