Aphorisms That Aren't
Language that Seems to Mean Something, But Doesn't
Concision is a skill that internet writers have left by the wayside. Written English (or, for that matter, Chinese which is also a native language for me) is most expressive and persuasive when pithy.
Any of the writers of the past outdoes any of the moderns with few exceptions — Joseph O’Connor, whose Shadowplay thrilled and delighted me, is one of those exceptions — if only because paper and ink cost money. In the age of endless posts, blah blah blah seems to be the watchword. Blah blah blah is very blah.
However, pith can be made to deceive. Human language is a Swiss army knife of complexity, range and breadth that is less easily employed in the discovery of truth, which evades human reason, requiring mastery, than in the erection of a Potemkin Village as a camouflage of falsehood.
It is easy to come up with nonsense that sounds like sense. Just think of Foucault and the De(con)structionists! Beware the nonsense of seeming truth-tellers!
Here are some of my APHORISMS THAT AIN’T:
(I precede these recent stylizations with my high school yearbook aphorism, written in precisely this vein many decades ago: Falling leaves do not always come to rest in semi-symmetrical patterns.)
Plan to succeed; don't just succeed to plan!
Don't give up until you know it's over.
This is the best life you're ever going to have.
If you've seen it, then you know what it doesn't look like, too.
Increase the volume, not the speed.
It's only darkest before the dawn when the sun isn't up.
Don't just do the good you can do, do good deeds that do good.
Life isn't just what you make of it; it's what it makes of you, too!
We're in this forever. Time will always be here, so take your time.
Random events don't happen to someone who plans them.
Good enough was the old perfect. Now perfect is the new good.
Cracking up isn't all it's cracked up to be.
To be mindful, you need a mind. And then you make it full.
There are shades of black and white.
If you can't walk, DANCE!
Maturity doesn't mean you lack childishness.
For every person, there's a person.
If your right hand doesn't know what your left hand is doing, then what is your left hand doing?
The nautilus goes round and round in his own shell. Are you a nautilus?
The star that shines the brightest is a light in the sky.
If you don't care about anything, then you have nothing to worry about.
If you've heard it all before, then you've not been listening enough.