If we expand our space for thought, we expand who we can be.
Thinking and speaking aren’t the same operation,
Most thinking runs fast, under the conversation,
Statements form quickly, behind the scene,
Pulled from the past, efficient, routine.
This background thinking keeps life on track,
But it mostly repeats what we already pack.
Speaking is narrow, a thin output line,
After the thought has already been signed,
But slow thinking is different in kind,
It pauses the reflex, gives evidence time,
It asks what’s new, not what we recall,
And that kind of thinking needs space to sprawl.
(Hook)
Fast thought runs on memory, ready to go,
Slow thought needs room if it’s going to grow,
If change is the goal we want to defend,
We need space where thinking can extend.
Slow thinking lives in conscious space,
Where ideas sit long enough to face,
Working memory sets a hard limit line,
Only a few thoughts at a time,
Without support, reflection stays thin,
Crowded out by habits wired in.
That’s why humans learned to think outside the head,
Marks on paper, things we said and read,
External space carries thought forward,
So it doesn’t vanish when attention is ordered,
Writing holds ideas still and steady,
So we can test them when we’re ready.
(Hook)
When space expands, thinking slows,
Connections appear we couldn’t know,
External room is how minds cope,
With complexity, change, and hope.
(Male)
Paper helped, screens helped more,
They widened the field beyond before,
But they’re still frames with edges tight,
Only so much fits in sight,
Complex problems strain those bounds,
Extended reality shifts the scale,
The whole visual field enters the trail,
Not as spectacle, not as escape,
But as space where thoughts can take shape,
Ideas can sit near, far, or aligned,
Spatial relationships support the mind.
(Hook)
XR isn’t speed or flash,
It’s room for thinking that doesn’t crash,
When space surrounds what we examine,
Slow thought gets a fighting chance again.
What mattered most was this core claim:
Augmenting slow thinking isn’t optional or plain,
It’s the only way to move beyond,
The limits the past keeps holding on,
Fast thinking optimizes what we’ve been,
Slow thinking is how change gets in.
(Female)
Without space, the past decides,
Every new moment filtered through old guides,
Beliefs persist because there’s no room,
To hold new evidence before we conclude,
Slow thought needs time and surface area,
Or it collapses under inertia.
(Hook – together)
The past is strong, quick to steer,
Slow thinking makes room for the new to appear,
Space is the lever, time is the cost,
Without both, possibility is lost.
There wasn’t disagreement on this foundation,
Fast thinking has its rightful station,
It keeps us moving, acting, alive,
No one argued it shouldn’t survive,
But growth, learning, and revision depend,
On slow thinking we deliberately extend.
The tension sits in how much space to build,
How far we go, how much gets filled,
But direction stayed clear and shared:
More room for thought needs to be prepared,
Not to think for us, not to decide,
But to let reasoning stay open inside.
(Hook)
Support reflection, don’t replace choice,
Give thinking space, not a louder voice,
Tools should hold, not command,
Let humans reason with time at hand.
The highlights land simple and wide:
Thinking capacity follows thinking side,
What we can hold shapes what we see,
Not just intelligence, but possibility,
Tools matter because they define,
What ideas can coexist at one time.
Extended thinking space isn’t just technical gain,
It’s philosophical terrain,
It shapes not only what we know,
But who we can become as we grow,
Who we are sets the starting frame,
But space shapes who we can aim to be.
(Hook – together, final)
Expand the space, slow the pace,
Let new evidence find its place,
When thinking has room to move and be,
We expand who we can be.
With grateful thanks to Kahneman and Tversky, with thanks to Engelbart and Nelson, we repeat:
(Chorus)
If we want change, not just repeat,
We need room where thinking can breathe.