Also: part II, part III

I am sitting here, staring at the gear toy that Jon gave me as a gift at his wedding. Ten gears turn off a center gear. You can arrange all eleven gears as you like on the magnetic backing of the toy. The gears spin. Googly eyes turn. Arms move. It spins. Colors turn. Busy busy busy, say the Bokonons.

How many voices do you have chiming inside your head? I took my best count, and came up with five.

The controlling voice -- this is the voice I 'hear' in my head. It's the top voice that preps sentences to be spoken and that directs, as best possible, what the other voices are working on, pulling input from all other voices, deciding to impose order or run with the curious voice. When I give myself orders, this is the voice I speak in. Every other voice responds, but is not under conscious control.

The brain voice -- is two levels down, e.g., the controlling voice has no direct access to it, so I'm having a hard time really hearing it well enough to understand. My best understanding is this voice is the one doing the work of thinking, recalling from the brain, pulling data.

The curious voice -- this is the distractable, jittery attention voice. It picks up everything from the brain voice and goes a dozen directions at one with it. Asking questions about the data, correlating it to stuff around me, pulling me all the heck off track.

The visual voice -- forms images in my head which the controlling and curious voices can play off of. It's odd, because this is a true seperate entity in my head, pulling pictures that are usually but not always relevant, and really feel like legitimate landscapes that my other voices can go exploring in.

The body voice -- there's this whole other voice that pulls me in directions my body wants to go. It's a distractive, not a constructive voice. Hunger, exhaustion, cramps, tired of sitting - want to move, and so on. But it definitely competes strongly against the controlling voice when I've got other stuff to do.

Interestingly, emotions don't carry their own voice. They affect atmosphere in my head, but don't speak. I'll find myself tense or upset and have to stop and analyze where it's coming from, whether I picked up the emotion from a book I'm reading or something, but the process is like playing charades or interpreting for a mute.