15,000-17,000

Some things get stuck in my head, and I can't sleep until I come to a final conclusion about them. The title of this post is the result of almost a full night's worth of worrying. It's a calculation. That's my educated guess as to the number of times I've heard the f-bomb in my lifetime. Can you believe that? Tell me, what's so bad about a word when I can honestly say I've heard it more than probably a quarter of all the words in my vocabulary? It's losing its punch. Most people hear it and don't think twice about it. I don't think "desensitized" is quite the right word, but it's close. Pretty soon, no one will give a flying f*** what anybody else says. It's sad, really. There was a time when words meant something. Nowadays, best friends call each other... well, you've got a good imagination. The point is, we seem to be nearing a period in which we've begun to talk ourselves to death. This is the so-called "Information age," where knowledge about something is possibly more valuable than the thing itself (I guess it's that "Give a man a fish...teach a man to fish..." philosophy). We've reached a point where information is so prevalent, it's going to slowly become meaningless once again. Though, this time, it won't be because of apathy, but because of a new desire for peace and quiet through forced ignorance. I know more things about more things than a lot of people, but I don't use that knowledge, because I just want to have a few minutes where I'm not thinking about 7-10 things at once. I never really shut my brain off, even when I watch tv. It's annoying, because I find myself cursed with an overabundance of knowledge. I just want to sit back, relax, and force myself not to think about anything for an hour or so. I haven't had a quiet period like that for as long as I can remember. I sincerely doubt it can actually be done, but we'll see. I'll let you know.