Anyone have a good substitute for "state of mind"? I always have trouble with the kanji that contain it.

Yeah, I had the same problem. I used a robot. Specifically one that was observing human emotions and behaviour and trying to figure out why they do it. Kind of like Data from Star Trek I suppose.

Nice idea, thanks!

State of mind... I used a wise guru who could change into any state of mind at will.

Piitaa Wrote:State of mind... I used a wise guru who could change into any state of mind at will.

Kinda close I also imagined it to be a pictograph of a huge stick that the wise guru would whack his students on the head with when they do not have a right state of mind

To me it's Sherlock Holmes (I think a few people have picked detectives, in fact). He's in a pretty peculiar state of mind most of the time. I also know a lot about him (I'm a big fan of the UK TV series with Jeremy Brett) so I have lots of mental material to make good stories with.

I'm using Sigmund Freud. He has a german accent and is intently interested in the emotional state of his patients...me usually.

Sherlock Holmes also. I first went along with synewave's McMurphy from "One flew over the cuckoo's nest", but those stories quickly dried up, and I'm not too familiar with the characters either. Sherlock Holmes OTOH does strike a chord. I've read (and enjoyed) quite a few of Doyle's stories, which now also can be perused freely on the net. Plus Pangolin's use of some of the other characters in the Sherlock universe were brilliant. I'm now adding Sherlock stories myself if none is available.

Familiarity and versatility, two traits of a good character.

woelpad Wrote:Sherlock Holmes also. I first went along with synewave's McMurphy from "One flew over the cuckoo's nest", but those stories quickly dried up

As I'm using McMurphy for almost all kanji that have state of mind in I'll go back and publish my stories. For a few I'm using Murdoch from the A-Team. Personally I found the idea of a mental patient easiest to latch on to.

From the posts on this thread so far it looks like personification is the way to go.

[ファブリス]

Personification is a good idea.

Keep in mind this is just a variant of the 心 "heart" radical/primitive. For this primitive but also for many other variants in RTK1 I would recommend to use images that are not too far removed from the radical. Anything to do with mental health, like the Sigmund Freud persona, or the "wise guru" seems to fit. However, I feel that a detective or some kind of mystery investigator is a little too far from the original primitive, at least in my own imagination.

From a meaning you can guess the presence of the heart radical, whether it appears in this variant or in the full form 心, and when seeing new kanji with the variant as main primitive, you can have at least a vague idea of what it would mean (i.e. a mental state, or something to do with emotions).

Of course this all depends on your own visual memory and what your memory associations are with those characters, so I am not saying that using "detective" character will not work. For example you could easily make one of those detective characters a private detective dealing in love affairs, missing spouses, cheating husbands and whatnot so as to point back to the 心 primitive.

I just wanted to remind of the fact that sometimes visually different primitives have the same meaning. It seems obvious when you are looking at the corresponding page in RTK1, but after months of review and recreating stories it may be forgotten.

Interesting that Sherlock popped up here for so many people. I used him (with great sucess) for the fingerprint primative which is introduced at 1413. Not that there arn't lots of other options to use for fingerprint but a detective seems particularly relevant there. Unfortunately, I don't have any better suggestion for state of mind.

i've been using 'meditating monk' because it looks like the figure of a monk in meditation, shoulders and a straight back, and also because some monks strive to be empty and receptive to whatever state of mind floats through. I've been using each of the 'meditating monk' kanjis as a spiritual lesson that the monk may be meditating on. It works for me and they help me to meditate on these lessons as well.

ファブリス Wrote:Personification is a good idea.

Keep in mind this is just a variant of the 心 "heart" radical/primitive. For this primitive but also for many other variants in RTK1 I would recommend to use images that are not too far removed from the radical. Anything to do with mental health, like the Sigmund Freud persona, or the "wise guru" seems to fit. However, I feel that a detective or some kind of mystery investigator is a little too far from the original primitive, at least in my own imagination.

Actually, I personally find that it is not important for the keywords to be really associated with radicals' standard meaning. I've changed names for a few elements and invented some of my own, and many of the best working ones have absolutely nothing to do with the standard names of the radicals.

Sorry, I know this is an old thread but I thought that I would add one in anyway - I used Jedis and Sith from Star Wars. It's imperitive for them to have control over their state of mind, and the universe is rich enough so that you can change characters and use story elements to create distinctive images without getting all your different mnemonics confused.