Important Word #1: Amount

a⋅mount

[uh-mount]

–noun

1. the sum total of two or more quantities or sums; aggregate.
2. the sum of the principal and interest of a loan.
3. quantity; measure: a great amount of resistance.
4. the full effect, value, or significance.

–verb (used without object)

1. to total; add (usually fol. by to): The repair bill amounts to $300.
2. to reach, extend, or be equal in number, quantity, effect, etc.; be equivalent (usually fol. by to): It is stated differently but amounts to the same thing.
3. to develop into; become (usually fol. by to): With his intelligence, he should amount to something when he grows up.

Alrighty, first word and it's a doozy: amount. It has two very different meanings, specifically when comparing the noun and verb definitions to one another. Let's start with the noun definition first.

This is all about measurement. We're talking the basis of all mathematics. Remember when your teacher 5th grade math teacher had that poster on their wall that said, "Math is Everywhere!"? They were right. I look to the left of my laptop and see a pile of CDs. How many? 11. That's the amount of CDs I have sitting on my desk. 2 is the amount of remote controls I have on my desk, as well. 16.8 GB is the amount of free space I have remaining on my hard drive. 280 million is the approximate number of sperm in the bunched up sheet of tissue paper sitting at the bottom of my wastepaper basket. You get the idea.

But measurement isn't limited to tangible objects or definite values. We use a lot of terms in our daily vocabulary to describe amounts that are extremely subjective. A few, a bunch, a ton, a lot, a crapload, a shitload, a shitton, a fuckload. But how much is a crapload? Certainly more than a few or a bunch, but is it more than a shitton? Something else to be considered is outside factors. For example, 280 million is a very large number, but when being used to describe an amount of sperm, it's actually a pretty small amount, since sperm itself are microscopic. But if there were, say, 280 million bees sitting in my wastepaper basket, I'd be running the fuck out of here right now, because that's a shitload of bees.

Now, the verb definition has the ability to bring us outside of the world of math... for a bit. Amount can be used as a verb to describe the addition of numbers as well as describe something becoming equal in amount to something else. But we are removed from the oh-so-interesting mathematics realm when we use amount to describe the development of something. All of Shawn's hard work in the BBA program amounted to nothing when he saw his final mark for BU121. Shawn's parents were somewhat upset that he would not amount to the millionaire accountant that they had hoped for several years prior. Shawn was sure that the amount of money he had spent on CDs throughout his lifetime could have amounted enough to buy a car. (That's a double whammy. Two different definitions of amount used in the same sentence.)

A very important part of life is attempting to understand what we, ourselves, will amount to. What is our life work? What do we wish to become? How will we accomplish these goals? I've made many attempts to answer these questions, but those answers are constantly disproved as I mature and realize different things about myself, my interests, and what I wish to amount to. I've begun to believe that we can never know what we amount to this early on in our lives. We haven't lived. The longer we are alive, the more we are able to share with the world. And the more that we do with our lives, the more we will have to show for it in the future.

Now, you're probably thinking, "Shawn, I'm not Bono. I don't sell millions of records and then donate millions of dollars to needy children in Africa. I can't possibly make a huge difference to anyone if I'm not rich and famous." You're partly correct. You have to work your way up, making small differences before you can make a huge one. Hold the door open for someone. Smile everyone once and a while. Be a generally nice person. The more nice people there are out there, the better the world is. Besides, you've got plenty of time to be miserable when you're old and shit your pants all the time. But while you've got your bowels under control, cheer up. Amount to something positive, even if it's just a little amount.

- s.d.z.

Entry Numero Uno

'Sup.

The boredom of unemployment, set on by the financial crisis in North America in addition to my increasing laziness, has led me to the creation of a blog so that I can do something a little more productive than noodling around with my guitar or torturing my characters on The Sims. I've also grown a little bit bored with putting all of my thoughts/CD or film reviews/rants in Facebook notes because the majority of people there don't read them. The majority of people who frequent Facebook don't like to read anything longer than two lines of text. They're waiting to see if one of their friends is still dating so-and-so, and if it's someone of the opposite sex they'll shortly after message the person with some form of proposition. Facebook has made rebounding so much easier and faster. I wish it was around in high school after I was played like a fiddle by the girl that I thought would be my "first love". That way at least I would've known what I was getting into (delicious pun intended).

But enough of my mid-pubescent romantic escapades. I'm going to see if I can find a decent excuse to keep this blog updated relatively often. Being unemployed means that I live quite the uninteresting life (for the time being), so writing about my daily interactions with the world would render this blog useless. There aren't enough albums/films released for me to constantly update, either. I guess I'll just have to think of a good idea.

And I have.

A famous rhetorician who went by the name I.A. Richards made a list of the "100 Most Important Words". Here's the list: Amount, Argument, Art, Be, Beautiful, Belief, Cause, Certain, Chance, Change, Clear, Common, Comparison, Condition, Connection, Copy, Decision, Degree, Desire, Development, Different, Do, Education, End, Event, Examples, Existence, Experience, Fact, Fear, Feeling, Fiction, Force, Form, Free, General, Get, Give, Good, Government, Happy, Have, History, Idea, Important, Interest, Knowledge, Law, Let, Level, Living, Love, Make, Material, Measure, Mind, Motion, Name, Nation, Natural, Necessary, Normal, Number, Observation, Opposite, Order, Organization, Part, Place, Pleasure, Possible, Power, Probable, Property, Purpose, Quality, Question, Reason, Relation, Representative, Respect, Responsible, Right, Same, Say, Science, See, Seem, Sense, Sign, Simple, Society, Sort, Special, Substance, Thing, Thought, True, Use, Way, Wise, Word, and Work.

You can probably see where this is going by now. I'm going to write a little blurb about each of these words, one at a time, what they mean to me, what my interpretation of their meaning and importance is, and so on. It should be interesting. I've always felt that understanding words and their vast amount of potential interpretations was an important part of one's intelligence. You should always know every possible interpretation of the words that you choose, because you never know when someone will take a certain word/phrase in a way that you didn't intend. So I will take some time to blab about each of these words in the next year or so.

...And after that? Well, we'll worry about that when the time comes.

- s.d.z.