Your Words Are Rewiring Your Brain

A few years ago, I tried to make a quiet decision that changed how I think: I tried eliminating profanity from my vocabulary entirely , but as of now, I really stand by my decision.

The words we choose are a windows into our minds. When we default to crude language, we're essentially wearing our lack of self-discipline like a badge. It's the verbal equivalent of someone covered in prison tattoos, chain-smoking, and proudly displaying a shirt with nudity on it imagery, all while insisting it's about "freedom of expression." What others see is someone who has surrendered control to their impulses and mistaken their weaknesses for strengths.

The Neuroscience of Choice

There's a fashionable intellectual argument that dismisses any concern about profanity: "They're just arbitrary sounds with no inherent meaning," the reasoning goes. "What makes one combination of syllables worse than another?"

But neuroscience tells a different story. Profanity activates the limbic system, our most primitive neural pathways, in ways that regular language doesn't. When we curse, we're literally thinking with older, more reactive parts of our brain. The same regions that govern fight-or-flight responses and base emotional reactions.

Every curse word is evidence of momentary mental surrender, a brief return to thinking like an animal rather than a human being capable of reflection.

All of this is to say that obscenities are a great indication of reactive thinking. When someone is cursing, he is thinking at least in part like an animal.

Sure, there are moments where it is proper and anger is actually called for. But they're vanishingly rare, usually involving genuine threats or serious injustices. What we see instead is this modern nihilistic tendency to treat every minor inconvenience like a personal attack worthy of a profanity-laced tirade. People curse their way through complaints about slow WiFi or long lines as if they're leading some kind of moral crusade. It reveals not just emotional reactivity, but a complete inability to distinguish between what actually matters and what's just everyday friction. When someone can't get through a conversation about mundane topics without dropping f-bombs, they're broadcasting exactly how disordered their sense of priority really is.