Thanks both to Leonard Shlain’s “Leonardo’s Brain” and personal experience with S. Div, I have identified another set human characteristics that seem to have an inversely proportionate effect on each other. If we graphed them on an axis, to the left would be linguistic ability and to the right would be holistic thinking ability. Shlain gives examples of extreme artistic ability present in autistic children, one in particular who was born completely mute, but possessed, at the age of 5-7, a preternatural ability to draw (left handed) objects with perfect form and perspective. Shlain goes on to describe the fact that once this young girl began to learn how to speak and obtained a better grasp of language, her drawing abilities began to fade.

Personally I’ve also found the two to be fairly opposing pursuits in my own life. In the times when I had the ability to verbalize my thoughts most effectively I was very out of touch with my sense of the grand scale of things and during the times I felt most able to visualize the meaning of everything I’ve been almost entirely unable to put it into words. I constantly wonder if trying to focus on the ineffable takes away from my ability to express myself verbally. Of course it’s been a constant struggle for me as obviously they are both very desirable traits, and to me sometimes it seems as though striking a balance between them may be giving up too much of both. Such is life I suppose.