"As a kid, I knew that if I talked to myself on school grounds, I risked becoming That Freak Who Talks to Himself...."

"Stigma kept me quiet, but its potency diminished as I aged. Also: Look around. People walk the streets talking and gesticulating, tiny white buds in their ears. They pontificate to phone cameras. Determining which unseen audience a pedestrian is addressing has become too difficult a calculation to bother solving... ... I have found that vocalized self-analysis, and the willingness to trudge through intellectual and moral quandaries in noisy solitude, is a valuable complement to more traditional conversational outlets, especially when it comes to creative thinking.... The fear we associate with a person who publicly talks to themselves at length, and without apparent concern for or awareness of the impact their performance has on those around them, is the fear of an eroding self, its supposed constancy and singularity unraveling, its loose threads chatting with each other chaotically.... But the dialogue between current and potential selves is small proof that such change is possible. Or maybe that’s just something I like to tell myself."

From "The Power of Talking to Yourself/'External self-talk,' as it’s clinically known, gets a bad rap. But it can be great for pushing through all sorts of obstacles" by Paul McAdory (NYT).