Which Comes First, Speech or Thought?

I stared at a terrifyingly blank computer screen for too long, having both too many thoughts and too few simultaneously. I didn’t want to tell a story from my time in Europe or share my thoughts about the current world situation or point out the duplicity within society as a whole. I didn’t really want to write anything at all.
That sentiment above could have been true at many points in my life, but actually it refers to about ten minutes ago. I, frankly, just don’t have anything to say.
But then again, maybe I do. Maybe I want to say that we all talk far too much. If we shut up about needing to plaster our own unique perspective across every available blank wall, then that oh-so-precious perspective might matter more. We would focus on developing that outlook, making it better, making it worth a damn, instead of forcing it to be known and understood by others. Prodding someone into acknowledging that I have a perspective on life worth the recognition does far less for me when I’m no longer in the spotlight than using those same efforts to craft thoughts actually worth expressing.
John Andrew Holmes said, “Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.” Maybe if we as individuals worked on the bookends of that process, the thought and the action, then the speech element would be more effective at expressing our thoughts accurately and at promoting the action we desire. Speech without thought is meaningless, and thought well-developed is worth speaking.