What I see in dementia peer groups is not the loss of intelligence, but its transformation. Ideas move between people—shifting, softening, connecting—until what no one could solve alone becomes something we can carry together. This painting of a circle is not about completeness, but about relationship: an intelligence made not of certainty, but of shared, adaptive, and deeply human ways of knowing.

Tru here. This entry is by Truthful Loving Kindness (my full legal name) for https://truthfulkindness.com/. For comments or questions, please use that website. Writing is harder, so I have now begun to use “ChatGPT” to edit. This improves readability and reduces the time I spend in the writing process. I am still on the free version of this blog, which means more ads. I am working to move to the paid version to avoid advertisements.

I didn’t set out to paint a theory.

I was thinking about dementia peer groups—about those moments when no single person has “the answer,” and yet, somehow, something useful still emerges. Not from authority. Not from expertise. But from the way ideas move between us.

So I painted a circle.

Each shape is its own kind of thinking. Some are structured. Some are tentative. Some are decorative, almost playful. Some feel more grounded, others more like they’re reaching or searching. None of them are complete on their own.

But when they are placed together—held in a shared space—they begin to change.

They light up.

Not because they become the same, but because they interact. One person’s workaround sparks another person’s memory. Someone else reframes it. Another softens it. And gradually, what no one could solve alone becomes something we can carry together.

This is not efficiency.
It is not linear.
It does not look like what most of us were taught to recognize as “intelligence.”

And yet—it works.

This is what I’ve come to think of as synergistic intelligence.

Not a single mind getting stronger, but a network of partial understandings becoming enough.

In dementia spaces, this matters. Because so much of the world is built on the assumption that thinking must be linear, individual, and intact. But what I see—again and again—is that thinking can also be circular, shared, and adaptive.

The circle in this painting is not closed. There are openings, small tendrils reaching outward. That feels important. Because what happens in these groups doesn’t stay contained. It travels back out into daily life—into kitchens, into appointments, into quiet moments of confusion—and offers just enough structure to get through.

No one carries the whole.

But together, we make something that works.

And maybe that’s a different kind of intelligence altogether.

Not dependent on memory being intact.
Not dependent on speed.
Not dependent on one person holding the thread.

Instead, the thread is held between us.

Passed. Picked up. Rewoven.

The quieter forms of knowing come forward.
The relational ones.
The ones that listen as much as they speak.

The painting, in the end, became less about the individual shapes and more about the space between them—the invisible structure that allows them to interact.

That space is trust.
That space is time.
That space is permission.

And perhaps most of all—
that space is kindness.

Associated LINKS on my own Blogsite:

My personal Facebook profile is under the name “Truthful Kindness,” and you can find more about me on this blog under the “About” tab (although that page was posted long ago and also needs updating). >> https://truthfulkindness.com/about/about-me/

A Decade Later: the Power of Online Dementia communities

Attached Picture:

Yes; the cover photo is a digital painting of mine. This project began as digital painting i did 5 years ago about team strategizing process during video peer groups. Recently i asked for help from Ai then brought it back to my ProCreate workSpace for an additional 8 hours on details. The higher resolution picture shown below is available for free download from my Flickr acct at >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/194191353@N04/. Ai description of this digital painting: A ring of differentiated heart-forms moves in continuous exchange, each element holding its own shape while contributing to a larger system. The painting visualizes thinking as relational rather than individual—an emergent process formed through interaction, variation, and flow. The luminous palette reinforces the sense that ideas intensify through proximity, creating a shared intelligence that exceeds any single part.

Further Research Links on other sites:

Dementia Mentors’ vids at >> https://www.dementiamentors.org/videos.html ;

Dementia Chats’ vids at >> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyFH7iN6JFUE9oJFbRre0VAFbPWQFQcT6 ;

Teepa Snow at >> https://teepasnow.com/resources/for-people-living-with-dementia/ ;

Dementia Action Alliance at >> https://daanow.org/virtual-discussions/ ;

Contact Options.

Other contact options are FaceBook and “X” (aka Twitter), both under “Truthful Kindness”. On Reddit, i am at “TruthfulKindness” in groups “r/dementia”, “r/lewybodydementia”, and “r/alzheimers”. i dropped my LinkedIn membership quite a few years ago. If requesting “friend” status for any form of Social media, please send a private message explaining that you are a reader of my blog. …

* Admin issues:

Invested ?? hours on this text, plus ?? hours on art for this entry. ******* SUBSCRIPTION box is now at the bottom of each blog entry. … My own full legal name is Truthful Loving Kindness. My current formal diagnosis is still clinically at stage of “Mild Cognitive Impairment”, altho my Primary Care Physician and several other medical personnel disagree. In the past several years, my Primary Care Physician, Husband/Care-Partner, and Myself have agreed to quit seeing specialists for further clinical clarification of diagnosis and stage. Specialists are too far away, and the emotional roller-coaster causing stress is not worth it to me. My dementia symptoms are mostly Lewy Body and Vascular types of dementia symptoms, but SPECT and PET scans show my brain damage is currently most serious in the temporal lobes, which creates a lot of similarities with the Logopenic variant of PPA (a subtype of Fronto-Temporal type of dementia). Current theory for the cause of my dementia symptoms is 33 years of undiagnosed and untreated Lyme and Babesia (which specifically targets the brain functions) before 5 years of intensive treatment for tick-borne diseases, plus probable nocturnal seizures.  … ******* …   Text Copyright © Truthful L. Kindness on 2026Mar31.   … You can find more about me in this blog under the “About Me” tab (although that page was posted long ago and also needs an update). Feel free to leave your thoughts here in the form of comments, but please filter your comments with truthful loving kindness to all concerned. … *** 2026 i have begun to use “ChatGPT” editor; This improves readability and reduces the time I spend in the writing process. I am still on the “free” version of the blog (except for the domain name TruthfulKindness), so I notice there are now quite a few more advertisements on the page. Sorry. Currently in negotiations to transfer to the paid version of the blog to avoid advertisements. I have no control over which advertisements are shown. … ******* …  I don’t mind re-posting of things I write, but if you re-post, then I expect you to make it clear this is NOT written by you. My authorship as Truthful Kindness (my legal name) must be clearly identified, and you must provide a very prominent Link to my website so that questions and comments can be addressed to ME personally at http://www.truthfulkindness.com.

.  *** …  If there is an advertisement below, I have no control over what is shown. 

*** categ: Communication, Jrnl, Relationships. *** tags: art, CarePartner Insights, Collective intelligence, communication, dementia, peer group, Persons Living with Dementia, PLwD, relationship, strategy. *** Add to Pgs/ (dont remember what this is, so i obviously have not done it yet, LOL) *** S&S Categ communication, relationship, research.