I didn’t think this “not using inner voice” thing applied to me, but the way I read the article maybe it does. If the inner voice is truly a voice using grammatical spoken language it sounds crazy limiting.

As someone with an inner voice, I can’t even imagine how I’d think about abstract concepts without words. Like, how does “I love freedom” or “I wish all people could be free” happen without words?

None of this is in words when I’m thinking about it. I’m putting words here to describe the concepts , thoughts and feelings, of each step but none of it is words when I’m thinking it.

Freedom

• limitless choice
• peace and comfort
• patriotism (to the extreme, ironic terms freedom being used as a method of control)
• anti-freedom = slavery or being controlled
• personal experience with making free choices
• historical learning about situations where they didn’t have freedom
• personal luck in being born in a (mostly) free country
• imagining being born and living in a place without freedom
• fictional examples of lack of freedom, like sci-fi dystopia
• empathy about those that don’t have the same things I do
• sense of justice about equality
• memory of muscles used to make my mouth and larynx say the word “freedom” FREEEEEE — DUUMMM

All of the above only takes a second or two of actual elapsed time.

Words that come out:

“I love freedom. I wish all people could be free”.

It’s like an instinct. You get the meaning behind the words without the words needing to be there.

Image of someone running in a field, naked

(I don’t know, I’ve got words in my head)

Interpretive dance is about expressing feelings without words. Mimes convey a ton of meaning without words. Both use motion and body language in ways that not everyone is familiar with, kind of like speaking a language. Other things people do physically, like shaking hands, bowing, and hand gestures have regional meanings like verbal language does.

Non-verbal communication can be hard, but then again speaking different verbal languages is a barrier too.