"The "Night Blind Spot" appears under conditions of low ambient illumination due to the absence of rods in the fovea, and involves an area 5 to 10 degrees wide in the centre of the visual field. Therefore, if an object is viewed directly at night, it may go undetected or it may fade away after initial detection due to the night blind spot."

Browsing online, I found out that this is a real thing. I have experienced this; at nighttime I will cock my head to one side when I want to look at something, because I cannot see it if I look directly at it. Is this a good metaphor? I often feel like sometimes there are things that are harder to understand when you think about them directly. Hmm, what exactly do I mean when I say directly?

Mental issues often feel like this. You know the ones. If I ask you not to think of a pink elephant, you are more likely to think of one than if I just say nothing at all. What does this mean? Does it mean that some problems cannot be solved by mentally focusing on them? Does it furthermore mean that some problems are exacerbated by being focused upon? 

When I speak with people, I often repeat problems or mental trends I have been pondering. Its funny, sometimes my friends talk with each other and realize I have been bouncing the same idea off of each of them. It's nice to ask the same question of different people to see how they respond, to see perhaps a new way of looking at something. So I ask them about this. It sort of shifted into a new statement/question: what if what I have been calling "thinking" has multiple modes?

By this I would semantically mean the difference between a thought and a realization. Think of it like inhaling and exhaling. You can direct your mind somewhere, decide to go to that place. That would be a thought, inhaling. That is definitely a mental space where you can learn something, derive some insight. But what about the other side? What is an exhale? In this case it would be a realization. The feeling you get when you become aware of something not because you force yourself to "work" on it until it is "solved", but knowledge gained from having a mental space that is calm, a source of stillness. That stillness, that "exhale", is a place that, at least for me, has caused me to have realizations, epiphanies. I gain knowledge, I learn something, I become aware. 

What is the value of working for knowledge through thought, versus realization through stillness, calm, relaxed reflection? My mind likes the idea of "balance" as an abstract concept, so the first thing that comes to mind when I see two modes that appear to form different "sides" of something, I just implicitly feel like both are valuable and therefore I should appreciate the value of both. Are people generally oriented towards either ease of realization, or ease of thought? Do we crave one when we spend to much time on the other? Is there a natural balance we implicitly crave? 

I don't know.