I picture my present cognition as invisible differences in density—subtle gradients that bend attention without leaving a visible trace. Schlieren makes those distortions legible. I cast lines of sight through an imagined refractive field and mark only the instants where accumulated deflection clicks past a threshold, leaving tiny, tilted knife‑edge dashes. What results is not a filled mass but a porous shimmer: a lattice of brief confirmations that chart where thought is bent most. The field is balanced and bipolar—some strokes lean with the flow, others against it—revealing a mind that refracts in two tempers while remaining wholly line‑based and open to air.