There is an interesting and practical theory about thinking, or really, the incessant talking to ourselves that we call thinking, and why we, as a species, began doing this.
It has long been known that the first thing a person needs to do to meditate is to “clear their mind” of chatter. The reason is that when we *don’t* talk to ourselves, our minds can move into a state of strongly focused attention, ignoring the distractions around us; or it can become very unfocused, allowing our creative mind to come into play.
Unfortunately, both a very focused and a very unfocused state are not good in a survival situation, say if you are being chased by a tiger. So way back, humanity figured out an interesting trick.
When you talk to yourself, it tends to keep you centered, bouncing your attention back and forth between focused and unfocused. So since then, we all talk to ourselves, and unknowingly even teach our children to talk to themselves.
However, there aren’t so many tigers around these days, which means we are losing out on a lot of the benefits of a more focused, and more unfocused, states of mind.
But we have learned a bunch of trained techniques to learn how to get control over our talking to ourselves, so we can shut up. And the more you do it, the better you get.
In practical terms, say you want to take a very difficult written examination. If you could totally focus on it, ignoring all the distractions around you, it would be like adding another 10-20 IQ points.
Likewise, if you wanted to paint a creative picture, if you could go into an extended state of unfocused concentration, it would come uninterrupted from your most creative mind.
But it goes even beyond these benefits. Some people are so good at talking to themselves that they can barely complete a sentence without getting distracted. And bouncing back and forth consumes a lot of energy, over time making them mentally tired and frustrated.
Those who try the various techniques to get more control are generally happier with the result of being able to turn on or turn off their internal chatter at will.
Interesting explanation; do you have some resources for the focused- and unfocused-state techniques?