The Baboon Congress

The Crazy Uncle in My Attic

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Today’s guest blog is by Steve Grooms

I spend a lot of time alone, except . . . (sigh) . . . I’m never really alone. More accurately, I am “alone with my thoughts,” and my thoughts are a noisy, jeering, vulgar and confusing partner. A slightly more pretentious way of putting this is to say I’m stuck at all times with “the voice of my interior monologue.”

Most of us, I believe, have a sort of voice in our head, a voice that we often ignore (which just encourages “him” to natter on more). I know the voice of my interior monologue—too well—but I have no sense of what this is like for anyone else. My fascination with that question led to this guest blog. I’m fascinated to find out what others will have to report on this issue.

Much of the time my interior monologue is just a quiet voice muttering in the darkness, with nobody paying attention. I might be totally unaware of the voice and then happen to notice that he is singing the Sesame Street song for the 403rd time in a row. He’s easily amused, my interior voice. I’ve noticed that he has a quirky obsession with unusual names. While the real “me” is concentrating on some frustrating task, my interior monologue might be chanting, like a stuck record, “Hayden Panetierre, Hayden Panetierre, Hayden Panetierre.”

At other times the voice of my internal monologue is an articulate and intriguing personality, a sort of splendid copy of me who has a similar range of interests and abilities. When I try to solve a problem, this voice pitches in and makes shrewd suggestions, like, “Why not whack this little dingus with that heavy wrench? Whadda you got to lose?” I know this sounds a wee bit schizophrenic, but I feel like “two heads are better than one,” and I appreciate it when my interior monologue does something constructive. Anything constructive. Because, just between you and me, on most days that voice is queer and undisciplined, a parrot with a disgusting vocabulary and a contentious disposition.

For example, the voice of my interior monologue often judges me, and he isn’t a generous judge. If I miss I throw a snowball at a tree and miss by a humiliating margin, my interior monologue groans and observes, “Sheesh! You couldn’t hit your butt with a frying pan.” If I am slow to perceive an obvious fact, he sneers, “Stevie Wonder coulda seen THAT!”

Part of the complication of being me is that I live with two codes of acceptable conversation, the polite “official” one and the vulgar voice of my interior monologue. I am not known for having a potty mouth, but that is because I usually can filter out the foul, blasphemous things my interior monologue is saying. But when I am sufficiently startled, the words that pop out of my mouth are his, not mine. If something unexpected and scary happens, I might whoop, “Christ on a crutch!” That isn’t me speaking! Heck, I don’t even know what he means by that!

It is strange having this voice in me, this voice I cannot escape. I once was playing racquetball when I tore the cartilage in my right knee. The knee made a clicking noise, locked and suddenly I was falling. “Oh my,” my interior monologue commented wryly before I hit the court floor, “your dancing days are done!” If I clobber my thumb with a hammer, my internal monologue usually informs me in a detached, ironical tone: “Geez, in ten seconds that’s gonna hurt big time!” Although he is me, he doesn’t seem to have much sympathy for me. Do you see how bizarre this is?

Once when I was hunting pheasants I walked nearly to the end of a line of cornstalks before turning to seek birds somewhere else. Spluttering with indignation, the voice of my internal monologue broke in to say, “What would that smartypants writer Steve Grooms have to say about this? That self-appointed ‘expert’ has written that you should always work out the cover to the very end.” Groaning, I went back to hunt the last 20 yards of corn. When a little rooster flushed from the end of the corn row, I managed to hit him. I didn’t need the smug voice of my interior monologue to tell me, “Told you so! Told you so!”

As I experience life, then, it is complicated. I have this voice in my head that I cannot evict, even though he doesn’t pay rent. He is part of me, part of the confusing, weird and goofy experience of my life. He virtually never shuts up and often says stuff I wish he wouldn’t. I have mostly gotten used to him although he is something like the crazy uncle who lives in my attic.

Do you live with a second voice chattering away in your head? What is that voice like?

83 thoughts on “The Crazy Uncle in My Attic”

  1. Sheesh… my interior voice isn’t all that interior. I worry that when the teenager goes off to college and leaves me alone with the dogs/cat, my interior voice will bust out all over and I’ll be known as that crazy lady down the block who talks to herself all day long!

    My interior voice is VERY sarcastic… even more sarcastic than I am in “real life”. Comments like your “Stevie Wonder woulda seen that” are common.

    Wonderful start to the day, Steve.

    Morning all!

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    1. I’ve wondered if my interior monologue is so colorful because I did use to talk to myself in that voice. That is, as a kid I would walk along telling myself stories, so that the voice of my inner dialogue was actually speaking. You aren’t crazy if your inner voice talks. But when you start answering . . . that might be cause for concern.

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  2. Rise and Chatter Baboons!

    I’ve often noticed a color sports commentary in my head, especially during some therapy sessions. Herb Carniele (spelling?) is in there somewhere.

    “And she sets back and allows the client to tell her/his story. Allows some strategic silence, sagely nodding, then comments. “So how do you feel about that?'”

    “It’s a CLINKIER,” crows Herb. “A high pop fly caught by the catcher easily. The batter is OUT. How could she have misjudged this situation so completely. Maybe the batter-up will save the team.”

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    1. You are so LUCKY, Jacque, to have Herb Carneal in your head instead of possible alternatives. For a while I had Howard Cosell in my head, commenting with dripping satire, on my conduct. God, was I relieved when he moved out!

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      2. I should add that now and then Herb has me hitting base hits and home runs. However, I never, ever was any good at fielding, so those balls I drop!

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  3. Good morning to all,

    When I was younger my inner voice was always telling me not to disappoint my parents. Now it is telling me not to diappoint myself. I wish that that inner voice would stop doing that. At times I have a strange feeling that my inner self is all there is and what my eyes see is not real. Also, I think that if I had to I could keep myself going by creating an inner world and living in that world. Prolbably I really couldn’t keep going without being in contact with the outter world. .

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    1. I dunno, Jim, maybe it’s how people survive who are incarcerated for decades. It might be a built-in mechanism we all have to help us get through really rough stuff.

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  4. I have only one significant negative from all my bike riding; it is that my voice has me as a captive audience. He’s not silent some other times, but other times I can think or do him into silence. I don’t like him very much, except, well, every now and then he opens a door of a sort into myself, life, faith, or something positive.
    My voice is just a slightly-modified version of myself, sad to say, not anyone very interesting. He:
    1. reminds me of embarrassments and small past failures. Just at random, with seldom a connection to my day.
    2. Keeps and regularly ticks of the list of my five big failures/faulty choices.
    3. Makes me rewatch my children suffering from the illness, faulty mindset, and bad habits they acquired from me. He will let me admit the strengths they acquire from their mother.
    4. Plays scenes from movies and books. Her seldom sings songs for he is unmusical as I.
    5. Tells me I should stop writing on this blog.
    6. Stirs my religious doubts.
    7. Writes sermons.
    8. Reminds me, after the man has come to visit, that the most maddening, pedantic, self-absorbed, and irritating human being possible is indeed very much like me in many ways. He is allowed to dope-slap me a few dozen times after each of his visits. I appreciate each one. (He was here last week–GRRRR.)
    9. Swears much more than I do.
    10. Remembers quotations.
    11. Writes poems or parts of poems, which these days I cannot remember by the time I get home from a bike ride.
    12. Replays moments in my life and thus often shows me insights or connections that I missed when I lived them or last reviewed them.
    13. Makes me wonder where people are today and what each of your lives are like and what if I had taken that risk way back when, how I will live after my wife dies, etc. etc. etc.
    Well, time to go bike ride.

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    2. I thought my inner voice was unpleasant, Clyde, but I wouldn’t trade him for yours if yours is as you describe. Your inner voice needs a sense of humor! Mine gives me a hard time, but usually in a sassy way that occasionally makes me smile.

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    3. i started going to a shrink recently and her deal is to help you figure out how to get the inner voice to start getting you to where you want to be with positive thoughts. years ago amway introduced me to the power of positive thinking and i love listening to motivational speakers and tapes and snippets. the snippet form the guy who was internet geek who had a world view here on the blog a short while back . the talks are held to 12 minutes or something like that and the talks re mostly fantastic. i encourage everyone to find a way to get the inner pilot heading in the right direction , in my experience nothing makes a bigger difference.
      thats not right
      yes it is
      is not
      is so.

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  5. I guess that I don’t have a real strong inner voice. I am always thinking about things and I supose thinking is not the same as hearing an inner voice. Where does the inner voice come from? I guess it comes from your subconscience which tends to deal with questions about what is right and what is wrong. I supose that some people who think that god speaks to them are really just hearing a voice from deep within their subconscience. I know a person who thought god told him what to do, but I think he just had a thought that was very profound and didn’t realize it was his own thought.

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  6. Greetings! My inner voice is a self-conscious, harsh and judgmental critic. I play out entire scenes and conversations in my head with all the things I wanted to and should have said to people in my life — but of course, did not. I obsess over words or phrases that catch in my brain for no reason. Have you ever repeated an ordinary word many times over internally, and after a while it sounds weird and foreign?

    As a former stutterer, I still think like one — using as few words as possible, speaking only when necessary, mentally looking ahead at what I plan to say to carefully avoid words or phonetic combinations that I tend to stutter on; and generally trying to attenuate my voice like an actor for the best effect.

    One positive that I use my brain for is getting ready for the next belt in karate. While relaxing in a hot bath, I will visualize myself executing every self-defense, one-step, combination and kata from each belt level until I know it perfectly and see my body doing it perfectly. It doesn’t always translate into the reality when I’m being tested, but I know it helps.

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  7. My inner voice has a habit of explaining how to do things as I am doing them. I think this has to do with learning styles – some people reinforce what they know by teaching it to others. When I was a kid, my sister had that learning style, and she would always teach me things as she learned them. I, being the youngest, had no one to teach, so I suppose the inner voice evolved to instruct the imaginary little sister that I felt compelled to explain things to.

    So if I am cooking something, the inner voice is explaining how to crack an egg and why we crack an egg this way, and that the bowl should not be cold when beating egg whites, only if you are whipping cream, and how to get the oil residue out of the bowl and on and on.

    Interestingly, although my inner voice almost invariably speaks English – I am very bad with other languages and remember almost nothing of them – there are two German words that pop up regularly, when I’m eating something hot. The Voice says “Sehr heiss.”

    The other habit my inner voice has is to burst into song when certain visuals remind me of certain lyrics. This happens a lot when I’m gardening. If I’m deadheading roses, the song that accompanies the task is “It’s Been a Good Year For the Roses.” For a long time my inner voice did a George Jones impression to sing this one, although lately it’s sounding more like Elvis Costello. A bittersweet vine triggers “Bittersweet” by Big Head Todd and the Monsters. If I’m working around buttercups, it’s Elvis and “All Shook Up.” Queen Anne’s Lace, “Put Down the Gun” by Peter Case.

    If people’s inner voices come from a deity, I think it would have to be a really, really peculiar God.

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      1. I never get religious on here, wrong arena for that, so take this as a metaphor. I think the message of Jesus, as healer and savior, is to help us conquer our inner demons, as when he drives demons out of the afflicted.
        From Rita Rudner, an approximation: “It is said that neurotics build castles in the air and psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them.”

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  8. The bread and butter of my profession involves helping people who have inner monologues that are so self-critical, fearful, or self-defeating that the individuals in question can’t function. These people need to take control of their inner voices and change the negativity. That inner voice is very powerful. My inner voice is fairly sarcastic, Usually its pretty quiet. I think one of the reasons I listen to music so much is that it replaces that voice with beauty.

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    1. That was always the delight of TLGMS for me, both the music and the commentary were so much fun and got each day off to such a positive start. I miss that. However, the blog is a great addition, too.

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      2. J – OT, “miss” doesn’t begin to describe how i feel about the loss of TLGMS and Dale’s and Jim Ed’s voices. my inner voice still says very nasty, mean, and sad things about MPR and the barn radio now broadcasts drivel.

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  9. My inner voice mostly sings to me – odd snatches of songs, sometimes the same single line over and over and over and over. Especially annoying when what she is stuck on is a theme from one of the kid’s shows Daughter watches (the “Curious George” theme is playing right now – Inner Voice plays DJ, so I usually hear the artist and not Inner Voice singing – thank heavens). Inner voice also frequently speaks to inanimate objects (and sometimes uses me as a ventriloquist’s dummy to voice her dissatisfaction with whatever object is thwarting us) – this was more true when I was building sets a lot and working by myself in a theater late at night.

    Inner Voice also likes to talk to me late at night – sometimes she tells me snippets of stories and helps me find the right words for stories that she and I can write together as I drift off to sleep (I may or may not remember these fabulous word combinations come morning). If I wake up during the night, though, that’s no good – she does not like to have her sleep disturbed, preferring to paint wild pictures for me in my dreams. I wake her up, she finds whatever I have done not quite right in the last day or two (and often she can find something) and then proceeds to play that scene over and over and over (she likes to repeat things, what can I say), making sure that i understand that I screwed up. Mostly she saves these sessions of berating me for when I have awoken her in the wee small hours or kept her up past her bedtime.

    One other deep dark secret (okay – not really) – I’m pretty sure Inner Voice has a twin brother who comes to visit from time to time. This brother is a *fabulous* drag queen and occasionally insists that I make certain purchases – vintage necklaces with rhinestones and other sparkly things, brightly colored clothing that I might otherwise avoid, wholly not-sensible shoes…he also makes me sing along to “Dancing Queen” and various other tunes – generally at the top of my voice.

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  10. Wow! It’s so cool to hear about all of your inner voices. I thought I was the only one who had such an inner dialogue.

    My inner voice is usually a lot like Steve’s: critical, sarcastic and sometimes vulgar. It’s also similar to Linda’s though: when I’m out in the park or on the bike trail and I notice tourists walking, I hear myself instructing them about which plants are which, especially poison ivy. My inner teacher shows them the three-leaved vine and then similar, benign plants so that they are not confused about which is which. I inform them that all parts of the poison ivy plant contain the irritating oil that many of us should avoid. The inner instructive voice then launches into lectures on various plant species and their specific needs and characteristics. This type of inner dialogue occurs most often when I’m hiking or biking in a natural area and it seems to have the effect of reinforcing my own knowledge of plant species. (I hope so anyway.) Also like Linda, I have a constant supply of songs in my head that will burst out at the slightest suggestion of relation, like “Be Kind to Your Web-footed Friends.” I had that one going on all day yesterday too and didn’t realize why until someone (can’t remember who now – Linda?) pointed it out. Another trait is bursting out an answer in German – never in French.

    Clyde, last evening when I was riding my bike through the state park, my inner dialogue was about you. My inner voice was saying over and over again how wonderful it is that you keep riding your bike every day in spite of all your pain. How many miles have you logged so far this year? Keep it up! Fram! Fram!

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    1. 1400 miles, alas.
      Two years ago I was at 3800 miles this time of year. Used to regularly ride over your way, but will never be able to again, since I cannot ride that far round trip and my wife cannot drive to pick me up.
      A small part of why my miles are down is that we are so often taking care of our grand children, a delightful reason, of course. But the missed days of riding are showing me that I should probably quit.
      I carved a Mario clock for my grandson and now we owe my grand daughter a Lily clock. After I carve for an hour, my wrist and forearms and shoulders are in huge pain. So I will fight my way through the clock and then probably be done with carving, too.

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      3. Alright, you done it! I’m going out to the garage and take my bike down from winter storage and take it for a spin in the neighborhood. About time too!

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      4. what happens to the muscles that turn from tired to unused? i hope the lack of use does not start a downhill slide. maybe iof an hour of carving is too much you could stop after 30 minutes or 20
        bike ride a little better than none so why does it point you that way? hang in there clyde. we are with you.

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      5. tim, the muscles are not tired, they hurt.
        The rule of FM is that you can exercise or you cannot, and if you cannot you will only make everything worse. If you push it, you damage the muscles. The physiology of this is understood but would take too long to explain. Most FM people cannot do very much exercise. A friend up north with FM just flat out insists I am lying that you cannot have FM and ride that much. Some can do more strenuous exercise, but all eventually reach a point like I am approaching.
        RE carving. I have degenerative arthritis in my right hand, the one with which I hold the piece. The pain from that when I carve becomes a focus to the FM, which ramps up and generalizes across my body.
        The physiology of much of this is a mystery. What is understood takes a few chapters to explain clearly. It is the body turning on it itself and then in trying to protect itself from that causing more problems.

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      6. In that case congrats on all you have done to this point. I am with you either regardless but hope you can find a way to continue . It’s hard to see you get aced out of your ride. But if tje grandkids gain all is ok.

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    2. Krista, my inner voice wants to ask your inner voice if it knows that jewelweed is often used as a poison ivy antidote, and that it often grows conveniently close to patches of poison ivy.

      It was Anna who brought up web-footed friends yesterday, though I’m sure many of us were thinking that anyway as soon as Dale’s title came up.

      Is there something about the German language that gets into your DNA?

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      1. Re: the jewelweed – yes, my inner voice knew but in the interest of keeping my post as short as possible… The seed pods also explode in an alarmingly delightful manner!

        I do think German gets in your DNA. It’s also in my family and upbringing. My dad’s side of the family spoke some German and I’m no different from anyone else in my family – it just comes out!

        A song that pops into my head whenever someone mentions “weather” or “news” is Paul Simon’s “The Only Living Boy in New York.”

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      2. Since my inner voice is a real know-it-all, it also wanted me to mention that there is a word – dehiscence – for the explosion of the seed pod.

        Weather reports often make my inner voice sing John Gorka’s “I Know”. I think I’ll request that that be paired with Paul Simon in the future.

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  11. You only live with ONE??? I have an entire village living in my brain…and I’m the village idiot for it.

    The most predominant voice in my head is a very angry, very demanding perfectionist with standards that no human on the planet could possibly achieve. I’ve learned to not allow him to tap into my active voice but he still has a secret route to other muscles in my face, not the least of which will cause me to look with incredulity when someone does something he deems to be ‘stupid,’ mean, or with a decided lack of manners. This person is forcedly passive and highly aggressive. He is kept on a very short leash as much as possible.

    There is also an analytical psychologist that loves to deconstruct how and why other people work and push their buttons. The angry guy really likes him because he figures out how to get under people’s skins and this provides ammunition to exact little nasty tweaks against people that angry guy feels ‘needs’ them.

    There is also a very patient, very wholistic, very calm person. All he really wants is balance. Harmony. Diplomacy among all the diffrerent and varied voices inside and out. I would really like him to be in charge. Angry guy usually pushes him aside, much to my chagrin.

    There is also artistic guy. He likes to hang with balance guy and gives an outlet for angry guy and all of the other voices. And once the other voices feel like they’re being heard, they tend to quiet down. Unfortunately, artistic guy doesn’t do much in the way of economically supporting the rest, which gives angry guy more ammunition.

    There are several others but I have to do work now. Angry guy will now bark at me for being in this line of work. I’ll try to keep him from barking through me at others around me.

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  13. Another characteristic of my voice is his exceptional memory for old conversations. He is forever repeating old dialogue. When my daughter was about six, she pointed to a poster of a pensive, bearded Garrison Keillor. Molly explained to me, “When you see somebody who looks just like that, Daddy, then you know it is Garrison.” That sweet little quote plays in my head at least once a week.

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  14. Very interesting! Great topic, Steve.

    I have more than one inner voice, at least two, possibly three. The two that I’m sure of seem to represent my gut reaction to things and my more thoughtful rational self. These two voices are especially active while I’m driving. The first gets irritated with fellow motorists who aren’t paying attention, driving like jerks, turning without signaling, etc. and often resorts to name calling and is not very nice. The other voice tell’s me to cool my jets, asks why I’m so impatient, and admonishes me to be a kinder gentler person, to breathe. The rash, critical and judgmental voice is quick and quite persistent, the more reasoned, compassionate voice, slower, calmer, more deliberate. I’m grateful that the second voice seems quite determined to not let the first one have her way.

    When my first voice dwells on, and berates for mistakes I’ve made, my second voice gently urges me to let it go, forgive myself, and encourages me to move on. I sometimes think I think too much, but I have to admit I’m fascinated by what goes on inside my head, much of it a mystery to me.

    There’s also a voice that frolics joyfully in song, often hymns and children’s songs that I learned very early in life. I have no idea what triggers them, but out of nowhere a memory will bring to mind a tune, or vice versa, and I’ll be stuck with it for days. This voice may not be entirely internal. Apparently I am a hummer, that is to say, I hum to myself, completely unaware that I’m doing so. In my first clerical job when I was 17, I drove my office mate, a woman in her thirties, to distraction. With some regularity she would say to me: ” Miss Pedersen will you please shut up.” I would concentrate on being quiet for while, but it was usually just a matter of time before I’d be at it again. Often people will comment that I must be in a good mood, and when I ask why, they’ll tell me I was humming.

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  15. My orange cat has a very problematic inner voice that says “The food bowl isn’t completely full. You can see the bottom of the bowl between the morsels of food. You had better gorge and eat as fast as you can because she’s not going to feed you again and you are going to starve. Oh, now you feel too full. You had better vomit on the newly shampooed carpet”.

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    1. I’m a heavy sleeper. I sleep through thunderstorms, emergency sirens, what not. But have a cat retch anywhere in the house, and I’m awake immediately. Why is that?

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  16. When that inner voice makes an appearance at my house it also says “Maybe you should hop up onto the stove to see if there’s anything good to eat there.”

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  17. I’m confused about what really is an inner voice and how it differs from conscience thought. There are lots of thoughts that are never spoken out loud which I think are really not an inner voice. What is the dividing line between conscience thinking and thoughts that seem to come from the subconscience? Where does any kind of thinking come from? Are we ever completely in control of any of our thoughts?

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      1. I guess there is no way to stop myself from thinking about something because the effort to stop about something requires me to think about it.

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      2. Very funny, Clyde. Now all I can think about it is elephants — but that’s exactly what you wanted, isn’t it? You’re so devious … 8)

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      4. ROFL — I always loved that Sta-Puft Man bit in “Ghostbusters” — heck, I just loved that whole movie and laughed my ass off. When I worked in Promotion at Pillsbury, rumor had it that the producers wanted to use the Pillsbury Doughboy for that part in Ghostbusters. But with all those kiddies clutching their plush Doughboy toys in bed with them at night, it would have been baaaad publicity.

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    2. Here’s the difference for me in one instance, using something Joanne said above.
      The conscious mind: Before I would do a major presentation, like Joanne pre-thinking her karate test, I would walk myself through the day, envisioning myself in action [for more on this see the book Psychocybernetics”], thinking about transitions, prepping answers to questions they would ask and answers they would give (always the tricky part). If my ex-partner and I were doing the day together we would meet and go to breakfast without hardly talking because we were both doing this.
      The voice in the attic: afterwards it would be a rush to the airport, to the ticket counter and to the gate. That whole time my mind is repeating things I said, things people said, indicting me for things I said, telling me what were my errors (seldmn if ever a success). I would exhaust me but I could not turn it off because I was in such a rush and could not relax. The worst would be in Kansas somewhere because then I would drive all the way home.
      The conscious mind: now at the gate or more likely on the plane, I could consciously do my focused relaxation techniques and turn off the voice. Of course, a seatmate or two along the way thought I was rude because I avoided talking, but at that time of the day most travelers are deprogramming like me. Then the next day at the office I could more objectively analyze the day.
      So you see, i was being hyperbolic about my voice on the bike rides. I can use the rhythm of the pedals to quiet the voice if I will it.

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      1. imagine if the positive vibe were ruling and patting you on the back for the wonderful job you did instead of beating you up for the things you could have done differently

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  18. I just wanted to let you all know the good news — Jim will be starting a job on Monday — it’s a temp to hire position, so we’ll hope for the best. I will be back at Xcel for a couple months starting 8/15. Whew! Although it was nice to have some summertime off …

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    9. Thanks for all the good wishes, happy thoughts and positive vibes my baboon friends — it really means a lot to me. I guess I had better get at all that cleaning and organizing I’ve been procrastinating from doing during my time off! Wish I had Renee’s motivation and productivity …

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  19. I have the usual “parent” critical voice that seems to absorb bad habits from others. At one job I sat next to a guy who muttered under his breath “Idiot” whenever he made even a typo. I now catch one of my inner voices calling me “Idiot” in the same situations.

    I seem to have more than one voice in there, too, but I’ll have to start paying more attention. I do remember a journal entry where I’m critiquing some decision I’d made, and the next line was something like “Oh, leave her alone – she’s doing just fine!”

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    1. Oh, and I frequently have French phrases pop out, someone is often muttering to me the choices I’m making while grocery shopping. One of me is constantly humming something…

      Thanks for a fascinating topic, Steve(s).

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  20. good stuff steve. my inner voice is my best friend and my worst enemy. i shut him off, blow him off ignore him tell him to shut up and leave me a lone i will get to it later. \
    my inner voice knows my capabilities and my limitations but doesn’t ever cut me too much slack, enough to keep form getting down on myself but not enough to give any indication of giving up. if i can’t do it it can’t be done unless we are talking geek stuff. i can do almost anything with attitude and it keeps me going all day every day and is my salvation. if i ever lose the ability to have that little guy with me you can take me out and shoot me. i will be lost.

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    1. Thanks for getting this going Steve. It’s been interesting reading today.
      I never really thought about my inner voice. Of course I talk to myself. And I do rehearse conversations and replay events in my head. And yep, names; Boutrous Boutrous Ghali is a favorite. And music; usually whatever I just heard before turning off the radio or- in the event I’m working on a musical- then that music; which is damned annoying after the first three days!
      I guess I do talk to other drivers on the road and I’m a pretty harsh critic of both myself and others so I hope it all stays ‘In’ and doesn’t come out that often. But I never thought of it as a ‘voice’… it’s just me in there. Very interesting…

      A few years ago I told my daughter I was taking her CD player away from her. (It was punishment for something or other). She informed me she had music in her head so fine- take it away!

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