I moved my body in my writing today by physically sorting through tons of notes! I tend to write individual thoughts on tiny pieces of paper as they come to me because it takes time to know where each little idea goes. Piles of paper are ever accumulating on my desk, and every few weeks when I can’t see my desk anymore, it’s time to stop and do some sorting! The physical interactions with the papers -- shifting them into piles, crumpling up and discarding ones I don’t need, jotting new ones, filing some of the papers into project notebooks, and adding others to wall maps -- can be illuminating in itself! I seem to have to physically build my ideas with my hands in order to clarify them enough to express. Thanks for this great prompt, Michael!
Yes, I’m the same! And now that I’m in my 60s (eep!), I’m recognising more and more the value of activities that get me out of my chair and down on the floor, which is where I do most of my post-it note sorting and journal writing and paper collaging -- not just thinking and playing like a child but sitting like a child, criss-cross-applesauce or legs akimbo. (Daily yoga keeps me limber enough to do this!)
This is how I do the coding part of qualitative research. I have to sort little quotes into categories, and then categories into concepts or themes. Here's a picture of the most recent process: https://kimberlyhirsh.com/2023/08/23/welcome-to-the.html
Relieved to hear that I'm not the only one with a paper-strewn desk!!! I was just making a mental note at breakfast this morning to make time once a week for sorting through all the bits I cut out of the newspaper....
What a gorgeous prompt and reminder, Michael - and gorgeous, beautifully balanced image too. I’m writing this while sitting with Freddie by my side on a shaded bench in a rose garden, breathing deeply....
As a neurodivergent kid (before ADHD was diagnosed in girls…not that my teachers back then — or the majority of teachers today — would care), I needed to doodle on my worksheets, to spin my scissors on my finger, to bounce my knee under my desk, to talk to WHOMEVER I was seated next to, and to take frequent water breaks JUST to stay focused in class.
Neurodivergent people NEED stimulation, but because neurotypical people, who occupy the vast majority of the population at 80%) can’t tune our hyperactivity out, we throw them off their tight, orderly, and time-driven course. Consequently, we are punished. Over and over again. This cycle starts in our school system, whose primary purpose is to prepare kids for the neurotypically-biased “real world.”
Teachers tell neurodivergent kids that their inappropriate and disruptive antics won’t be tolerated in the real world. They see it as their mission to tie our proverbial (or literal) left hand behind our backs as a service to ourselves and our future employers. What the teachers seldom realize in their myopic perspective of the workplace is that there are so many jobs out there that don’t require you to sit still in boring meetings for 8 hours a day. (Isn’t that what school is? A daily series of soul-sucking meetings?)
I get to move all day at my job as a customer service rep. No one yells at me for doodling on my notepad while I’m on the phone. I bounce my knees under my desk and no one notices. (I’m not usually at my desk for very long, anyway.) No one shushes my coworkers and me when we crack jokes. I can stand up and walk over to the water cooler whenever I want. I can even have a snack without sneaking it out of my pencil case when my boss isn’t looking. I just don’t twirl my box cutters on my finger. (That’s just not safe.)
Before I was a customer service rep, I was a teacher. I didn’t address my students’ minor “stims” (probably because I barely noticed them) and let them get out of their seats whenever they wanted. As a result, I never had disciplinary issues. My neurotypical students learned to ignore their classmates’ “stims,” in the same way they’d learned to ignore another classmate’s missing limb or lazy eye or incessant sneeze that sounded like a screen door slamming. (True story.) Just as those students had no control over their situations, the neurodivergent kids struggled to regulate their impulses.
We ask neurodivergent kids to take medications to change who they are to appease their neurotypical teachers and classmates. The side effects can range from extreme weight loss to extreme weight gain, from constant fatigue to insomnia to feeling depressed and anxious. All because their bodies and their brains struggle to abide by the arbitrary social norms of the obsolete remnants of America’s factory system.
I wish there was a school where kids with autism, ADHD, and other differences in their brain wiring could satiate their stimulus cravings without being reprimanded like they can in the many real-world jobs that ARE waiting for them. Vo-tech schools used to serve this purpose, but they’ve become elite academic powerhouses.
Schools for neurodivergent learners could:
- virtually eliminate minor classroom discipline issues
- drastically reduce addiction and crime rates
- improve the mental health of neurodivergent individuals
- save lives by reducing the suicide rate
- offer neurotypical teachers the opportunity to use their preferred methods teach the kinds of kids they like
- ensure that neurotypical kids can learn without “distractions”
- orient neurotypical people to the neurodivergent types they are guaranteed to encounter in “the real world”
- lead neurodivergent kids to meaningful career pathways in business, technology, the arts, and trades
- over time, as neurodivergent individuals become more successful and improve the economy, they will be seen as valuable contributors to society and worth of investing into
- improve the world by preparing future neurodivergent leaders in many fields who are now to recognize and solve problems from new perspectives
Here’s the catch: this would take so long and cost so much that no one will want to invest in schools for neurodivergent thinkers, who, despite making up a large component of America’s most successful citizens, will probably always be seen as a drain on the system — all because they can’t sit still and be quiet on the kindergarten rug.
That day may come, Robyn! In the meantime, those of us who are good (or in my case, too good!!) at sitting still need people like you to remind us not to inflict our own way of being and learning on others.
Thanks for the link to your article, Emily. For me, it’s “walking with Freddie” thoughts. Oh yes, and morning bath thoughts, which are less about destabilising motion than about deep immersion...
Love, love, love this prompt! Getting ‘into’ my body definitely helps me to get ‘out’ of my head when I am stuck on a work problem. I find walking fantastic, as there is something about the physical motion that seems to free up my mind and possible solutions start flowing in very quickly without conscious effort.
The suggestion of using handwriting to break out of a block is also something that works for me. In college, I used to draft all my essays by hand, only using a computer to pull the final version together and I came to realise that the tactility and flexibility of handwriting can better suit the way my mind works sometimes.
In the initial stages of writing, I tend to pile quotes, ideas and thoughts on the page as they come to me and then re-read them, using different colour pens to highlight common themes, etc. until coherent sections start to emerge in subsequent drafts. The only computer programme that allows me to do something similar is Scrivener (https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview), as it allows me to pin and assemble scraps of information, quotes, etc and move them around quite easily.
However, for a real ‘old-school’ approach, I also have two vintage typewriters that I love to use for the tactile experience they give to writing – they are especially fun for more creative writing, such as my haiku experiments, as I really get a sense of physically creating something. Check out this cool poster for Olivetti typewriters featuring Dante!! https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/193162271488830009/
I really appreciate this post--I don't know if anyone else feels this but there's something about moving that puts me more in a conversation with my potential reader, rather than a battle with my potential critic. it's like I'm not "really" writing yet, and I can just talk things out in my head, tell them a story, which is one of the key elements of my process. I love the way this post gives space for this.
For me, a key piece of writing with my body is using my eyes to look at something that's not a screen, book, or notebook. I do my best work lying on a hammock, looking up at the sky.
I learned this lesson when I was writing up my PhD. I hadn’t been prepared for how much physical pain it would involve! The importance of swapping between sitting and standing desks, as well as getting away for a walk, run, or gym session...I learned these things from experience. Not only the physical, though - I discovered the cognitive benefits of being up and about. I’ve hung on to these in the time since I graduated. Thanks for the reminder!
I moved my body in my writing today by physically sorting through tons of notes! I tend to write individual thoughts on tiny pieces of paper as they come to me because it takes time to know where each little idea goes. Piles of paper are ever accumulating on my desk, and every few weeks when I can’t see my desk anymore, it’s time to stop and do some sorting! The physical interactions with the papers -- shifting them into piles, crumpling up and discarding ones I don’t need, jotting new ones, filing some of the papers into project notebooks, and adding others to wall maps -- can be illuminating in itself! I seem to have to physically build my ideas with my hands in order to clarify them enough to express. Thanks for this great prompt, Michael!
Yes, I’m the same! And now that I’m in my 60s (eep!), I’m recognising more and more the value of activities that get me out of my chair and down on the floor, which is where I do most of my post-it note sorting and journal writing and paper collaging -- not just thinking and playing like a child but sitting like a child, criss-cross-applesauce or legs akimbo. (Daily yoga keeps me limber enough to do this!)
This is how I do the coding part of qualitative research. I have to sort little quotes into categories, and then categories into concepts or themes. Here's a picture of the most recent process: https://kimberlyhirsh.com/2023/08/23/welcome-to-the.html
👏👏
Relieved to hear that I'm not the only one with a paper-strewn desk!!! I was just making a mental note at breakfast this morning to make time once a week for sorting through all the bits I cut out of the newspaper....
What a gorgeous prompt and reminder, Michael - and gorgeous, beautifully balanced image too. I’m writing this while sitting with Freddie by my side on a shaded bench in a rose garden, breathing deeply....
Lovely!! 🐾🌹
As a neurodivergent kid (before ADHD was diagnosed in girls…not that my teachers back then — or the majority of teachers today — would care), I needed to doodle on my worksheets, to spin my scissors on my finger, to bounce my knee under my desk, to talk to WHOMEVER I was seated next to, and to take frequent water breaks JUST to stay focused in class.
Neurodivergent people NEED stimulation, but because neurotypical people, who occupy the vast majority of the population at 80%) can’t tune our hyperactivity out, we throw them off their tight, orderly, and time-driven course. Consequently, we are punished. Over and over again. This cycle starts in our school system, whose primary purpose is to prepare kids for the neurotypically-biased “real world.”
Teachers tell neurodivergent kids that their inappropriate and disruptive antics won’t be tolerated in the real world. They see it as their mission to tie our proverbial (or literal) left hand behind our backs as a service to ourselves and our future employers. What the teachers seldom realize in their myopic perspective of the workplace is that there are so many jobs out there that don’t require you to sit still in boring meetings for 8 hours a day. (Isn’t that what school is? A daily series of soul-sucking meetings?)
I get to move all day at my job as a customer service rep. No one yells at me for doodling on my notepad while I’m on the phone. I bounce my knees under my desk and no one notices. (I’m not usually at my desk for very long, anyway.) No one shushes my coworkers and me when we crack jokes. I can stand up and walk over to the water cooler whenever I want. I can even have a snack without sneaking it out of my pencil case when my boss isn’t looking. I just don’t twirl my box cutters on my finger. (That’s just not safe.)
Before I was a customer service rep, I was a teacher. I didn’t address my students’ minor “stims” (probably because I barely noticed them) and let them get out of their seats whenever they wanted. As a result, I never had disciplinary issues. My neurotypical students learned to ignore their classmates’ “stims,” in the same way they’d learned to ignore another classmate’s missing limb or lazy eye or incessant sneeze that sounded like a screen door slamming. (True story.) Just as those students had no control over their situations, the neurodivergent kids struggled to regulate their impulses.
We ask neurodivergent kids to take medications to change who they are to appease their neurotypical teachers and classmates. The side effects can range from extreme weight loss to extreme weight gain, from constant fatigue to insomnia to feeling depressed and anxious. All because their bodies and their brains struggle to abide by the arbitrary social norms of the obsolete remnants of America’s factory system.
I wish there was a school where kids with autism, ADHD, and other differences in their brain wiring could satiate their stimulus cravings without being reprimanded like they can in the many real-world jobs that ARE waiting for them. Vo-tech schools used to serve this purpose, but they’ve become elite academic powerhouses.
Schools for neurodivergent learners could:
- virtually eliminate minor classroom discipline issues
- drastically reduce addiction and crime rates
- improve the mental health of neurodivergent individuals
- save lives by reducing the suicide rate
- offer neurotypical teachers the opportunity to use their preferred methods teach the kinds of kids they like
- ensure that neurotypical kids can learn without “distractions”
- orient neurotypical people to the neurodivergent types they are guaranteed to encounter in “the real world”
- lead neurodivergent kids to meaningful career pathways in business, technology, the arts, and trades
- over time, as neurodivergent individuals become more successful and improve the economy, they will be seen as valuable contributors to society and worth of investing into
- improve the world by preparing future neurodivergent leaders in many fields who are now to recognize and solve problems from new perspectives
Here’s the catch: this would take so long and cost so much that no one will want to invest in schools for neurodivergent thinkers, who, despite making up a large component of America’s most successful citizens, will probably always be seen as a drain on the system — all because they can’t sit still and be quiet on the kindergarten rug.
That day may come, Robyn! In the meantime, those of us who are good (or in my case, too good!!) at sitting still need people like you to remind us not to inflict our own way of being and learning on others.
I feel this deeply! When I move the thoughts indeed come fast and furious. I wrote about it and am curious if others have runners thoughts (like shower thoughts) where everything gets jostled up to you conscious mind. https://open.substack.com/pub/thingsnoonecaresaboutbutme/p/i-keep-moving-to-be-stable?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=789qr
Thanks for the link to your article, Emily. For me, it’s “walking with Freddie” thoughts. Oh yes, and morning bath thoughts, which are less about destabilising motion than about deep immersion...
Loved your article, Emily - and can definitely relate to your 'spaghetti-twisted thoughts'! Your shadow /manhole selfie was perfect too...
Thank you for reading! Yes, the running helps untangle the thoughts!
Love, love, love this prompt! Getting ‘into’ my body definitely helps me to get ‘out’ of my head when I am stuck on a work problem. I find walking fantastic, as there is something about the physical motion that seems to free up my mind and possible solutions start flowing in very quickly without conscious effort.
The suggestion of using handwriting to break out of a block is also something that works for me. In college, I used to draft all my essays by hand, only using a computer to pull the final version together and I came to realise that the tactility and flexibility of handwriting can better suit the way my mind works sometimes.
In the initial stages of writing, I tend to pile quotes, ideas and thoughts on the page as they come to me and then re-read them, using different colour pens to highlight common themes, etc. until coherent sections start to emerge in subsequent drafts. The only computer programme that allows me to do something similar is Scrivener (https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview), as it allows me to pin and assemble scraps of information, quotes, etc and move them around quite easily.
However, for a real ‘old-school’ approach, I also have two vintage typewriters that I love to use for the tactile experience they give to writing – they are especially fun for more creative writing, such as my haiku experiments, as I really get a sense of physically creating something. Check out this cool poster for Olivetti typewriters featuring Dante!! https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/193162271488830009/
Thanks for this, Anne. You’ll enjoy my prompt later this month on “Writing in Color”!
Looking forward to it, Helen!
Mom still has her old typewriter. The font is cursive - - - it's a treasure.
I really appreciate this post--I don't know if anyone else feels this but there's something about moving that puts me more in a conversation with my potential reader, rather than a battle with my potential critic. it's like I'm not "really" writing yet, and I can just talk things out in my head, tell them a story, which is one of the key elements of my process. I love the way this post gives space for this.
That’s a lovely way to look at it, Michelle. I’ll start paying attention to whether that’s true for me - I suspect it is.
Yes! This makes sense!
For me, a key piece of writing with my body is using my eyes to look at something that's not a screen, book, or notebook. I do my best work lying on a hammock, looking up at the sky.
I learned this lesson when I was writing up my PhD. I hadn’t been prepared for how much physical pain it would involve! The importance of swapping between sitting and standing desks, as well as getting away for a walk, run, or gym session...I learned these things from experience. Not only the physical, though - I discovered the cognitive benefits of being up and about. I’ve hung on to these in the time since I graduated. Thanks for the reminder!