I call this psychological illness “hypnoverbalism” — “hypno” from the Greek “sleep,” “verbal” meaning having to do with words, and the suffix “ism” to make the word a noun. So you suffer from “hypnoverbalism” when you're asleep to the fact that words are symbols, not things. 

Which means you react to word-sounds with your gut instead of with your head, that you feel your way through what you hear instead of think your way through. 

Here are a few symptoms of hypnoverbalism to enable you to judge for yourself whether or not you've got it — a tendency to react emotionally to political issues; a conviction that second-hand smoke kills; a tendency to be intimidated by people who use big words; a belief that racism is more objective than are beauty, ethics, or morality. 

If you do have it, then you should be aware of what it's done to you: It's gotten you into the habit of turning outward for solutions to problems, where they never are, rather than inward, where they always are. Also, it's caused many of your physical illnesses, made it easy for other people to kill your dreams, and it's allowed people to get you to do what's in their best interest and not in yours. 

But not to worry. The doctor is in, and he can cure you. I will count to 3, at which time you will awaken from your self-induced spell. You will begin to treat words as symbols. You will no longer treat them as things. You will be completely free from what Stuart Chase called “the 
tyranny of words.” 

Ready? 

One. 

Two. 

Threeee. 

Think about it.