Dear wsieber,

>A word ... is the skin of a living thought<

Skin: not only covering up (hiding?) what's underneath,
but the first and most obvious representation/impression
of the "meat" underneath!

>>The skin is an integrating part of an organism, growing together with it.<< Now, this made me think of infants, and the research that has been done to try to "know" what they are "thinking", if they can be said to think at all,
in the sense that we have of the term. Pre-speech infants
clearly have something going on in their brains!
As soon as their eyes can focus, they stare at the faces of their caregivers. At about three months, they begin to
definitely react to their environment (smile when they see
a caregiver). To me, this says that they are aware that
pleasant things are associated with a person. (A side note:
there is some evidence to show that even very young infants
recognize their mother by her smell.)

Whether these reactions constitute "thought", I don't know.
But, let me pose this question: have you (anyone) ever
daydreamed in pictures? To say nothing of sleep dreams!
Are they thoughts, as well?

Ever since I was a child, I've thought (!) how wonderfully
clear our communications with each other would be if we
could directly transmit our thoughts (on command only!)
in mind-pictures, telepathically!

Are our thoughts and feelings our "real" selves?
If they are, and since as yet we don't have telepathy (sigh!), we are left with words as the primary way to
communicate our "real" selves. (I'm not forgetting art,
music, etc.) Therefore, it behooves us all to take
great care in choosing our words, because this is how we
reveal AND conceal ourselves. Sometimes what we DON'T
say gives more clue to our "real" selves than what we do,
did you ever think about that?

Harking back to a previous thread, I think carefully
choosing our words is particularly important in communicating via electronic screen, since there are no
non-verbal clues at all to give the recipient any hidden
meanings to what you say.