“Ya know,” I sez to myself this morning, “you’ve been talking a lot to yourself lately and I’m beginning to get a bit worried about you”.

“Worried? About me?” I ask. “Seems to me the calibre of the conversations have only improved now that most of them are of the singular variety”, I respond.

Okay, I’m not sure whether this type of internal – or in my case often external – conversation is a good thing or an obvious clue to the eventual state of mind in which I may spend my remaining years on this fine, 80 billion year old planet. “80 billion years old! You don’t say”, sez I. Whoops, sorry.

Now where were we? Oh yeah, considering the state of mind that may be the last place my inner travel agent deposits me.

Since I turned the grand old age of 65, I’ve become the primary, sometimes apprehensive, contributor to a new and often philosophical internal mono/dialogue that seems to have no problem in finding a huge variety of things to talk about, rant about, and occasionally laugh about. I do try to keep the laughter to places where others are not likely to see me convulsing at my own humorous insight into some odd but comical human event. These events are mostly political or have to do with the otherwise strange capacity of humans to screw around with the rules of the universe – things like gravity, or how best to use up the rest of the environment, or the speed of political thought.

I first became aware of the emergence of this increasing habit of self-vocalisation a few years ago while driving up and down Vancouver Island for my job. Thoughts would bubble up from the lowest layers of my consciousness, words would wrap themselves around these thoughts and then, without conscious intent, the words would escape from my lips and fill the blessed quiet with a gaggle of seemingly random phrases. After a while, I began to respond to these herds of words and often found myself in disagreement with myself and occasionally losing the argument. Generally, this annoyed me and I let myself know in no uncertain terms that a more stringent and philosophical calibre of discussion was required. As the age thing progressed, I discovered that this convention of thoughts and concepts was occurring on a much more regular basis.

“Great”, I said to myself, “this is probably how you’ll end your days if you keep this up. Babbling to yourself. People might begin to think you’re a Republican or even a Reform-Conservative”.

“God forbid”, I replied. “There must be medication or at least some therapy, because to end like that would be an unthinkable embarrassment”.

However, as I probe the depths of these solitary conversations I’m beginning to think that the world might just become a better place if more of the so-called leaders spent more time in conversation with themselves rather than imposing their unproven theories on others. Maybe, just maybe, they might develop a sense of reflection and discover that there is more to life than the consolidation of power and the testosterone-fueled urge to go to war with everything from the economy to your own countrymen. Perhaps, like fine wine or even stinky cheese, waiting a bit, talking to yourself to see how it feels to be the recipient of your own beliefs and testing out your theories on yourself first, might result in fewer stupid, senseless, and often destructive political decisions.

Steve admits to a skewed fascination with the politics of the Borg and a strong inclination to explore the detours travelled to avoid the risk of consciousness. Steve can be contacted at steveoneill@flyingshingle.com.

Opinions expressed in this column will usually be those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Shingle.