Stream of Consciousness

A well-known Irish writer, James Joyce, is known for a particular technique of writing called stream of consciousness. Essentially, it is writing the internal dialogue that we often have with ourselves.

I have a friend who utters incredibly random things because the interior monologue was somehow released into the atmosphere, and we hear the third or fourth element in something that made sense if only we had been listening to it from the beginning.

Shamefully, I find myself increasingly guilty of doing that, too.

Every once in a while, in yet another literary response, I become aware of my discourse, and laugh it up, but more often than not my brain follows a path down a very bizarre road, and I seem to be content to let it wander there.

Today's random moment was generated by watching a bunny rabbit hop across the road and hippity-hop across a neighbor's yard, into some shrubbery.

What did it make me think of? Keeping my lunch money in my shoe.

Yeah, random right? I invite you down my mind's path: Of course, the rabbit, and the fact that I responded to it as a bunny, took me to my childhood. Once there, it was a no-brainer to days of freedom and little responsibility. No carrying around briefcases filled with work, no keeping up with car keys, cell phones, and checkbooks. In fact, no checkbooks at all. The only money I had to carry was for lunch. And even that I didn't need a wallet for, I just kept it in my shoe.

See? I'm not crazy. Just ask the voices in my head.