the.com/train of thought
A mental freight line that derails the instant someone says 'wait, what were we talking about'
means The connected sequence of ideas you're following as you think or talk, which can be lost if interrupted.
from From 'train' in its older sense of something drawn out or trailing in sequence — like a procession or a line of connected railway cars — a usage from the 1600s long before locomotives existed. 'Train of thought' borrows that image of linked, pulled-along order, picturing ideas as coupled cars moving along a single track, each pulling the next behind it.
- coined by
- Thomas Hobbes, 1651, Leviathan
- derailment cause
- notifications, mostly
- average lifespan
- shorter than a goldfish's attention
- recovery trick
- retrace steps backward, works surprisingly often