I was thinking the other day while I walked home from classes.
Why are some colleges considered better than others? Because they have better teachers, programs, students, etc., right?
And then I was thinking about those schools in the Ivy League, and they're all really old. So does being an old school automatically make it the best higher education? If so, then Harvard (if we're speaking of the States here) is the best.
So why do schools get better with time? Is that just because they keep getting better professors? People with more refined ideas and philosophies about evolution, literature, or history?
Then I began to think about ideas. How do you come up with a completely new concept and idea that is adequately expressed. And why do certain quotes that frame ideas hit us harder than others? Sometimes when I read a quote, I feel like I already knew whatever it's saying.
But in order for it to affect me so, it took the right compilation of words.
Then I thought about words in correlation with ideas.
There are billions of ideas just floating around in unused words.
And isn't it incredible that by picking and choosing a few specific words, placing them in the right order, and adding punctuation we can get the most beautiful idea?
The words just sit there, waiting to be used. Beauty, as nothing more than a word, has it's own meaning, meaning that is completely different for everyone. And then when you take that one simple word and all the connotations that go with it and add a few more words with their own associations, you get something like Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
And then by rearranging and adding and switching and redesigning, a completely different idea is born. And idea that has the possibility to really affect someone.
What does it take to know which words to use? There is rarely a deficiency of words. I mean, yes, there always will be, because words are inadequate for expressing feelings. And there are some words in other languages that I don't know or understand as an English speaker. But when I say there's no deficiency, I mean the assembly of words isn't like a game of scrabble where you only have a certain number of letters to use. It's not like when you're trying to figure out a sentence with your refrigerator magnets and you only have a limited number of words.
I can take from any word in the English language and arrange it with another to attempt to express an idea. And I can take that word again and again. And if I want to repeat a word in this idea of mine, I can. Because there's not price for every time the word "and" is used.
There will always be words begging to be used.
I don't know, I just think words are pretty incredible, don't you?
