Words, Words, and the Word Was With . . .

In his play Hamlet, Shakespeare has the character Polonius ask Hamlet, “What do you read, My Lord?”

“Words, words,” Hamlet replies.

Polonius says, “But what is the matter, my lord?”

“Between who?”

“I mean the matter that you read, my lord.”

“Matter.” Shakespeare loved words that cut two ways. “Matter,” as in what’s the matter? and “matter” as in “it is all matter.”

It’s a good question, isn’t it—What’s the matter? What is the matter in words? What do they mean?

Some estimate that each of us has 70,000 thoughts in a day. That’s controversial . . . because there’s no real agreement on what a “thought” is. How many might we have per second? We don’t really know, but if it is something on the order of 70,000, since there are 86,400 seconds in day, it could be that we come close to hitting the thought-per-second mark in a day.

A thought per second. But, again, we don’t really know what “a thought” is. But let’s go on . . .

Estimates are that the average American hears—not reads, hears—something on the order of 100,000 words per day, which is something on the order of 34 gigabytes of information, and more than a word per second. By way of comparison,  Tolstoy’s War and Peace is 460,000 words long, so we consume the equivalent of the novel War and Peace every four-and-a-half days.

Also, for reference, the King James Version of the bible contains 783,137 words, so we hear the equivalent of that roughly every eight days.

BTW, 34 gigabytes—the size of that 100,000 words a day—is about the size of the newest version of the game Grand Theft Auto. (Yes, I had to google that—it’s not the sort of information I have in my head, but the search took about five seconds.)

Further context: I paid extra so that I could get twice that, a 64 gigabyte, smartphone.

Speaking of which, the average American spends almost twelve hours per day looking at a screen—and, yes, I got most of this information from a blog called Bits on the New York Times website. Uh, staring at a screen.

So, we spend half of every twenty-four hours—half of all our time, not half of our waking time—peering into a screen.

Imagine that: 70,000 thoughts in a day . . .

In the 86,400 seconds we have in each day . . .

And 100,000 words per day smashing into our ears.

Furthermore, research says that we are not able to multitask. That’s merely an illusion. Doesn’t leave much time for the brain to take a break, does it?

Oh, and welcome to November, National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoRimo. (http://nanowrimo.org) Writers sign up to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. The month of November hath thirty days, which means staying on a course of writing roughly 1666.66 words per day. I enter every year, though never have I hit the 50,000 goal. Some do. Something over 200,000 people try, producing something nearing three billion words.

For context, reflect on the fact that medieval bibles, made of velum—calf skin—required the hides of approximately 170 cows. How many cows would have to die to bind all the NaNoRimo words in velum? Uh . . . Well, my calculator only does hundreds of millions and, besides, my brain hurts.

We are awash in words. In thoughts. In gigabytes. No wonder so many are searching for ways to quiet the mind. Words don’t issue out of burning bushes anymore. No, they flow like an ever-flowing stream.

No wonder mindfulness and spiritual practice have become big business. How can we find enough quiet to listen to that still small voice? How will we ever find enough quiet to ask someone, “What’s the matter?”

Now, that’s a thought to add to your 70,000 . . .