Inner Voices

This blog is starting to turn into a collection of interesting ideas that I take away from the books I’ve read that I want to explore a bit more. I must admit that I’m quite happy with that for the moment. As I’m on holiday and thus have significantly more time to read than I normally do, the number of ideas for potential posts is also souring.

The first book I read this holiday was Robin Ince’s “I’m a joke and so are you”. This book is described as: “The popular comedian and science presenter Robin Ince blends memoir, wit, and popular science to examine the human condition. Informed by personal insights from Robin as well as interviews with some of the world’s top comedians, neuroscientists and psychologists, this is a hilarious and often moving primer to the mind.”

I found the book interesting and mostly entertaining, although I also feel that parts of it are especially relevant if you are a comedian, or if you are particularly interested in comedy and comedians. I’m very interested in a particular comedian, but I’m not necessarily a connoisseur of the genre.

One topic discussed in the book that I wanted to explore a little more is on inner voices. Lots of people have inner voices that take on many different shapes and forms. Some comedians use their inner voice to come up with jokes, while for others their inner voice almost becomes the joke.

Robin explains that humans are the only species who understand that they have inner voices (as far as we know). Even our brains only just developed far enough to be able to understand that our inner voices are in fact internal. Until around 3,000 years ago our predecessors thought that their inner voices were other people talking to them in a mystical or magical way. Oftentimes they felt it was a god who was speaking to them.

An observation that Robin makes that I found quite interesting, but that I understand is an acquired taste is that this might be why God seems to give the protagonists in the Bible’s old testament a hard time. Most people’s inner voice isn’t very kind and friendly, so if you mistake your inner voice for God’s voice, he might come across quite harsh and critical.

Robin describes his inner voices as a very active panel of critics. Most of us will be able to relate to this in some way. You’ve met someone you like and afterward, you wonder if you might have said something silly. Robin’s inner voices won’t ever allow him to let go completely. When he’s enjoying a concert “waving his arms like he just doesn’t care” his inner voices will tell him he looks silly and he’ll stop.

I’m happy to say that my inner voice is a bit less critical, or more free-spirited. I think that enjoyable experiences often happen when I’m not self-conscious or when I can allow myself to be open to a sort of childlike wonderment. The most fun concerts (not necessarily the best) are the ones when I have no problem letting go and I’m not worried about looking silly. I have to admit that these often happen at Lowlands musical festival. Being in a parallel universe for three days does help to forget about the real world and its rules about how adults should behave.

Another great Lowlands experience was when they had huge swings set up. I would stand in line to go on the swings every day. In all the pictures that my friends took while I was on them, I have a silly big grin on my face. It made me realize how much I love swings and I decided that if and when I would have a garden I’d get a swing. I’m proud to say that I kept that promise to myself and the swing in my back garden is one of my happy places.

I think life is more enjoyable when we as adults are able to appreciate the little things. Worrying about what other people might think serves very little purpose. Because your world naturally has you at the center of it, it feels like other people will notice and care about everything that you do that might not fit a certain mold. In reality though, most people are too busy worrying about themselves to spend more than a few brain cycles on what you are up to.

My inner voice doesn’t always allow me to have this much fun. Like most people, I do have a tendency to worry about how I could have handled certain situations better. This is often because I feel that I should have been more patient. My impatience is probably my most pronounced character flaw. It’s definitely the one that gets me in trouble with my critical inner voice most often. I’m getting better at restraining my impatience, even if I still feel it. The unpleasant conversations that I’ll have with myself if I don’t can last for days and are a big part of the motivation to do better.

I’m also regularly bothered by what’s called “l’esprit d’escalier”, or coming up with the perfect reply a few hours or even days too late. I can replay situations in which I feel I should have given a smarter or funnier response many times in my head. In this capacity, my inner voice is not helpful at all. After all, what happened is in the past, so there is no point worrying about it and reliving over and over again. It would be much more practical to decide if I want to follow up on the event in one way or another. If so, follow up, if not, stop thinking about it.
If only it was that easy to mute my inner voice!

The third manifestation of my inner voice is me having conversations with other people, in my head. This can be people I actually know and talk to in real life, but it can also be people I wish I’d know. Sometimes this might be practicing a conversation that could actually happen. Other times it can be testing an idea to see if I can explain it and to try and determine how the person I’m testing the idea on might react to it. The other person never explicitly responds, it’s just me talking to my projection of someone else. Written down it looks a bit crazy, but it can help me to make judgment calls (like “should I publish this post?”) or to prepare for situations that I’m nervous about. In some cases, there is no noble goal or pay-off and it’s pure fantasizing about a conversation I wish would happen.

In a way writing these blog posts is similar. The difference is that the conversation isn’t happening in my head. They are monologues on paper and eventually in OneNote (my writing tool of choice) and on this site. When writing posts I try to let the tone of voice be as close to that of my inner voice as possible. If I edit it too much it loses most of the risk, but also most of the excitement.

What does your inner voice sound like?

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