My Favorite Word

I like words a lot. There's just so so many good ones.

After a cataclysmic realization in elementary school, I think I decided that favorite anythings were dumb. Everyone always asked, “What's your favorite color?”

At first that was orange, then after being made fun of for some reason, it changed to green. Not any of the “cool” shades of green. It changed to puke green, olive green that had been partially digested. At some point after a long spell of that, I realized that I actually liked all the colors. None of them would be any good on their own, so as I said before, it was dumb to have one favorite.

In the back of my mind, that also held true for words. But I'm over it. Favorites are totally functional.

So that is my favorite word, or rather, “that” is my favorite word.

I know.

That's boring. It's not as cool as “avuncular”, as inspiring as “possible”, or even as interesting as “idiosyncratic”. I guess all of those words are alright too... I guess.

“That” is my favorite word because it's perfect. Maybe that's too much. It's as close to perfect as it can be. Like when Humpty Dumpty lectured Alice, “that” just does a good job. It will mean anything you ask it to, doesn't get tired, takes very reasonable wages, and can reference things that other words could never do.

On a related note, “it” is pretty awesome, but not as much as “that”.

Also I have a boring favorite color- it's brown.

Told you.

The thing is, brown is the most fun color that exists. Nobody knows that though.

Remember being a kid, and thinking that you were sitting down to paint a sunset, or a field of flowers, or something like that? You started mixing the paints, and you were just so excited, so full of joy, so caught up in the activity.

Then you ended up with all your paint in one puddle, and it was all brown.

That is what happens. It's not because you were a kid, and you didn't know what you were doing. It's not because you were wasteful, or had your sights set too high, or because you were being dumb.

Brown is the natural result of excitement, or at least the kind of excitement that drives you to just mix all the colors together, because some part of you knows that it IS going to make the most beautiful picture in the world.

Brown is the aftermath, but it's also the leap of faith, the driving purpose, and the aspiration to greatness. It's just that nobody realizes that.