“Linguists say that language comes after music
and we sang nonsense syllables

before we invented a rational speech
to order our days.”

~ Jim Harrison

When I first started practicing mindfulness, I saw internal words — aka verbal thoughts — as my opponents. Like most people, I thought the point was to not think. When verbal thoughts were present, I was obviously not. Start over. Try harder.

There's just one problem with this approach. It is normal for the mind to think in words.

"I think one of my gifts is also one of my weaknesses. Which is, I have a kind of antenna for other people. My friends and my producers might disagree with me about this, but I think an antenna that picks up on what other people are feeling. But there's something good and bad about that."

~ Terry Gross

"Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration. And this is where I think language came from."

"So much of what we live goes on inside–"