As a writer, I really like working with constraints and getting to play with different structures, voices, moods, and characters. The simple fact that short stories are short gives me all of that.
I have to know all the jokers they hold in their hand so I know how they would play or hold them—and I think it’s that level of intimacy I’m constantly trying to learn as I write.
When we act and what language we use to defend ourselves matters; on a craft level, this is useful to know because this very logic reveals character. What do you care about? And how does that show up in your life?
Language is inexact, and will always be an approximation. In my own experience of amnesia, there was a period of time where things didn't have names, and it was in that nameless, getting-to-know-something that I felt I knew it better.