Slow thinking

I remember some former roommates of mine discussing politics. One of them was looking at their phone and said, “OMG! President <X> just did <complicated economic foreign policy decision>!” and the other exclaimed, “WHAT??!!” I remember thinking, wow – did they really just hear the news, understand all the socio-economic implications, and judge it to be bad all in the time it took to state what happened?

I think slowly. If someone brings up a topic that I haven’t thought about before and asks me what I think, I will probably not know what I think about it. I’ll have to go off to think about it or discuss it with someone.

In politics, it’s often not immediately clear to me what the implications of a certain policy are. I like to do research before I make up my mind.

When I watch a movie, it usually takes me a few hours or days to know what I think about it. I’ll know whether I like it or not, but I might not be able to give more of an opinion than “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it” until I’ve digested it properly.

I wish it was more normal just to be able to say, “I don’t know what I think about that. Let me think about it, write about it, or discuss it with some friends and/or people who know more about it than me, and I’ll get back to you.”