When I was around 9 or 10, I remember an abstract thought crossing through my mind, and it's never quite left. The thought was about life, and one's lifespan, and what unknown forces might dictate it. For whatever reason, the following idea came to me: what if we all started out in life with a limited number of words to use at our disposal, and every word we spoke subtracted from it. The number was unknown, random for everybody, but always billions and billions. Yet eventually, when you used your final words, they were just that: your final words. And then you were done. You'd die. Of course random acts and occurrences would still be at play, and one might be cut down without ever having used all the words he had at his disposal, but in a nutshell, the countdown to your imminent demise would go hand in hand with the remaining words available to you from your own personal allocation.
As a child, I actually remember, just for the heck of it, trying to see if I could limit my use of words in a day. It was not easy, but it was something to do. I was 9, remember?
Today, the memory of that concept still lingers. I don't try and limit my word use, of course, as I know it's a silly idea from my childhood. But you know, if it were really true, one thing is for certain. That whole statistic about women outliving men would be greatly skewed in the other direction.
:-D