It’s an old discussion, a couple years old at least (guh does time pass quickly these days), but I’m a slow processor and an even slower writer. But it came up recently in a conversation so I felt I should revisit it.

The premise: You aren’t cool or better because you have an “internal monologue.” In fact, you are probably worse for it.

So what is this “internal monologue?” It’s that voice you hear in your head. No, not the one reading this out to you. It’s your own voice reflecting upon things as they are happening and conveying them back to you in prose. It’s your brain narrativizing your experience as it happens.

This is not a good thing. Self-narrativization is self-harm. Narrativization of reality is always unethical. It’s a violence against the plural of experience towards a singular. That singular is always shaped by valuation. Since we cannot escape value standards imposed by our society, we are destroying our experiences, selves, and others to match up with the standard of narrative of the society.

It’s very strange that I see therapists and some in the mental health advocacy realm recommend this practice. In fact, they frame journaling as a ritual in narrativization. “Making sense of the world around you and yourself” is how they frame it.

So we should do this to make the world make sense? So we can self-craft our place in it? This seems like caving into the lesser parts of the self: the neurotic (“I cannot handle a world that isn’t rational and thus predictable”), the external validation seeking (“I must fit into socially accepted narratives”), and the hopelessly idealistic (“I wish my life to be meaningful by approximating it to that which myself and others find beautiful”).

What is lost in the process?

  • The experiences and motives leading to behavior that don’t fit the narrative. Perhaps those things deserve even more consideration than typical things do.
  • Understandings of others that lie outside of our own worldview. You will misunderstand others and you will mistreat them if you can only approach them from your own point of view.
  • A whole lot of meaningless fun.

To bring this back: I don’t think an internal monologue is indicative of intelligence, but personality defect. The world isn’t a book; maybe you should visit it some time.