in with the old

sometimes the people who impact our lives the most don't always stay in them

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nowadays, I'm always a little apprehensive of endorsing anything that sounds too much like an aphorism .. anything too neat, seemingly reductive or obscenely simple. I'm alright if it at least pretends to be / tries to present itself as an earnestly thought out subject for discourse, but if it's openly, blatantly, unapologetically aphoristic - with all the hefty belligerence of a declaration or incorrigibly prettified and dandied up all statement-like, i feel like disowning it. I feel like cutting ties immediately and drowning it in the sea.

I guess my biggest qualm with aphorisms is not whether they are mostly right or wrong or even accurate, but with the spirit that's been built into the very architecture of the construct, right down into the foundations. there's a posture of the heart that accompanies most maxims like a bad smell. an air, an attitude, an impression of ... absolute certainty, and with it a sense of imperiousness, of being smug and satisfied in itself in the worst way possible. it conveys, to me at least, the desire to preclude any further discussion, boasts a kind of guarded refinement - a rigid refusal to be challenged implicated deep in its demeanour.

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A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. 

- Cervantes 

I always have a quotation for everything. It saves original thinking. 

- Dorothy Sayers

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I remember I read somewhere an essay called 'In defence of Aphorisms' that was written in response to Susan Sontag's disparaging remarks in calling aphorisms primarily the result of impatient thinking. The argument roughly goes: 'An aphorism is the pithy packaging of deep wisdom. It is the consequence of a long process of analysis. It forces the reader to wrestle with it and to be creative with it.'

Can't find the original essay or website anymore though, unfortunately. But I wonder if an aphorism is a better vehicle for profound thought than a good story is? Because with an aphorism you get the destination, the moral/conclusion tacked on hastily at the end. but in a parable or myth you get the whole journey - and then you get the pearl first hand, rather than second.