See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

When I need to understand a personal experience, or digest a problem I'm working on, I often talk to myself and record a voice memo. I rarely listen back to the voice memos (although they are super nice to have as they serve as a historical archive of my states and progression as a person), the main benefit is in having the conversation with myself.

By forcing myself to verbalize what I am thinking and feeling, I always end up better understanding it. If I am dealing with an unpleasant situation, I can always find a way to feel better about it, or create a plan that I believe in, if I talk about it with myself.

Really, it's a form of therapy - it's not too dissimilar from the exercise one engages in with a therapist, except of course in this case you don't have a professional that can react to your outputs. Instead, the onus is on you to check yourself and self-process, which is very powerful (although of course there are limits to what you can achieve in a vacuum).

I find it effective to first elaborate upon my perspectives this way to myself, and only then share them with friends afterwards, such that they get a more cohesive presentation.

Over the summer I tried meditation. It was a great experience, but actually surprisingly difficult. A few weeks ago I decided to stop my regular meditation practice, and instead embrace kinda the opposite, and what's described in the article. Go on walks and fully immerse myself in my own thoughts. If meditation minimizes something, this is maximizing it - but without distractions. I find that long walks are sometimes very productive for introspection, and this is an experiment leaning into that.

I've started recording loom videos of myself walking through features. It's turned into a great way of testing my own code as subtle errors are more obvious when you've effectively set up a spotlight and pointed a camera at what you've built. The voiceover on top them acts as a form of rubber duck for UX.

Another benefit is, people give you a little extra space on the train.

In this way, when you finally go crazy, you won't then feel so bad for talking out loud to yourself.

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Talking to yourself is old game. The new game is talking to an LLM.

How does that work in an open office with colleagues all around you?

I very often have an internal dialogue going on but for some reason when I'm walking my dog I start talking out loud. Not loud, I whisper, but my jaw moves etc.

During our walks I rarely encounter other people but when it happens I feel a bit embarrassed. Maybe I should just put some headphones and just pretend I'm in a call like the writer in the article (Ellie Shoja).

No thank you, I am busy rotating a cow in my mind.

I talk out loud to myself all the time, especially..

“undefined is not a function. WTF!”

I am used to the term "thinking out loud." Isn't talking always "out loud?"

Which is the correct usage of the term?

Talking to yourself sometimes is the only way you can get an intelligent conversation going.

I've talked to myself since I was a kid. It helps me think through things.

Nowadays, I record these "self-conversations" into my Day One journal so I can look back on them later. It also makes me look less crazy when I'm doing this while walking outside or something.

That said, I check off several of the boxes that the author outlined in the article: introverted, enjoys spending lots of time alone, sisters but no brothers and rocky relationship with my dad.

I'm glad this is getting attention.