Speaking aloud gives rise to thinking in a way that self-talk doesn't. Speaking takes enough of our attentional bandwidth that this is a way of silencing thinking. At least slow it down enough to allow us to focus, thereby surprising the speaker with novel ideas. In a real sense, when we speak, we create thoughts out of the interplay between the physicality of the body speaking and the reaction we receive from the world.

Applying this same notion to writing we see that writing is not the outcome of thinking; it is the medium in which thinking takes place.

Thoughts themselves are not the thinking, they are like the weather, coming and going without us having any control, who knows - here one minute gone the next. You can't predict what you are going to think next. Writing tames thoughts, making them concrete, connected with reality, available for the world to react.

Paraphrasing Richard Feynman, when talking about his relationship to his notes, "Writing isn't a record of my thinking process. It is my thinking process."

Speaking and writing are not evidence of our thinking. Speaking and writing are the thinking itself! I don't know what I think until I speak or write it down. Writing and speaking are the conditions in which we know things. These conditions require feedback. The feedback we can't get from our thinking.

My writing tonight has brought me around to Zen and Zen's kindly grandfather Huang Po. He was all about stopping discursive thought and felt that it was the biggest impediment. He makes it sound so simple. 'Stop discursive thought and conceptualizing self-talk and then bask in enlightenment.' Speaking and writing can stop discursive thinking if done mindfully, which means quieting discursive thought.

Speaking is thinking. Writing is thinking. Speaking is thinking out loud. Writing is thinking on paper.

bibliographical data:

• https://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2009/06/on-gradual-creation-of-thoughts-while.html
• https://www.hf.uio.no/ikos/english/services/knowledge/tls/publications/Kleist%5B1%5D.pdf
• The German poet Heinrich von Kleist published in 1805 an essay entitled "On the Gradual Creation of Thoughts While Speaking." Two hundred fifteen years ago and still relevant!
• The German sociologist Niklas Luhmann applied this principle to writing.
• https://fortelabs.co/blog/how-to-take-smart-notes/
• Blofeld, John - The zen teaching of Huang Po: On the transmission of mind [1994]
• https://www.safalniveshak.com/most-powerful-thinking-decision-making-tool/