Q&A: Thinking Faster Than Speaking and Writing (What Causes This Phenomenon?)
Thinking Faster Than Speaking and Writing (What Causes This Phenomenon?)
Question
There is a certain phenomenon — I don’t know whether it’s common among many people, but in any case, unfortunately I experience it myself.
The phenomenon is as follows (my own interpretation):
the mind runs faster than one’s ability to write and speak. The result is that when you speak, you’re actually already thinking about the next argument, or several after that, especially based on what you think your conversation partner will probably answer you.
The side effects:
many times you clip words and miss what exactly you wanted to argue and about what. Sometimes you go too far ahead and the other person doesn’t understand what your point even is…
Usually the speech is fast and less clear, and in writing likewise. But in reading you race through and skim from above, mainly reading the idea and not the words, so you barely notice reading and spelling mistakes.
(And when the smart keyboard helps all this along, the thing looks at minimum like an at-bash riddle… This comes up because of the harsh criticism of a gloomy babbling grandfather.)
I wanted to know whether the Rabbi experiences things of this sort.
I’ve seen quite a few talented people who speak slowly and clearly, and others who speak quickly and unclearly. The question is whether those who speak slowly manage to make their minds govern their words even though the mind runs faster, or whether this has nothing at all to do with talent.
Answer
This is the second time you’ve gone back to the babbling grandfather, when that was me. It seems you also read faster than you write.
Your question is something for researchers to investigate, not for me.
Discussion on Answer
Babbler.
Indeed, your sharp words in the name of the gloomy holy grandfather had substance in them along with lots of husks; I tried to take the substance and shake off the husks.
Glad that you learned even from me something about criticism, and indeed I try to go over my words again because of your criticism of what I write, at least once, maybe twice.
It’s no shame to learn from any person, even if he is Mr. Babbler, only it is worthwhile and recommended to extract the straight lines out of the scribbling.
As for the phenomenon itself:
It seems that the Rabbi belongs to the family of the fast ones.
The main point of my question — whether the phenomenon is familiar to the Rabbi — I did not receive (directly). The Rabbi is, as is known, a talented person, and I, small as I am, have seen him suffering from the phenomenon of reading mainly the content while skipping over the words, and thereby throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Even here, when the speech itself was about the phenomenon, the mishap occurred in his hands.
See also his above response, which proves beyond any doubt that the Rabbi is definitely on the spectrum in question; it seems that the Rabbi reads faster than he writes (and therefore attacks a person for no wrong of his own), so from his own words there is no longer all that much need for the researchers he recommended.
Go out and see how people actually behave… and his words, speaking innocently at speed, clarified the doubt.
Much obliged.
I am indeed from the family of the fast ones, but here no mistake at all was made by me. I’m the one who commented to you about the at-bash. But I’m done.
By the nature of things, under the cover of ambiguity one can exaggerate, and whoever takes it may measure out for himself the measure fitting for him. I wonder whether anyone besides you understood that this was not just trolling (which was meant to be deleted). Nor is there any reason to expect others to understand that “Crooked Grandfather” means me, young Babbler, may I live long, and to infer: gloomy father, crooked grandfather. Since you specifically used the description at-bash, you left room for error.
As for the substance of your message, by the way, there are two separate situations. When you’re thinking through the idea with a study partner and it’s still taking shape, then the words really are confused and jumpy and loose ends remain. But after the give-and-take and the crystallization, when presenting the matter in writing or in a lecture, then one can (and should) impose order and clarity and structure. That’s why, by the way, in my view there are also two kinds of study partners: the cutter and the drawer-up. One cuts off every idea while it is still in its infancy, unless it is instantly illuminating all at once. And one draws up and draws out — if you said something, he lingers on it a bit to consider whether there is something to draw out of it (or perhaps a pearl beneath it), even if it is not final and does not solve everything, etc. And I felt this even more than in a Talmud study partnership in collaborative work on relatively long-term research; and when two drawers-up gather together, the land is filled with produce.
Babbler.
This time I agree with almost every pearl.
Just note how the Rabbi stumbled because of the at-bash, even though I took care to state immediately after the example that I did not mean his at-bash criticism, (which was gentle and focused), but rather the criticism of Babbler (which was harsh and condescending).
And again, the thing proves that indeed the Rabbi belongs to the family of the fast ones and the “missers.” What can you do — no one is perfect, the Rabbi isn’t autistic… (Rabbi there, there).
And by the way, hear something that in my eyes is remarkable. I’ve known etc. quite a few lecturers and people who deliver classes, and I almost include a general rule: every good lecturer speaks slowly (in such a way that on YouTube you can calmly put him on x2). If the material is well grounded, then a good aid to understanding is to explain slowly.
For example, I had a lecturer who was like a galloping horse in full run, and he also enjoyed giving the answer before the question (for instance, he mentioned that no influence can be faster than the speed of light, and then he raised the difficulty of an extremely long stick that you move from one end and then the other end moves “immediately.” But he didn’t pause on the question — he immediately gave the answer, and in an offhand way. There was a murmuring confusion in the audience from lack of understanding. Then he explains it again). In the end it comes out like an arithmetic progression of explanation. At first they explain in two sentences, then people don’t understand so they explain in five, then again people don’t understand so they explain in eight, etc. Better from the outset to explain in eight sentences.
I also had a rabbi whose classes really were full of content and were delivered at speed, but it was like driving on the Jordan Valley highway. You get to the destination, but everything is monotonous, and without attention you can’t feel whether this is some enormous difficulty on the whole explanation of the Rashba in the passage itself, one worthy of being honored and changing the order of the world for it, or just a slight nuance in Rashi’s wording from which it emerges a bit not like Pnei Yehoshua but like Maharshal.
And with this I conclude: among the qualities of good explanation are to explain calmly, and to explain in an orderly way, and to blend form into the content in order to make things easier for the listener (just like designated turns of phrase. In the Talmud, for example: “let him distinguish and teach in that case itself,” “whichever way you look at it” — these are turns of phrase whose very use already tells you what kind of argument is about to come here. And someone who has a “let him distinguish and teach in that case itself” difficulty really should use that excellent formula). I’ve gone on at great length and wandered off topic, sorry.
Truth be told, to the Rabbi’s credit, in classes at any rate he does speak slowly and clearly.
His classes I don’t know, but all the more so his writing (which in my eyes is exemplary, and by the way personally I even prefer the books that are not “edited”). But as stated, I don’t really understand what the complaint here is. There was no stumble at all; you just hinted with a hint that hinted at the land, and your hint was not understood. And as for what you wrote — harsh and condescending (as opposed to gentle and focused, and upon reflection this can be reconciled) — truth be told, I suspected that the extra condescension gave rise to the skipping over the proofreading; nevertheless now I shall withdraw and weep, my two eyes shall run down with tears and my eyelids shall stream with water.
[The holy father’s intention was to the deleted question (may his soul be bound in the bond of life) in which I wondered about “proofophobia” (under the name Crooked Grandfather), and I explained, with Heaven’s help, that the keyboard is one thing and proofreading with the eye is another. And here he explained that even in proofreading one races and skims etc., and the difficulty still remains, for here there is no soundness at all, wound and bruise; so the urge is conquerable. In any case, Rabbi Father, you taught me a lesson in accepting criticism.]