This is the dialog from one of my favorite scenes in anime. It comes from Naruto, obviously:

Naruto: “Have you awakened yet, eh?
Obviously you haven’t! Now I’ll really break you apart, immobolize you, and take you with me!!! Sasuke!”

<long pause>
Sasuke: “Shut up…
What could you, with no parents or siblings, understand about me?
What the hell could you, who was alone from the start, understand about me, eh?!”
We suffer because of our bonds!
You would never understand the devistation, and how painful it feels to lose them!”

<long pause>
Naruto: “It’s true I don’t understand how it is between real parents and children, or real siblings.
But… when I’m with Iruka-sensei, I wonder, ‘Is this what it’s like to have a father?’
And when I’m with you, I wonder, ‘Is this what it’s like to have a brother?’”

<pause>
Sasuke:  “Why Naruto?
Why do you go that far for someone like me?”

Naruto:  “Because to me, this is one of the first bonds I’ve ever had.
That’s why I’m going to stop you!”

Sasuke”: “You’re too late, Naruto.
You’re too late now.
I can’t go back.
Come, Naruto!
In that case, I’ll just have to sever that bond!”

Naruto:  “Sever it, Huh?
Then why did you put on the forehead protector now after all this time?”

Sasuke:  “I’ll admit it.
You’re strong.
That is because, like me, you know the pain of being alone.
And that pain is what makes people stronger.
That is why, by severing that tie. I will gain even greater strength.
Starting now I’ll fight you evenly.
However, you can’t put even a single scratch on my forehead protector.
That hasn’t changed.”

——————–

When I first saw Firefly one of the things that struck me was the name River.
I can’t help it. I absolutely love that name! It’s a name chalk full of
meaning and significance. It’s a powerful name and it sounds cool too.

In a book I’ve been reading the main heroine’s name is Nest.
That name’s not as primordial as River but I like it a lot too! Again
it invokes the thought of many different ideas and concepts. It has a
sort of power to it. 

Speaking of names with power, there’s a manga I read where the main character’s name was Light. Now that one might be a little too over the top with its meaningfulness. But I like it too. It sounds cool!

I was thinking that it’s so odd that so many names don’t mean anything.
Most of the names I’ve heard don’t mean a thing. The names might have
history to them, but they don’t often have any inherent meaning in the
language. My real name is like that. Almost everybody I know’s name is
like that. At least their American names are like that. Those who come
from other cultures often have another name that does have a direct
meaning to it. So why are so many English or American names so devoid
of meaning?

Maybe it’s jut that most words in English don’t make good names? I
don’t think so!  There have got to be lots of words in English that
would make great names. Haven’t there? Names like River and Nest and
Light are some good ones definitely.  Here are a few more:

Delta -  This name’s great because of its multiple meanings. But mostly
because Delta is used usually as the term for Change. The word Change
makes a terrible name, but Delta works great.

Tale – It’d be cool to name someone something that invokes the idea of
a story or a narrative and the word “Tale” makes the best sounding name

Spire – This name invokes the idea of someone achieving great heights in their life. I love it

OK, so that’s all I could come up with off the top of my head. Pathetic I know. There have got to be tons more.

So you tell me!   What are some other words with meaning that would make great names?

The thing about text based online communication is that everybody has a sort of perfect poker face. It’s just like when you are playing poker online as opposed to in RL.  In RL, somebody can notice when you are upset or when you angry over what cards you’ve gotten and they can notice your tells and quirks and use all of that information to defeat you. But online, that aspect disappears and poker becomes, primarily, about the probabilities. It’s just all about playing the numbers.

When chatting with someone online there’s a similar phenomenon. Ordinarily if someone says something to you that makes you angry or sad or disappointed or jealous or upset, they know right away. Because most of us just have really terrible poker faces. There is a map to our inner emotional state splayed across our faces and in our eyes and in our nervous twitches and in our tone of voice and in a thousand other oh so subtle physical signals that an observant being can use to divine exactly how you are reacting to something that they are saying.

No so with text based online communication. Not so in chat rooms and IMs and emails and newsgroups and forums. There, we can *choose* to reveal our emotional state with emoticons and smileys and by choosing certain words and saying things in certain ways. But we don’t *have* to. We can hide behind a perfect stoic poker face and show nothing, reveal nothing and let the person we are speaking to think that everything is a-ok. Even if someone says something to you that makes a little part of you die on the inside, you can finish off the pleasant conversation as if nothing ever happened.

But this is an over generalization. It isn’t entirely true. Because there are some things we can’t control or at least can’t control as well.  Most notably, our silences.  During moments when you don’t know what to say. When you are shocked or appalled or enraged or deeply hurt, most of us have to take a moment to collect ourselves before we can react. Before we can respond.  And when we do respond, usually our responses aren’t as natural as they were. We hesitate. We try too hard to figure out what to say. Often, ironically, we struggle so hard to ensure that the person we are speaking to doesn’t catch on to how upset we are that our communication becomes so unnatural that we give it away that something is up in the process.

And I think people have gotten pretty good at this. At reading silences and unnatural flows in conversation and shifts in language that reveal that more is going on then there appears to be. On a number of occasions I’ve been shocked to have someone I am speaking to suddenly ask me if I’m ok, divining at once that something was bothering me even though I didn’t do anything purposeful to reveal my emotional state. When I look back over the conversations I don’t see anything in particular that must have clued the person in, and yet never has someone done this and been inaccurate in their assessment. Invariably something in fact was bothering me, though sometimes I still pretend that nothing is.

It’s funny eh? I don’t think video and audio communication will ever completely replace text messaging online just because people enjoy that sense of security they get from being able to control what they reveal to one another. And yet as online text based communication becomes more and more a staple of our lives the more that perceived advantage disappears anyway. One day we may be just as good at reading peoples words as we are reading their faces.