Is Riffing Writing?

 

I was just thinking about cognitive styles and how people can wire their brains in different ways than other people. I think it really has to do with things that we do with our hands or the body, rather than sitting around thinking.

People who play music probably have different wiring that people who don't play instruments don't understand. I think music fans might get some of that vicariously through simply enjoying music or dancing to it. But I think there's an impact from the things that we do manually which shape our cognitive styles. People who are involved in some kind of trade probably have a different brain wiring that other people don't understand if they don't do that kind of thing. I think it's very important that we do something with our hands besides scrolling on a phone or typing on a keyboard, although writers probably have different wiring because they're using language differently. We use language when we're speaking it but it's different from writing it. Some people can dictate very well and it becomes a form of writing. But I'm of two minds about dictating and writing without speaking: I think dictating is a different form of writing that isn't writing per se. Writing is better if we do it with a silent mind. Speaking is a different kind of cognitive style—it shapes our brains in different ways if we can articulate verbally. The transcription of what I'm saying here would not be writing because I'm not in writing mode—I'm just riffing. But some people can dictate and riff, put in all the punctuation and it can just go right out the door. I used to work with people that could do that and I'm impressed by it. Cognitive styles have to do with the things that we do rather than the things that we think or think about doing. 

10/30/2022

[Edited transcript from video]