Taking notes with your whole person

Sartre, in an inspiring letter he wrote to his girlfriend, summarized his writing process most eloquently:

Focus on an image until you feel a swelling, like a bubble, also a sort of direction indicated to you. This is your idea. Afterwards, you can clarify it and write it down.

This approach to writing resonates with me on a deep level. Because it’s proof that creativity is nothing more than active listening. Listening to what the world is telling you, listening to your body as those messages land, and listening to your heart as you figure out what wants to be created in response.

It’s one of the reasons taking notes is such a physical, emotional, social and spiritual experience for me. The goal is not to write down every word. The goal is to let people’s words wash over me until some sentence, idea, word or phrase triggers a feeling in my body.

Could be a pang in my gut, that twinge in my solar plexus, blood rushing to my crotch, welling of tears in my eyes, or a full body reaction like laughter or shock.

Whatever happens, I try to stay with the sensation level of my experience. The literal, simple biological feeling in response to the other. Then, with compassion to that feeling, write down the source material that activated it.

Now, sometimes the emotions behind the words won’t even be conscious to me yet. It may take minutes, hours, months or years until what wants to be written announces itself. On the other hand, sometimes my body speaks to my brain instantaneously. This active listening process makes the word flesh as other ideas collect around it.

And before I know it, I’m borrowing energy from the ideas themselves. I can watch this creation start to take shape and acquire real structure and meaning and weight.

As you can see, this notetaking process is more than simple dictation or documentation. It’s a holistic, intersubjective process that uses my physical, emotional, social and spiritual resources to uncover insight.

As a younger man, my notetaking process was much less connected with self and other. Writing was either a distraction during the conversation that took me out of the present moment, or performance that objectified the other person, making them feel like I was just using them for content.

Today, I like to think it’s much more compassionate, trusting, loving and generous.

How do you take notes with your whole person?