Internal Voices

A friend of mine, Tracy, found this really cool article. Read it before continuing with this post.

Is that not the most awesome article ever?

What I find interesting is that if you go down the columns, a very distinct style emerges between each kid. Barney likes to make complex words with numbers and -er, Raimi had short and intuitive names, Max applied color and imagery, and Jem sounds like an engineer in training. Also, all of these names sound like a result of their own internal voices. I define internal/inner voice as "how one communicates their own ideas to oneself using words." Yeah. WARNING: I am going to use the phrases 'internal voice' and 'inner voice' to mean the same thing, because my brain uses them interchangeably.

Most people I've talked to about this have an internal voice, and if they feel unable to communicate something, the bolder ones sometimes resort to what their inner voice is saying. One of the more fun ones is onomatopoeia. (Stress is "RRRRRRRRRRR.") Maybe inner voice allows us to express feelings or ideas to ourselves, and is based more on association than actual words. We can associate things with each other that we can't really name. For example, look at a pencil. There are so many properties that we can't name, or possibly don't have words for, but we know exactly what it is. What would you call a pencil if it didn't have a name? It's the same with Lego pieces, love, etc.

Speaking of inner voice, do you guys remember Lewis Carroll? I love this poem because you can basically understand what he's saying, even though quite a few words are made up. This is kind of like inner-voice nomenclature, because it focuses on association rather than the words themselves. My favorite line is "and the mome wraths outgabe." We can tell that mome wraths are some kind of creature, and I always think of "outgabe" as grazing.

Your assignment for this week is to use all of the made-up words from the Jabberwocky in conversation. Or make up your own. Or use onomatopoeia. Go.

Going back to the Lego example, this nuance of internal voice is something that would be invisible unless they were prompted to communicate while playing. An observer simply watching them play may not be able to discover this aspect of their personality. I feel that this is the same for everyone- unless you can get inside the person's head, there's really no reason to assume what their personality is like. Judging by actions may even be dangerous, because these obviously different individuals would be grouped in the same group if they were all seen playing with Legos together. Most of the misconceptions I see on people's character come from judging by their actions. No matter how strong your powers of deduction are.... it doesn't work. You can't hear what the person is thinking, and you can't hear the person's inner voice. BUT I DIGRESS.

How do you speak to yourself inside your mind?