After listening to the radio for awhile this morning on my desktop, I turned it off, because it was distracting me, and I realized that then “I could hear myself think, ”  because I often think in words.  Then I remembered that my dad used to occasionally say that he needed to be able to hear himself think.  So my thoughts turned to him.   I gained both a subject on which to reflect, and a better means to do it, after quieting the background noise.