Let’s talk about the few words languages have.

Let’s begin with a classical example: The word “chair”. You know what a chair is. In a file in your mind there is a generic example of this thing. But this file/image is not a photograph. It carries subjectivity, flexibility. A wooden chair leads to the same mental file as an acrylic chair.

The same line of thoughts applies to the stool, to the bench, to the seat, to the armchair, to the sofa.

However there is an object, a chair with some kind of support for the arms, cushioned, perhaps with some inclination, that one does not know for certain if one should use the word chair or the word armchair. There are among all those elements, seat, sofa, bench, etc, hybrid objects that are not entirely one nor entirely another.

Now, imagine a straight line that goes from the perfect chair (that does not leave any doubts that it is a chair, that has nothing on it that can lead us to think it is any other kind of seat, if, of course such thing exists) to the perfect sofa (under the same hypotheses). Think about all the words in the world, from any language to define an object where people sit. I bet all my money that there are more variations in the forms of the objects than words to call them.

The quantity of words is infinitely less than the quantity of objects in the world.

But the most important statement is not that. We should also consider the ideas.

The quantity of objects is infinitely less than the quantity of ideas.

Practical example: In my head, at this second, I see an alien sitting down on a wxztrkjhwwptg. To define a wxztrkjhwwptg we would need all the words used in Earth’s sciences and some more words that would have to be invented like hgtrfpzxt and jsrrrrnv or tprnmwqprtqqs.

The practical application of all this silliness is rather simple. One should not get stressed when searching for success, happiness, love. These words are trying to be defined since the world is called world. People have tried to explain them using all the words from all the languages of all times. They even tried wxztrkjhwwptg.