Here is a video in which I consider a commonplace and apparently straightforward activity, note-taking, and try to show its strangeness and potential. What are we doing when we take notes? Are we simply keeping a record of what we have heard or read, or can note-taking become part of the process through which we understand something?
I suggest that our understanding often moves through different stages. At first, we encounter bits and pieces: terms, definitions, claims, and observations. Gradually, we begin to notice connections among them. At some point, we may arrive at a more organized picture, a sense of the whole that was not available to us at the beginning.
Writing can help us create such a movement. When we put the pieces down on paper and return to them, we create the conditions for new connections and forms of organization to emerge. In this sense, notes are not merely a record of past thinking. They can also become the ground out of which further thinking and understanding grow.