Being in Krakow, when Lisa is either in class or researching at the librayr, I find that there will be long stretches of time where I simply do not speak, perhaps a few hours at a time. In this experience I’ve noticed that as external dialogue diminishes, the internal dialogue grows, and that this exercise has been quite good for me.
I remember back to when I was composing a lot in college: my schedule usually involved going to school and rehearsals until around 7:00pm, then a quick dinner at home before going to my favorite coffee shops to sit at for hours on end (it was not unusual to leave the coffee shop after midnight), before going home or to the studio to work on music for hours after that. (I drank alot of coffee in those days.) During the time I spent at the coffee shops I often read texts by composers, computer music books, novels, poetry, and various books of other types. I remember too in those nightly reading sessions I would spend a lot of time also not speaking, internalizing a dialogue, and I think that helped me very much to focus when I later went to work on music, late into the night.
I think perhaps in the time since school, since becoming a programmer and simply living life, that kind of internal dialogue and quiet observation has not been as exercised regularly. It is something now that I am thinking about very much and I hope this kind of focus can be maintained once I return to work life.