Elizaveta Friesem
  • About
  • Books
    • Media is us >
      • Principles of communication
      • Micro- and macropower
      • ACE model
      • Description of chapters
    • Hypertexts >
      • Me, looking for meaning >
        • All the pages I have started
        • List of completed pages
        • Human thinking is nonlinear >
          • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
          • Human thinking
          • What is "natural"?
          • On being a writer >
            • On being a scholar
          • Paradox
          • Make Sense >
            • Interpretation
            • Knowledge
          • Human brain
        • Content and form of this book >
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • My quest for meaning >
          • Why do people hurt each other? >
            • Good vs. evil
            • Violence in the human nature
            • Mean and stupid >
              • Free will
              • Can I give myself credit for being empathetic?
            • Circumstances
            • Cycle of violence
            • Doing the right thing
            • Norms
            • Everybody is connected
            • We hurt others when we are in pain >
              • Emotional pain
            • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
            • Both sides
            • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
          • Postmodern philosophy >
            • On being right
            • Truth
            • Reality
            • Binaries
            • Power
            • Cognitive biases
            • Why do misunderstandings happen?
            • Postmodern worldview
            • Us and them
          • Science, religion and art
          • Human nature
          • Meaning >
            • Human needs
            • Meaning of life
            • Where do meanings come from?
            • Ideas
            • Why do everyday objects make sense?
            • Meaningless >
              • Common sense
              • Explain/excuse conflation
              • Choice
              • Subjectivity and objectivity
            • "It is what it is"
            • How much do we understand each other?
            • Meaning wars
            • Communication
            • Objectification
            • Meaning communities
            • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
            • Individual meanings vs. shared meanings
            • Feelings
        • Hypertext books
        • Why am I trying to stay sane? >
          • Coronavirus and me
          • I am an optimist
          • What does it mean to "understand"? >
            • Polarization >
              • Parenting
              • Problem/solution binary
            • Understanding ourselves
            • Why is language so unhelpful? >
              • Synesthesia
              • Language
              • Media
            • Empathy >
              • When conflict gets out of control
              • "Little lady" and "differently-abled"
              • Empathy as a matter of self-preservation
              • Self-empathy
            • "I'll never understand!"
          • Everybody has their struggles
          • Privilege
          • "The Death of the Author"
          • What is a text?
          • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
        • What's the point? >
          • Depression
          • Do children ask themselves about the purpose of life?
          • The importance of having a purpose >
            • Knowing your true purpose
            • Self-awareness
            • Inner compass
            • Forgetting about your purpose
        • What will this project become? >
          • Suggested citation format
      • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
      • It's not about "them"
  • Editing
    • Me as your editor
    • How I will help you
    • Pricing
    • Privacy policy
  • Blog
  • Workshops
    • Five (easy) steps to become media literate
    • Surviving the polarization vortex
  • Learn more
    • Bio
    • Talks and interviews
    • Poems >
      • Stranger
      • Lonely heart
      • Fairy tales
      • Dreams and nightmares
      • Moon
      • Seasons
      • Muse
      • Sketches
      • Nonsense
    • Educational materials
  • Contact me

Human Thinking Is Nonlinear

Picture
​To communicate with each other, we often put our ideas in a linear form. (But not always. In fact, most of human communication is nonverbal.) Words are strings of letters. Sentences are strings of words. Books are strings of sentences. This seems natural - till we remember our struggles to express ourselves. I am not talking about times when we are making a small talk. Yet, the challenge is practically inevitable in situations when we try to grasp and share with others our thoughts on any complex issues.

As a writer, I know this battle all too well. When I think about what I want to put on a page, ideas seem so beautifully intertwined. They lead to each other, they make sense. And then I try to translate them into words, connect words into sentences, etc... Ugh! What is going on?? The result is so far from what I have envisioned. So many things that I was going to say had to be left out because I simply don't know how to fit them all together. To be honest, first I thought that something is wrong with my ideas, with my writing skills - perhaps, even with me. 

But there is nothing wrong. This is just how things are - because human thinking is nonlinear. It happens through associations running between partially formed ideas and mental images. That's why we can get a random idea about something without fully comprehending how we got there. Our brains work in truly mysterious ways.

Paradoxically, human beings crave linear narratives, same as they crave order in general. Many people may not even notice that their thinking is nonlinear because they focus so much on turning the nonsequential thoughts into a coherent string or words. And we do hate being confronted by a mess of tangled ideas, which may be the reason why hypertext books are not particularly popular. 

About this project: Start page​

Picture
  • About
  • Books
    • Media is us >
      • Principles of communication
      • Micro- and macropower
      • ACE model
      • Description of chapters
    • Hypertexts >
      • Me, looking for meaning >
        • All the pages I have started
        • List of completed pages
        • Human thinking is nonlinear >
          • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
          • Human thinking
          • What is "natural"?
          • On being a writer >
            • On being a scholar
          • Paradox
          • Make Sense >
            • Interpretation
            • Knowledge
          • Human brain
        • Content and form of this book >
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • My quest for meaning >
          • Why do people hurt each other? >
            • Good vs. evil
            • Violence in the human nature
            • Mean and stupid >
              • Free will
              • Can I give myself credit for being empathetic?
            • Circumstances
            • Cycle of violence
            • Doing the right thing
            • Norms
            • Everybody is connected
            • We hurt others when we are in pain >
              • Emotional pain
            • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
            • Both sides
            • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
          • Postmodern philosophy >
            • On being right
            • Truth
            • Reality
            • Binaries
            • Power
            • Cognitive biases
            • Why do misunderstandings happen?
            • Postmodern worldview
            • Us and them
          • Science, religion and art
          • Human nature
          • Meaning >
            • Human needs
            • Meaning of life
            • Where do meanings come from?
            • Ideas
            • Why do everyday objects make sense?
            • Meaningless >
              • Common sense
              • Explain/excuse conflation
              • Choice
              • Subjectivity and objectivity
            • "It is what it is"
            • How much do we understand each other?
            • Meaning wars
            • Communication
            • Objectification
            • Meaning communities
            • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
            • Individual meanings vs. shared meanings
            • Feelings
        • Hypertext books
        • Why am I trying to stay sane? >
          • Coronavirus and me
          • I am an optimist
          • What does it mean to "understand"? >
            • Polarization >
              • Parenting
              • Problem/solution binary
            • Understanding ourselves
            • Why is language so unhelpful? >
              • Synesthesia
              • Language
              • Media
            • Empathy >
              • When conflict gets out of control
              • "Little lady" and "differently-abled"
              • Empathy as a matter of self-preservation
              • Self-empathy
            • "I'll never understand!"
          • Everybody has their struggles
          • Privilege
          • "The Death of the Author"
          • What is a text?
          • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
        • What's the point? >
          • Depression
          • Do children ask themselves about the purpose of life?
          • The importance of having a purpose >
            • Knowing your true purpose
            • Self-awareness
            • Inner compass
            • Forgetting about your purpose
        • What will this project become? >
          • Suggested citation format
      • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
      • It's not about "them"
  • Editing
    • Me as your editor
    • How I will help you
    • Pricing
    • Privacy policy
  • Blog
  • Workshops
    • Five (easy) steps to become media literate
    • Surviving the polarization vortex
  • Learn more
    • Bio
    • Talks and interviews
    • Poems >
      • Stranger
      • Lonely heart
      • Fairy tales
      • Dreams and nightmares
      • Moon
      • Seasons
      • Muse
      • Sketches
      • Nonsense
    • Educational materials
  • Contact me