When I was a child, I had an imaginery friend. I am fully aware that I can pretend to say this in a very neutral tone of voice but it is a source of jokes – or at least some frowning. My brothers still tease me with this fact and my mother has admitted in the past she contemplated visiting a shrink with the child version of me. Why on earth a person with four siblings still feels the urge to invent another person is beyond me now but I vividly recall my friend, we had actual conversations in which I acted out both participants. (Okay so a shrink might not have been a bad idea.)

So imagine my relief (joy even) when I come across a word as “jouska”, which means as much as ‘playing out a hypothetical conversation in your head’. The word that acknowledges that sane adults talk to themselves.

What a beautiful word. What a beautiful concept. What a beautiful realisation that I am not the only person doing this. I mean, if there is a word for it, it is common, no? I actually play out dialogues in my head so often, and so well of course, I have thought about a job as a writer for Netflix, because yes of course: I even imagine the looks, pauses, movements and setting too. Doesn’t everyone?