A Writer's Notebook, Day Nine-Hundred-And-Eighty-Two

As a writer, one of the things which most interests me is the things that language can do that go beyond simple communication.  I tend to consider language as an essential tool internally, with communication as an important, but secondary, function.  We use language far more to regulate internal experiences, to categorize aspects of what we encounter in the world in ways that we can manipulate intellectually.  As such, I tend to wonder what language is capable of that is not part of the communicative process.  I mean to say, I think that their are additional elements to our experience of language that are outside the norms of linguistic interaction, but exist more as parts of our own mental processes.  When I consider the question of attention, for example, I wonder if their is a difference between perceiving an object and thinking of the language to describe it.  I think that moment of having language for whatever it is, is also the point of noticing.  That is to say, one can be unconsciously aware of it, but when the words for it come into form, it enters into conscious thought in a real sense.  The language process is, in my belief, a necessary component for human-style consciousness, and so, that moment of having language for a thing is the point when it is possible to think about it in a true sense.  The language may be general, or inclusive of a lack of understanding, but I have to wonder what one would be able to perceive if a thing appeared that had no characteristics that one's language could describe, or even imagine describing.