Category: thoughts

Something to think about for stories and characters

~ David W. Jones ~ Leave a comment

Evidence grows that mental illness is more than dysfunction

Reminds me of a science fiction novel I read, in which society had genetically engineered people they called ‘vampires’. Stronger, faster and much smarter than humans. They were also engineered with sociopathic traits: lack of empathy, seeing others and society as systems, machines.

The ‘vampires’ were needed to solve complex, difficult problems beyond ordinary human abilities, problems that threatened to destroy the human species.

Perhaps this is related to the idea that sociopathology exists because there were times when societies needed the condition’s combination of clear thinking, situational understanding, impulsiveness, and willingness to sacrifice others, in order to survive violent threats such as wars?

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Are you biased against color in art?

~ David W. Jones ~ Leave a comment

Chromophobia: The greatest conspiracy in ancient art
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220810-chromophobia-the-greatest-conspiracy-in-ancient-art

There’s also, I think, the heavy bias in art photography: That only black and white photos are “fine art”.

My favorite visual art in high school has pencil drawing. Sharp lines, smooth, detailed shading, no color.

I also did watercolor. It was color, but with shading and blending.

I tried oilpainting. I think a key skill there is mixing colors – and I was terrible at it.

What sculpture I did was made from items that already had their own colors.

So what about you and color in art?

The ‘illusion of knowledge’ that makes people overconfident – BBC Worklife

~ David W. Jones ~ Leave a comment

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220812-the-illusion-of-knowledge-that-makes-people-overconfident

Something to think about – at work if you’re still in the office world, in your creative work if you’re an author or artist.

If you’re a writer, how does this apply to your characters when they find themselves in situations where they think they know what to do?

The surprising benefits of gossip – BBC Worklife

~ David W. Jones ~ Leave a comment

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220804-the-surprising-benefits-of-gossip

This article was interesting to me, for a couple of reasons.

First, the possibility that a human need for gossip led to the development of language? Fun (to me, at least)!

Second, after two years and four months of working remotely… what and how does office gossip affect things?

Gossip can be good or bad. In the age of #MeToo, gossip that warns its listeners to “Never be alone with” certain men can save people and companies a lot of trouble!

So, for writers and storytellers, how do you use gossip in your tales?