Your Questions Answered

HubPages users—“Hubbers”, as they call themselves—ask many questions. As I write this, they have asked some 109,000 of them. If you were to string all those questions out, end to end, I wonder how many times they would circle the Earth. Perhaps I'll ask! Or maybe I should just figure it out myself.

(If you assume the average question is six inches long, then they will stretch out for 54,500 feet, which is a mere 10 miles or so. That won't get you from one side of town to the other.)

Frankly, I sometimes think Hubbers just ask these questions to score one of those little medals they give out as accolades. Do these accolades do anything for you? I don't think so. I'm here for another benefit of HubPages: money.

A fellow Hubber (I really don't like that word) got himself banned from answering questions for a time because he was giving smart-aleck answers. Is it “aleck” or “alec”? That's an interesting question. Merriam-Webster says “aleck”, so there you go. See how easy it is to find the answers yourself?

I don't want to get myself banned, and I'm definitely a smart aleck, so I have chosen to answer some questions in this hub instead of doing so directly.

A Hubber asks, “What does it mean to hope?” That depends on what you're hoping for. When I was young, I went to parties, and I was definitely hoping for something. I learned that if I realized my dream, some people would believe we had a relationship, which I hoped would end in the near future, as there would be another party soon enough, and I didn't look forward to attending in an encumbered state. So, what you hope for can change quite quickly. Now I hope for something different. Specifically, I hope I can knock out this hub soon and take a nap.

I will now answer two related questions. A Hubber asks, “What is more important, a life well lived or a life with material wealth, and why?” and “What are the things that make you feel depressed?” I will have to go with the former on the first question. A life well lived is more important. I say this in the spirit of rationalizing. I know that I will never succeed, so I say I want to live a good life, when we all know that I want to make a lot of money, lounge around and do nothing. What makes me feel depressed? Having to answer these questions.

I wasn't going to mention it, but the person asking the question misspelled “what” as “whar” in the second question. I don't believe this is a serious error in the informal setting of questions and answers. However, someone answering the question pointed out the error, “in good hub page spirit”, and then wrote:

To you [sic] question, not meeting my set deadly [sic] activity deadlines makes me feel depressed.

Judging by his answer, I assume this person's “deadly activity” consists of bludgeoning the English language.

Another Hubber asks, “What is the most important life lesson one can learn? Why?” The answer: pay your taxes on time, and strongly consider hiring an accountant. Why? You don't want to know.

A male Hubber asks, “What should I get my wife for Valentine's Day?” A lot. Valentine's Day is essentially an extortion racket. You need to pay your protection money, upfront, on roses, chocolates, dinner, the works, or you will pay the price, each day, until the next Valentine's Day. I guarantee it.

Here's a good one: “Would you rather … fly, read minds or be invisible?” Thirteen people answered this question. Flying and being invisible tied at five each. One person pointed out that an invisible person could fly for free. Did you ever notice that in the movies, when someone becomes invisible, his clothes also become invisible? This makes no sense. If you want to be invisible, you'll have to do it in your birthday suit. Reading minds could be problematic, as you would have to become used to knowing what people really think of you. I think invisibility would be nice, because then I could go take that nap.

“How does one determine whether one is successful?” asks a Hubber. How much money do you have? If it's a lot, then you are successful. One person answered this question in a hub called How to realize how you have succeded [sic] in life. It starts thusly:

Many people would agree that a successful person is defined by it's [sic] ability to be fulfilled and happy. There for [sic] this concept is as broad as individuals are there in the world.

This suggests an additional question: What did you just say?

The person who wrote the passage above then asks the question, “Do you know how to forgive? Can you forget?” I can forgive your incomprehensible prose, but unfortunately, I will never forget it. Believe me. I want to. Desperately.

Turning to religion, a Hubber asks, “Does anyone know anything about animism?” The answer to this question is, “Yes.”

A high-scoring Hubber, sporting a snappy red shirt in his photo, asks, “What dogs have the least health problems and live the longest?” Those would be Rex and Trixie.

"What is the difference between a shrub and a bush?" asks an astute Hubber. (There's that word again.) The difference between a shrub and a bush would be the letter R.

Another Hubber asks, “What are some great keywords that someone can use to promote their hubs?” I just tried a likely candidate on the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. I'll give you a clue. It starts with an F and it got 68 million global monthly searches in the “Arts & Entertainment” category. “Sherlock Holmes”, the title character in a current film, got less then five percent of that number.

Here's a good one. “Where are the honorable politicians these days?” The answer: somewhere else.

Finally, a green-tinted Hubber, who notes in his profile that he is a seeker of truth, defender of justice and (ahem) unparalleled lover, asks, “When are humans going to finally wake up? Our collective ignorance is becoming deadly. What's it going to take for the human race to finally wake up and realize the truth?” It's Sunday night here. I expect folks will retire in a few hours, and should start waking around 6 a.m. I don't know exactly when they will realize the truth, but I can't see it happening sooner than Tuesday, and it probably won't happen until next weekend, after the Super Bowl.

A Year-Long Super Bowl, or What's a Few Leap Seconds Between Friends?: The Earth's rotation is slowing gradually. Eventually this will result in the Super Bowl taking up the entire year. Buy extra wings.

The World Will End in December 2012. Or Maybe Not.: Some believe the ancient Mayan calendar portends the end of the Earth in December 2012. Lil' Wayne agrees, and that settles it.

Hollywood News Roundup: Hollywood stars are so elegant and sophisticated that I can hardly stand it. I ignored Hollywood news before, and I'm sorry I did. I'm going to stop doing interesting things and pay more attention to their shenanigans.