Mentalese

What I think I am going to say and what I actually say aren’t the same. It’s odd, you don’t actually think about what you are going to say most of the time. That is, you can, but words just kind of tumble out of your mouth with maybe only the slightest amount of effort behind them. You can be more thoughtful about your words, of course, but almost no one ever thinks carefully about each word before they say it.

I’ve tried to do that. The thoughts and the words still don’t match. It’s as if there is some mental language, some meta brain speak that thoughts are made of that must be translated into English but my translator is broken.

Watch.

“Elephants rise fascia gambled.”

I was trying to introduce myself. I didn’t think too hard about it. You don’t either. Next time you meet someone, pay attention to your thoughts. You’ll see. You don’t think, ‘now I’m going to say “hey, great to meet you, my name is whatever”’. No, you just notice that you’ve met someone and it’s appropriate to introduce yourself and you do it.

Here. I’ll try again.

“Every tell deer a selfie.”

I tried to think about the exact words. Each one with a little mental space between them and even a mind’s eye punctuation mark at the end. Maybe you do that if you’re super nervous. Maybe when you’re out of your element, hanging with the cool kids at some fancy place or whatever. And I bet you mess it up a little, because you thought about it so hard. But you don’t say something tragically bizarre like I do every time I talk. I’m like freaking postmodern poetry over here with my nonsense.

Last try.

“Local run weapons ventricular.”