Some Words

This post acknowledges words about which I feel strongly. Let’s start with my favorite word phrase in the English language, to fall asleep. It’s a lovely little verb. It’s wonderfully succinct. It describes probably the most intimate moment of your day: when you finally lie down and rest your mind. You are defenseless, unthinking, and the wall between your subconscious and conscious is at its thinnest. It is within the last waking minutes of the day that many people have their greatest ideas. Stephen Hawking has had countless epiphanies about the universe just before falling asleep. No one shares your thoughts with you before you fall asleep. You are perfectly entranced within your own mind. You let your thoughts carry you away from every harsh reality and unfortunate truth in your life. It is undoubtedly my favorite time of the day. The verb fall asleep captures this so eloquently I have trouble not telling everyone how I feel about it. You are truly falling into unconsciousness; you don’t push yourself, you don’t put forth any effort, and you have nothing important to think about. In fact, if you do any of those things, you are unlikely to reach sleep with any effectiveness. Sleep itself is a lovely verb, noun, and adjective base. When you combine it with the verb fall, however, it becomes exponentially more meaningful. I think it is the most intimate, beautiful, and pure verb we have created thus far in English.