G: Faces

Etymology: The origin of this symbol and spectrum

I don’t actually recognize facial expressions, and the idea that a mouth can turn in different ways to signal the emotions inside someone is just fascinating to me. It took me until high school/college to understand that cheeks up and showing teeth means someone is happy and mouth down into a chin means sad. (No one explains these things. No one sits with kids saying “This is Jack. He is smiling. You can tell because his mouth is turned up. This is John. He is serious. You can tell because his lips are in a thin little line. I don’t know how anyone gets this idea.)

So I started using the “g”s to indicate a smile or a frown or a serious, grim line in the faces of those around me. In my own face. Why do they have one eye, I hear you ask? Well, mostly because I was too lazy to put in two.

Orthography: How to remember these symbols

This is probably the simplest, most direct symbol set. Simply draw the mouth and then a single eye above.

Philosophy: How I use these symbols to embrace life

You probably don’t have this trouble of recognizing emotions on faces. But I often doodle this expression when I want to figure out how I (or someone else) feels about a problem or situation. I draw the dot for the eye, then the line. I look down at what I have drawn—this seems to be how I truly see that my (or that other person’s) emotions at that point.