Welcome to The Elsewhere, home to my musings on fiction and the creation thereof.

Time is short, but Heinlein has a fitting quote that I am unable to find. It goes along the lines of, "Man is unable to envision a god wiser than he is, which is why gods of legend act like petulant children."

In much of the fiction I've read (admittedly, not much, and almost all of it micro-fiction) if a god is portrayed, it is done in entirely too-human a fashion.

The same holds true of other ecclesiastical creatures and para-humans, as well. These beings, infused with traits that remove human fears, give inhuman abilities, should have ... well, inhuman thoughts.

Interaction is all about communication. Two unlike beings communicate by each (ideally) compromising hir frame of reference to some lowest common denominator. When an adult talks to a baby, s/he won't hold forth on non-Newtonian physics (unless trying to talk said babe to sleep...)

On a smaller scale, the same holds true here, between us. My thoughts are a blur, a gestalt. Internally I assume so much context that I feel obliged to make explicit here, even though I don't consider many of the supporting points and instead take them for granted.

So, on a larger scale, I expect the same thing. I expect immortals to have a slightly different world-view. They are free from natural death (third-degree sunlight burns, decapitations, etc. are not covered by this policy) and their words, thoughts and deeds should every so often indicate it.

(The thoughts on immortality is one of two source thoughts for this article. My heart feels fine, but thoughts of death are never too far away in spite of my best efforts to the contrary. Given the minute changes in my choices based on that, I am aware of how I think differently than that archetypical thinker whose thoughts I can capture when I characterize hir. Shouldn't an immortal have a similar difference from that 'normal person' reference point, but in the opposite direction?)

On the scale of para-humans, immortality is a minor power. It's very nice, but it's mostly passive, especially if it's simply "free from aging." If the character is able to endure mortal wounds and still heal, or be entombed and not perish, then that's slightly more powerful. More powerful, on this line of inquiry, should lead to a more different mindset than that of a 'mere' immortal.

So, we have para-humans abundant in popular media. Magicians. Superheros. Psionics. All with abilities beyond mere mortal ken. Sometimes, they do evidence different priorities (aside from the standard 'save a friend' / 'save oneself' / 'save the community' motivators - these are still common to us all, just scaled up to meet their power.) Sometimes, they do ponder the isolation they feel, the difference between them and everyperson, etc.

And then we come to gods. So different in their character concept, yet so mundane in their execution. By now, you should see the folly of trying to express the inexpressible in words, or to conceive the inconceivable ("You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.")

In the realm of gods, I ask for something other than "think like how I expect someone of your power to think." I don't have expectations of how a god thinks, but I do have expectations on how they don't. Aside from the petulant child, there are those who describe gods as random and pointless.

In singular cases, yes, I can see that. However, over time, patterns should evolve. I may not (should not) see from where it originated, to where it leads, but I should see some consistency, even if on an excessively large scale. Gods may play to their own rules, and I might not even be able to encompass all of the rules in my mortal mind, but I should at least be able to perceive the effect of those rules.

This is the other source thought for this article - there will soon come a movie in which a god-like character in the source material says, "Humanity ... is interesting. I think I shall go create some." That, I feel is thinking like a god.