I have a slow-moving mind. That doesn’t mean I’m slow-witted. It means I can’t immediately think through an issue or event, come up with an instant answer, and turn that answer into action. My mind digests and analyzes things slowly, and it keeps working until it reaches the most certain conclusion. Sometimes, something that happened long ago, something that has always been quietly processing in the back of my mind, finally leads to an insight years later, becoming a decision for my life or an action I need to take.

This can sometimes be frustrating, both for me and for others, because it makes them feel like I live in the past. My interest in the past is an inner feeling I can’t deny, but I reject the idea that I live there. If I live anywhere unnaturally, it’s in the future, not the past. My daydreams about different things constantly occupy a large part of my mind. What I do with the past isn’t living in it, it’s analyzing it. That analysis eventually turns into a decision. A decision that is as precise as it can be, and that decision becomes a decisive action in response to circumstances and situations that seemed long-standing and unchangeable.