I’ve been doing it all my life though so it doesn’t really require more effort than thinking in concepts. It’s like breathing, it happens automatically but I can stop or control it if I want to.

I’ve found the opposite. The older I get, the “expensive” words are to use. The concept when in mind is so complex and nuanced, to use a word for it shaves off all that complexity and nuance and collapses the thought into the limits of the definition of that word. When it becomes a word, its…less, a mostly formed shadow of what it was. That’s the price of communicating it to others.

When I stop my inner voice I would describe my thoughts as sort of fuzzy and ephemeral. I would easily forget them or have difficulty expressing them without first putting them into words.

We operate oppositely in this, which is wonderful! For you it sounds like the thoughts don’t have meaning until you choose words and make them concrete. Like your thoughts are liquid and fluid, but you’re able to make them solid and meaningful by confining them in words. For me, I do the best I can with choosing a word, sometimes dusting off old antiques, to try to match as close as possible to the concept. Sometimes I have found words in other languages sometimes fit better because of a closer match of concepts or properties. That too has its drawbacks, as using that would lose your audience when you’re trying to communicate an idea.