Here's Some Words to Add to Your Collection

Last night it rained on my drive home. It rained rain, but it also rained words. As it always does.

We are completely flooded by words, 24/7, 365. It rains words from the radio, from billboards, from every sign on every product in every aisle in any store-- in rains words in the conversations of passing couples, in beeps and buzzes every time our phones light up with communication, it rains down our computer screens and TVs and off magazines on the table in the doctor's office and pamphlets left on our car windshields and from our piles of textbooks and papers and syllabi.

Even just right now, I'm drowning in words. My own, partly, but mostly the words of others'. Right now from my perch on the couch I'm bombarded with thousands of words, all of which are completely irrelevant to my life. There's approximately 30729 magazines piled on our coffee table, on anything from home decorating to summer dresses.

On my computer, I have three tabs other than this one I'm writing in--Gilmore Girls is playing in one, facebook sits idle, loading and reloading, and my email is in another. And so MANY of these words are irrelevant or excessive to my life. Opinions crafted carefully to be presented to the masses on social media, marketing, entertainment, information, information, INFORMATION...

BLAHGUgfiugskhdfilsjpooeibevdhwieh;wpjfoeanfjbavBHSCJDOSKOkps,mknklbja!

OVERLOAD!

And of course, I'm adding to your personal deluge of words right now. You, right now, are making your brain a vessel for the words (and by words, I mean opinions, motives, and values) of someone who may or may not have any real impact on your day.

Is that bad?

Maybe??! I DON'T KNOW?! Personally, I feel currently overwhelmed with all the communication in the world. It's enough to make me want to run into the woods and sit on some tree roots and listen to the wind blowin' and the birds and all that great stuff.

I would last maybe.... an hour.

I just wonder... what is REALLY going on in my brain? Underneath ALL THOSE WORDS that aren't mine or even those of people that matter to me. They're all random, and most of them motivated by the hope that I'll buy a product, vote for a politician, or validate someone's feelings.

Without all that, what's really going on in our brains? What am I feeling? What am I thinking? What do I believe? What do I WANT that isn't somehow influenced by all the words I'm reading every second of the day?

Think about it. I told you to, after all.