I've always been a thinker. Someday I hope to get it right.
I think that comes from being a court reporter. You don't hear what you're hearing. It goes from your ears to your hands. If your brain heard it, you couldn't write as fast. So many times while writing, I was making up shopping lists for whatever.
The only time I heard, and my notes showed it, was when I had a child on the stand who was abused in some fashion. I could not not listen. Many times I actually got behind the child, so they could not see my tears. These were preliminary hearings, not trials, so no jurors would ever see me with tears.