Executive Functioning: A Different Definition

Returning the Word to Weather

The circle closes: executive function reframed as relational ecology, kairos beside chronos, inviting readers to map their own clocks—mind as season, not manager.

Opening — A Different Definition

I did not begin this series intending to define anything. The phrase executive function arrived at my table like a guest who had overstayed their welcome, and I wanted only to ask who had invited them and by what clock they were keeping time. What I have tried to do instead is position the term beside its shadow—chronos—and let the quieter companion, kairos, speak in the margins. The reader can draw their own conclusions; I have merely opened a window.

Across these pieces gestalt processing has appeared not as a technique but as a cognitive ecology—a meadow where meaning arrives whole before it learns its parts. If that is true, then the care we require must also be ecological: relational soil rooted in kairos rather than chronos. The mind is not a manager tallying minutes; it is a season learning its pronouns, a field negotiating weather.

I have shown the harm of the timer, the boardroom in the skull, the schools that forget celebration, the workplaces ruled by Wetiko’s fear of sharing time. Yet I have also glimpsed other rooms—commons where so-called deficits fade, classrooms that feel like tide pools, kitchens where relativity tastes of bread. These are not utopias but ordinary possibilities when the clock loosens its grip.

This closing piece returns to the waiting room of the first poem. We place the two clocks on the table once more and notice which one leans closer when the kettle sings. The invitation is simple: map your own time, listen for the hour that brightens the body, and allow the mind to be what it has always been—a season.

The poem that follows gathers these threads in a queer register because time itself is queer—arriving late, building families sideways, refusing the mirror’s orders. If any definition remains, let it be this refrain: the mind is not a manager; it is a season learning to love.

A Different Definition

I did not come here with a ruler—
only a lantern and a loose coat,
wanting to sit beside the word
executive and ask its name at dusk.

The mind is not a manager;
it is a season learning pronouns,
a river choosing lipstick,
a choir trying on its many throats.

We have two sovereignties of time—
chronos in his pressed uniform,
kairos in a dress of moss
with pockets full of unscheduled stars.

I showed you the shadow of the clock
so you might feel the other light—
not to define the weather
but to open a window in the bone.

Gestalt processing is a meadow,
cognitive ecology with queer fences,
gates that swing both ways
and never ask for passports.

If that is true, then care must be
a relational ecology—
rooted in kairos, not chronos,
soil before spreadsheet.

I did not set out to measure anything—
only to place the two clocks on the table
and watch which one leaned closer
when the kettle began to sing.

You may draw your own conclusions—
map the hours that fit your skin,
notice where the body brightens
and where it learns to lie.

Perhaps your time wears trousers,
perhaps a skirt of rain,
perhaps it changes shoes at noon
and refuses the mirror’s orders.

Queer time knows these manners—
arriving late to the party of names,
building families out of friends,
loving sideways through the week.

So too the mind resists straight corridors,
prefers the crooked path of story,
finds its grammar in the hedges
where the wild pronouns sleep.

I offer no definition—
only a circle drawn in chalk
around the place we breathed together,
around the word we questioned.

Let executive function be reclaimed
as the art of keeping weather—
tending seasons of attention,
gardening the hour’s soft fruit.

Let the reader carry two clocks home,
hang them by the bed like earrings,
notice which one hums at dawn
and which one argues with the moon.

The circle closes like a mouth—
not to swallow but to sing,
returning to the waiting room
where the first poem left its shoes.

There we meet ourselves again—
not broken, only bilingual,
fluent in line and in meadow,
in step and in wandering.

I leave you with this refrain
stitched into the hem of the page:
the mind is not a manager;
it is a season learning to love.

And love, being queer and patient,
keeps its own appointments—
arrives when it arrives,
and stays as long as it is welcome.