With only so many words
A friend recently engaged me in an interesting discussion initiated by her receipt of an email from inspirationpeak.com. The question went something like this, “What if everyone has only so many words inside … sooner or later you’d run out of words … and you’d never know when it was going to happen because everybody would have a different allotment. I could be in the middle of a story, run out of words … and never finish.”

I responded as follows:

As an engineer I would calculate the potential of my life span and divide the number of words remaining over the number of days, careful to use only the allotted number per day. If one day required more, then I would conserve for the next.

As an inventor, I would create a new way to communicate such that words would no longer be required.

As an entrepreneur, I would package my words by verb, noun, and modifiers and then sell them to those who are in need of more.

As an linquist, I would warn people of the hazards of using too many words at one time and the pending future in which words no longer exist.

But as an artist or perhaps as a lover, I would dump all my words into a single time and place simply because it felt right, with no fear of a mute future. I would live in silence for my remaining days knowing that my voice was consumed by an act of passion which no number of words could ever recreate.