When Your Eyes Process Slow in a World That Moves Fast
Navigating visual processing challenges with grace, humor, and a little self-compassion
I don’t know about you, but my visual processing is lousy.
Not just can’t find the icon lousy.
More like “wait, what just happened?” levels of slow.
This face (below)?
That’s exactly what I look like when I watch the cursor on Nicole Tuxbury’s screen whip around like a squirrel on espresso navigating Google Maps.
She clicks. She scrolls. She highlights seventeen tabs and rearranges her digital universe like she’s playing interdimensional Tetris.
And I just sit there. Blinking. Trying to figure out what planet we’re on.
Meanwhile, I visually process at the speed of a thawing glacier.
Which honestly might be offensive to glaciers.
Let Me Paint You a Picture
Switching between programs?
Mentally taxing.
Pop-up windows?
Give me vertigo.
Someone says “just drag and drop it”?
Yeah. If I can find it.
This isn’t about laziness.
It’s not a motivation problem.
It’s not a skill gap.
It’s a capacity difference.
My brain wasn’t built for visual multitasking marathons.
Working memory, transitions, and visual load all play a part.
When the screen moves faster than my brain can process, it doesn’t just slow me down.
It drains me.
And that’s not something a productivity hack can fix.
That’s Why Grace Matters
Not the performative kind.
The real stuff.
The kind that says, “This is hard for you, and that’s okay.”
The kind that softens the pressure to keep up and makes space for how your brain actually works.
Grace looks like giving yourself permission to move slow.
It looks like closing the extra tabs that overwhelm you, even if someone else can juggle twenty.
It looks like saying, “Can you walk me through that one more time?” without shame.
It looks like building in buffer time between tasks because your brain needs room to land.
It looks like choosing clarity over speed, again and again.
It looks like letting others know what helps instead of silently spiraling.
“I need a minute to process.”
“Can we pause here before switching tasks?”
“This part feels muddy. Can we map it out visually?”
And if someone else moves fast?
Grace means not turning it into a contest.
It means appreciating their flow without assuming you should match it.
It means saying, “I love how your brain works. Here’s how mine works too.”
Just different paces.
Different wiring.
Different ways of finding our way through the same digital jungle.
Grace is what lets us stay in the room together.
Even if we’re walking in different rhythms.
Even if we’re not sure where the map leads yet.
Let’s put words to what often goes unspoken.
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