Worry Words

I live in a modern age. Of course, all humans are born into a modern age. Only after death do you get relegated to a Middle or Ancient Age as newborns continually scramble to the top of the ever changing modern heap. Someday far enough into the future, I worry about being lumped and diluted into a broad category spanning 600 years from the Christopher Columbus Invasion of the Americas through the Great Floods of the 21st Century. Such worry makes me a sullen idiot in the best sense of those words. Lewis Thomas described the origin of the words sullen and idiot as long ago connoting someone unique and singular, a special isolated person. Eventually solitariness and compulsive individualism exerted more unfriendly images of a morose insolence and aversion to society. The erosion of meaning has come to the point where I can no longer compliment someone by calling them a sullen idiot. I worry that subtle nuances are lost forever and that sullen idiots are now taking offense at my characterizations. Lewis Thomas also has insights on worry and once said, “Worrying is the most natural and spontaneous of all human functions.” He suggests we learn to do it better. Unfortunately, he is no longer around to explain to me how I can implement better worrying in my life. I was worrying about getting a daily Blog posted in time. As I began to fill this previously blank page, I started to worry that my sips of Ancient Age were adding hilarity that might evaporate by morning. And now I worry that I am no longer worried any more.

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