One of the major challenges I have since the stroke, is not being able to visualize thoughts on the fly automatically. The impact on me, a visual learner, is dramatic. In some ways, it is akin to a musician suddenly becoming deaf, still able to read and write music, but unable to really feel the music through their senses. This makes what they write mathematical, rather than emotional.
However, what I have found interesting over the last couple months of building a tool (repurposing an existing tool) to facilitate our sales process, is how many people are unable to understand the concept, without seeing it in front of them. I can explain it, I can have diagrams showing it, I can have it on spreadsheets and in text - but without a working copy, they don't really connect with it. So, I have built a Proof of Concept (PoC) so that they are able to get a physical sense of what this tool is and what it does.
And then, I run into another problem. Rather than seeing the PoC as a high-level view filled with barebones and filler content, they can't look past the flaws. So, instead of it being seen as a concept, they start to focus on the details used, or the layout, or the naming of terms or some other aspects that just aren't relevant at this point of the development.
There are two pieces in play here, where the first is the lack of imaginative ability to visualize, then there is the point where people will look to add value on something they can, relevant at the time or not. And, everyone can comment on the color. Literally in this case, where parts of the content are highlighted in various colors for development purposes, and people are saying "The color needs to be changed".
I am patient with them in this respect, because I know why they are doing it and having their feedback heard gives them buy-in on the project I am trying to get off the ground. And, this particular project is a cross-function project, that currently has limited C-level support, zero funding, and isn't the responsibility of anyone at all, but will take effort from each. Regardless of the value people see in it, this makes it a tough sell.
And I think that this is part of the problem I have not being able to spontaneously visualize myself, because it means that I am not as much part of the creative process as I used to be. Or perhaps, I am more a part of it.
Thoughts are "spooky" in the sense that we don't always know what led to us having them, but our attention is divided between conscious and unconscious awareness. While we can direct our conscious awareness, our unconscious is continually interacting with our information landscape and feeding its analysis to our conscious side, through thoughts. Our conscious factors these thoughts into its process as if they are derivatives of its own thoughts, meaning that our attentive development is at least partially influenced by our unconscious judgements.
But, if like in my case, the unconscious is far less active (or at least provides less prompts) at feeding the conscious awareness, does that mean that my own thinking is less driven by unconscious bias? Or, is it more driven, where thought "muscle memory" kicks in and fills the gaps on habit, like a deaf musician playing a well-known song, even though they can't hear it themselves.
Due to the struggles I have to learn new things, I feel it is more the latter. So, whilst I am able to play the known songs and still have them relevant, as time goes on, they will become increasingly irrelevant and therefore, not far enough away from the average to warrant development at all. And after that, they will slide down into the increasingly useless, even harmful, as the code I use to develop, is no longer suited to the conditions it faces. It becomes a case of playing the piano, when what the band needs is a lead guitarist.
Obviously, this relates directly to my own unique conditions, but it might also relate to many of us. The more we hold onto our behaviors, the less we change. And if our behaviors are not suited to handling the conditions we face, to get us the results we are after, we are going to have to change, because the environment is rarely going to change in our favor. This is because we normally set our conditions based on who we are, our culture, our education etcetera, and that comes from a time period, where there are certain conditions. If we move location, me might find different conditions (better or worse), but we can't move time - we can't go back.
The condition of my brain can't return to where it was pre-stroke. And although it will keep changing, it doesn't mean it is going to change for the better, or to be suited to the needs of the time. The best I can do is do what I can to keep using my thoughts as best as I can.
The music keeps changing.
But what happens if we keep dancing to the same rhythm?
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]