“They’re only words.”

A statement which is both basically true and profoundly not.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Reduced to their theoretical base level words are simply constellations of sounds arranged in recognized patterns to convey collectively agreed upon meanings. They are, in and of themselves, tools making them neither good nor evil. But given that their sole purpose is to convey meaning there is no ‘only’ about them. Those meanings can have tremendous impact and our…