In a country in which there is an African American president, legalized gay marriage and legalized marijuana, it seems there is no limit to what Americans can do.

We defy the limits,; we push the envelope. When gravity holds us down, we build a rocket and fly to the moon. Nothing stops us.

We have waged war against some of the most powerful countries on Earth. In the 1700s, we created ourselves by rejecting the most powerful country.

We defy.

So answer me this. Why, in this country of the free, do we limit our freedom to go beyond? Why, with freedom of speech, do we limit our ideas to 140 characters (Twitter).

Why do professors give us a cap on how many pages to one essay? Why do our cell phones limit the number of words in one text?

Of course, some of these limitations do make sense. These limits are in place because of how many characters one SMS can hold, but then again, why do we as a society feel guilty for double or even triple texting someone?

Why are we made to feel crazy for saying what we want to say?

Is it America's incessant need to dehumanize ourselves past the point of recognition? It seems as though Americans don't want more than 140 characters or "500 words on" something. It seems like they want something they can hold, and anything more than a few hundred words is just too "overwhelming."

As Eric Lippert once said, "When I have something substantial to say that can be said in less than 140 characters, then I'll post a tweet."

Human beings are so intensely complex in their thought processes, in their emotions, in their bodies, that it makes no sense to me to shorten their opinions to only a few hundred characters. We were created to do something, to be something. We were not created to fit within 140 characters or even 500 words.

500 words just proves that we still limit ourselves in our ideas. We write shorter articles to get people's attention. We make lists so these people will read it and get our point. We shorten our beliefs into "Christian" or "atheist," labeling and oversimplifying ourselves because no one wants to listen to someone say, "I believe in God and Jesus and heaven, but ..." Far more often than not, people turn off their ears when they hear that "but."

We sell ourselves short. We take away our freedom because we're too lazy to listen to others. We want the gist, the summary. We don't care for the details because we would rather fill that in how we want to. We limit ourselves so much, we will eventually run out of space to--