I have often thought that words are like lego bricks. Use them well, and you can make tons of cool stuff.
Interesting fact 1: Six eight-stud lego bricks can apparently be combined in 915,103,765 different ways. The possibilities are almost endless.
Interesting fact 2: There are now so many pieces of lego in the world that if they were divided up amongst every person on the planet, we’d each have 86 pieces.
Tomorrow, chances are we’ll have even more. In much the same way, we’re each given an ever-increasing set of words to play with. Any time we like, we can open up this little box that we carry around in our heads, and start clicking the little pieces into place. We might use them in different ways, languages, styles or forms, but the ‘universal system’ which ensures that every lego brick ever made will lock with another is, in some ways, just as true for our words.
Just like lego, words also have the power to both inspire and hurt. Anyone who has stepped on a stray piece and howled like a wounded hyena (maybe that’s just me) will recognise the parallel. A casual word tossed around without much thought always somehow causes more pain than you might expect.
A final thought: The name LEGO is made from the first two letters of the Danish words LEG GODT, meaning 'play well'. A pretty good mantra for these troubled times. So, what are you going to make?
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