I often have conversations in my mind.
In a way they occur organically. Like the pulses of a crystal following some stochastic irrythmic, glowing rays expelled in idiosyncracy, interfering in secret patterns. A quanta of image, sound, smell, or touch funnels, finds its way mechanically, then chemically, then who knows? into the mind, bing! a memory, a tape rewinds and then plays back (or perhaps is recorded, or recorded over?). In some sense the moment pauses, the world stops writhing, suspends mid-breath (or perhaps it carries on, muted, dull, uninteresting).
And a little conversation transfolds. No magic, just two, three characters in a space, talking. I may be there, usually, perhaps because I would like to be there. Let us be honest. These conversations are strong dreams, strong in the sense that I would like very much for them to be real, dreams in the sense that they are not. And one more thing separates these from dreams, dreams over which one has no apparent control: there is no, or rather I endeavour seriously not to be afraid. In that way I temper myself against fear, paralysis, doubt, trepidation; by pre-enactment, or perhaps, post-enactment: I would like very much to speak on these things, to these people, to be heard. And then to hear, to be understood, grasped, embraced. To be loved.
It is thus almost always solipsistic in a weak sense, i.e. like a small, imagined play, like a dream that is not horrible, not volatile, not capricious as a swirling wind. So to describe it more accurately I am perhaps always there - I do not, I think, think seriously about conversations happening without me, because, perhaps, I almost never care what others may say when I am absent. That is one of my maxims, or at least it appears here in its converse form; its original form being never to speak (at least, poorly) of one who is not present.
This internal conversation, dialogue, in that sense I practise talking, thinking, formulating, delivery, but not listening. And listening is boring, of course, in large part due to the many who speak; but true listening requires skill and imagination. The trick in these internal conversations is thus to imagine what someone says in reply, or how someone might think, might listen. This of course requires faith, my faith in the general sympathy of the created listener; in a way, like prayer: God is our created listener in the merely formal sense that unless we speak (or at least think our concepts to God) we cannot have a listener. Or perhaps more, as Voltaire thought: "si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer" (if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him). But as it is reassuring to assume (or trust) that God is sympathetic, it is reassuring to assign some measure of sympathy to a conversa-persona.
But the thing, I think, the key thing about an internal conversation is not to be dictatorial (ironic as it may seem, after all, no one else exists to disagree), but rather, to be self-aware, to truly grasp that one's listener, one's conversa-personas, are to be assigned intelligence, rationality, truly-formed human conceptions, and that they cannot be pounded into submission (or lied to, or deceived, or misled, or chagrined), rather they must be persuaded, Socrato-Plato style. Yes, one must believe that no one, to whom everything is properly shown, will choose wrongly. And thus one should strive always to guide and be guided by a sense of pedagogical benevolence, patrimony, an aristocratic (aristo - of the best) noblesse oblige (nobility obliges). And it should not surprise anyone that this approach is as germane to children as it is (or should be) for adults. In one sense children are far superior: it is that children point out when the emperor is naked.
I think this is key. An internal conversation is probably one of the strongest tools one may employ in reflection. On the one hand, to strive always to be heard, to speak louder, even loudest, is but a virtue of the most unabashed, and this should never by itself be a sufficient barometer as to the validity of one's argument. One should not by internal conversation prove to himself that he deserves, having thus had the benefit of rehearsals, always to be heard (or herself, she). Rather, internal conversation should remind you, me, one, that our thoughts and our voices must be reasoned, careful, accurate, and sympathetic, bearing in mind the vast ignorance(s) we necessarily toil under.
And of course it is of sometime importance that one should not be overcome by nostalgia, or excessive sentiment ... in their futility. I remind myself, sometimes, yes, not to think, to dream, not to get carried away ... and not to hope wistfully.
