Logophobia

Words are frightening.

Truly the most inexorable of powers has been vested in communication. Words like "love" and "fear" and "hate" mean so much more to us than we realize. When someone looks you straight in the eye and says that they never want to see you again, how can you respond? Why would you throw more words at them?

Words are meaningless.

Such a potent effect on the psyche is not natural. One email, one conversation, one heart breaking message on your answering machine can ruin your day. Your life. Miscommunication can destroy a relationship.

Words are eternal.

Ideas never die, they are only recycled and vomited back onto the pages of some awful manuscript written solely to entertain a certain class, ethnicity, or age group. Why do we endure this fallacious enterprise?

Words are bridges.

If only we could beam our thoughts to each other, sending a stream of images, ideas, and abstracts, then we would could rescind this pathetic prose in which we engage daily. I would forfeit all the linguistic ability I have ever gained, all the knowledge I have ever acquired through reading, all the worlds that my imagination has violently extracted from the pages of a manuscript, if only to truly feel what he meant when he looked in my eyes and told me he was leaving.