Discover more from Adam Ming
☕️ Here’s half a thought, there are abstract units, the things they teach us in school, to create uniformity and conformity. Units of time and space. And there are ‘concrete units’ units that you know intimately, the time it takes to eat a meal, the available space on your desk. Yes you could describe ‘concrete units’ as abstract units, but you can also work with the concrete units. Like ‘the time it takes for the baby to fall asleep” or the “time I’m asleep for”. It is what it is. Half a thought. I warned you.
Units of thought:
Here’s a thought a full thought. Here’s another. If writing is thinking. Then a sentence is a meaningful unit of thought. So making sentences. Is the same as thinking.
I find it useful to break thinking down into this tiny unit.
If you have a big portion of time, you could develop your thoughts by forming sentences into paragraphs.
But if you have less time. You can organise your thoughts. Your sentences, in lists.
Let’s imagine you’re using a note book to do this. Imagine its a reporter notebook.
At the top of each page write a sentence, and underline it. This is the topic and ties your thoughts together.
‘Random Thoughts’ could be a topic. ‘Things I’m grateful for’ could be another. ‘Things I could eat for lunch’, another. ‘Topics I could think about’ another.
When you have a moment. Make a sentence. In your head. Make it good. Then write it down.
You get the idea.
Happy thinking!
025: Concrete Units
Once I was in the Philippines (where I'm from) and I asked someone for some directions to a hotel and how long it takes to get there. It went something like this:
"Walk in this direction (pointing vaguely at a wall) and keep this tangled up telephone post (pretty good landmark) to your right. Walk that way for about 3 rounds of [popular song at the time, I can't recall the name] until to see a Jollibee. Then you take a taxi, they're right across the Jollibee. In this traffic, you have time to eat some snacks in taxi and maybe have a nap."
So time isn't measured by a clock there, but rather how long it takes to consume snacks and listen to the top hits of the day.