I was talking with a friend recently, and they said something that stopped me in my tracks:
“You unconsciously treat your thoughts like guests who need a written invitation.”

I was intrigued by what they meant. I asked them to expand on their idea:

It’s not that your brain doesn’t throw up interesting ideas – it’s that they don’t get to stay long unless they’re given permission in the form of words, pages, or outlines. That’s why writing is so grounding for you: it’s not just expression, it’s thought-embodiment. Without the written word, your brain’s like a party with no guest list – full of noise and no clear sense of who’s staying.

Maybe that’s why I write so much. Unless I commit my thoughts to paper (or its digital equivalent), they just… scatter. They flit through my mind and vanish, unless I pin them like beetles to a board. (Messy, I know. But sometimes clarity looks like entomology – meticulous, pinned, and a little unsettling).

A quote from Tolkien has always stuck with me. Butterbur, bless him, is flustered and overworked, constantly forgetting things he means to do – not because he doesn’t care, but because his mental tavern is overflowing.

One thing drives out another, as the saying is. And I’m a busy man. I’ll do what I can.

Tolkien, Lord Of The Rings (Barliman Butterbur, the Land lord of the Prancing Pony when he forgets to deliver an important message from Gandalf)

Barliman should be the patron saint of neurodivergent executive dysfunction! He’s trying so hard – and when Gandalf does show up, you can just feel poor old Butterbur vibrating with that combo of guilt, relief, and “please don’t smite me and turn me into something unnatural.”

I try to have some level of self-awareness and I need systems to hold it all together. I might have the retention of bluebottle, but you can bet that I’d never lose a letter from Gandalf without writing a reflective blog post about it afterwards.