[UA] Re: Thought and language

[James O'Rance]

Language shapes quite a lot of my thoughts, although my emotional nature is 
separate, and harder to express verbally. If I wasn't such an introspective 
person, I wouldn't be able to describe my emotions even as carefully as I do 
now.

Are demons in UA primarily introspective? That seems like a natural 
possiblity - having no body, they would spend a lot more time inwardly 
focused. But perhaps the lack of a body does the opposite. This has just 
occurred to me, so I haven't decided.

I think in words most of the time, but not words the way that I speak them. 
I think in words as though I had written them. As Doug might be able to tell 
you, I speak a little differently than the way I write. My internal 
monologues use the kind of phrases and vocabulary that my writing shows.

Given that making words on paper is something that I do most of the week, 
this makes sense (I have "write RPG stuff" as an obsession skill). 
Mechanomancers, who spend a lot of their time designing intricate machines, 
would probably be far more visual. Plutomancers would probably be verbal 
thinkers. And so on.

When I'm not writing in my mind, I'm usually visualising encounters (some 
might call that daydreaming, but I use it to plan things that I need to do 
or to consider different possibilities in a given situation). Sometimes I 
"practice" a character that I want to play in a game, if it seems like a 
stretch (I did this for my Ventrue chick, and for a friendly psychic mobster 
that I've got in CoC). Unfortunately, if I'm alone I sometimes speak aloud, 
in which case strangers who walk behind me in the street may think that I'm 
a nut. Or a friendly mobster with an imaginary friend, I'm not sure.

Sometimes I just stare at space, and there's precious little activity going 
on in my head. That can be almost meditative, but people look at me oddly.

I think Miss Kitty is doing this right now (either thsat, or she has fallen 
asleep with her eyes open). She's perched on my desk like a stone sphinx, 
making cat I-am-resting noises, and hasn't moved in fifteen minutes.

No, now she's gone to wrestle with Space Cat. Oh well. Time for me to sleep.


James O’Rance

“Divine being creates petting zoo. It gets out of hand.”
- The Bible (summarised by John W. Mangrum)

http://www.dragonlance.com/taladas
http://www.geocities.com/dragon-dreamer/





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