Skip to main content

Stop Saying 'Awesome'

What does the word 'awesome' mean? Dictionary.com defines the word to mean: “inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration or fear.”

People always gloss over the FEAR part of the definition. The word 'awe' used to mean 'terror!' Something that is truly awesome is something that makes one feel small and naked and insignificant and afraid in the face of the vastness of the universe. Something that is awesome is something that elicits feelings of fear and terror. Today something that should probably be described as simply good is described as awesome.


Here is a short list of things that are NOT awesome:
Me.
You.
Anything you and I have ever done, including reproducing.
Anything you and I are likely ever to do.
Anyone you and I know, unless of course you just happened to be friends with J. Robert Oppenheimer. He helped create the atomic bomb, something that definitely is awesome.


Here is a short list of things that ARE awesome:
If there is a God or Gods, beings that are endless, beings that created the universe and everything in it, then being in the presence of such entities would be truly awesome. In every religion extant in the world today, such proximity to the Gods is never described in their respective scriptures as giving people the warm fuzzies. It produces terror!
Coming to the (in my opinion, more likely) conclusion that there are no Gods, that we are alone in the universe and that we, ourselves, are responsible for our own survival or destruction.
The afore mentioned atomic bomb.
Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, volcano eruptions and any other natural phenomena capable of destroying us and/or the planet.

Ladies and gentlemen, I propose to you that the word that defines everything defines nothing. The over use of the word 'awesome' weakens the word itself and shows a serious lack of imagination and critical thinking. There is a whole host of words that we should be using instead. The sandwich you had for lunch was not awesome, but I bet it was good, maybe even very good. The movie you saw may have been impressive or even remarkable. Your spouse is hopefully attractive, perhaps even beguiling. But none of these things is awesome.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Boring

OK, so I decided that I wasn't going to write anything political, that I was just gonna write about personal stuff. And I haven't written a thing in two weeks. How boring is my life? But I've got some stuff coming.....
3 comments
Read more

Bush Lied and People Died

I just can't stand it anymore. Read the Downing Street Memo , and you'll see that President Bush lied to the American people when he told us in his State of the Union address that the U.S. wasn't yet committed to the path of war. He lied again when he said that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium in Niger, Africa. Joseph Wilson , who is a diplomat that was sent to Niger in order to check these allegations, said that Bush was lying. Wilson was then smeared in the media by the Bush administration, and his wife Valerie Plame, an active CIA operative (working on finding WMD in the world), was "outed" by Karl Rove and Robert Novak. Bush lied when he told us that Al Queda and Saddam Hussein had "high level" talks. Every government committee that studied 9/11 said there was no credible evidence to support that. But its not just Georgie. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld lied when he went on "This Week with George Stephanopolis" and said h
2 comments
Read more

Donald Rumsfeld on CNN

8:15AM Pacific Time: Sittin here watchin Wolf interview Rummy on Late Edition, and Rummy is talking about why it's not a good idea to pull out of Iraq right now. He's talking about, and I paraphrase, "If we establish a timeline for pull-out, then we're telling the insurgents that they only have to wait until we're gone, and if we do that, they will wait, and then unleash a blood bath when we're gone." Goddamit, I hate it when I have to agree with one of these trolls. But, sadly, no matter how much we hate the Bush administration, truth, from any source is still truth. And the truth is, the insurgents will wait, and they will unleash a blood-bath. What Rummy doesn't say is, all that will be our fault. I have to say it, though it pains me to do so, I do think it's irresponsible to call for an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq, because of what I said above. I believe that what the democrats need to keep harping on is the fact that pre-war intell
2 comments
Read more