The sink analogy

Just riffing here… but consider a sink that’s half blocked. You run the tap on full and the amount of water pouring out is more than the water that’s being drained away, so the sink gradually fills up.

I wonder if this might be analogous to some of the challenges we face. That is, our brains have a greater tendency to absorb or generate input with a slower ‘draining away’. This might explain both sensory overload and obsessive tendencies (specialist subjects is a more generous term) as in the former case we get too much external input which builds up and up without sufficient draining away. In the latter case, it’s internal ideas that we latch on to and they also start going round and round.

Pure conjecture! Probably way too simplistic. But I like to spot patterns and generalisations/underlying principles, so I wonder if there’s anything to it, as it’s a possible partial explanation for two seemingly different things.

Parents Reply Children
  • I have attempted all sorts of nonsensical analogies to explain myself to willing NT's who express an interest in trying to understand.  For some reason, I always seem to end up cupping my hands into a funnel shape, waving them around like a Triffid (to indicate how much information I receive) and then start making a bizarre "clarion" honking noise to denote....well, God knows what !!  A work in progress.

  • Too good a memory.

    Most of the public aren't even sure what day of the week it is.