Road Not Taken

Love Letter – No. 2

It is a strange thing how we eventually came to be.  We danced around each other for years.  You weren’t ready.  Then I wasn’t ready.  Then I was and you changed your mind.  I got bored and you got interested. Then you got bored and I got lonely. Our friends teased us about it.  But, we always stayed close.  I cared about you and you cared about me.  We got older.  We grew up and we still stayed close.  We started spending more time together and we had fun.  Nothing dramatic.  We knew everything about each other and understood all those things that usually kept us both single for so long.  You need your space and I need mine.  But, there is a look you give me when there is something you need from me and I know exactly what it means.  It is extremely subtle and no one else could understand it, but I do – and I don’t even really know why.

I don’t know exactly when I knew I was in love with you for the first time.  Maybe because you’re so subtle and complex it took me years just to know much beyond your surface.  And I couldn’t be in love with you until I got deeper.  You don’t let anyone deep and I only got there over many years and after I had stopped trying.  I don’t know when I knew what your looks meant either.  I just knew.

Sometimes you’re really hard on me.  But, never in a way that anyone else would know.  We’ve never been that couple other couples leave the party talking about.  You’re not dramatic and never have been and I’m to old for it now.

Even though you can be hard on me you project a strange unconditional love towards me and it seems so deep I still don’t know where it comes from.  I am confident yet certainly vulnerable.  And sometimes your love for me surprises me and I wonder why I deserve it.  It is funny though because it is always hidden from public view.  Even your intense love for me is a part of your subtlety.  Some people might think you are cold, but they don’t understand that they couldn’t handle the emotion under your core.  It’s too powerful.  And you downplay yourself too much anyway.  You don’t give yourself enough credit.  I mean, jeez, you have to put up with me!

Well, my darling after 13 years together there is really no reason for this note.  Except I had a long day and I greatly appreciate you rubbing my head while we sit in silence because you understand my look when I need your help too.  I don’t know how it happened, but we eventually came together and it was meant to be.  Two strange and subtle people living in our overly unsubtle world.  I would say I love you, but it goes unsaid.

My First Love Letter – To An Unknown Maiden

My Dear Lady of Star-Crossed Quantum Entanglement,

You break my heart. I don’t know why we have connected. But, we have. Perhaps our interest in each other has more to do with the forbidden aspects of our interactions than with any other reality if no said barriers existed. I cannot know any differently though because they do.

My carnivorous instinct is to shred your clothing to bits and ravage your body, yet somehow I’m not even most interested in that process or outcome within the realm of your specific particularities. I’ve already known many undersides of the carriage and will testify to however different each carriage may physically be that each ride is always made most comfortable dependent upon its driver. A ride in late autumn with sun soaked leaves falling upon a quiet road in the silence of still air touches the most tender of hearts, but connects with my core only if it is somehow cosmically ordained beyond the pleasantry of that specific temporal romantic condition.

And oh… do I long to ride deep within your carriage treading slowly far along a less worn path just as the sun crests at its golden hour upon evenings’ take.

I am a patient man. Life is a process of seasons designed to teach its most humble beings rhythmic lessons. For every winter there is a summer. For every fall there is a spring. For every patient man there is an unknowable prize. There are unknowable reasons for unknowable connections, which lead to forbidden fortresses in kingdoms that require great distances to reach. Great distances only a patient man can travel.

As I sit and stare upon my reflection in the small puddle, which encircles the reality of my surf-titude, I recognize the vibration in the water sent transcendently from the balcony of your crisp October breath. I hear you without a hint of the most discreet Latin word. I see you without a glimpse into the window of your vail. I smell you as clear as the most poignant spring rain. I know you as if… as if perhaps, you already have known me.

However, the tragedy of your vibration haunts me. Patient as I may be, I know not the way to your distant shore. It seems directions have always been my Achilles heal and although I accept my status as a lost soul sailing aimlessly with a ship of friends and fools I now seek desperately the compass buried deep within my bow.

As a sailor it is hard to trust in the stars. How can such tiny specks of light and dust guide us to our homes? We must have faith in their infinitely aged patterns and coordinates yet I know not how to interpret their wisdom. I am riding waves desperately seeking your shore.

For now, I raise my signal flag. I declare my longing. I climb the tallest mast pulling my wool cap to my brow and mediate on the idea that as a patient man I will someday be rewarded for my journey into the abyss and back. And I wonder and hope that some affairs may already be cosmically ordained. So, that I may eventually ride with you to understand the power of your lands never again returning to this sea.

Love,

Your man of mirage and mist at sea.

High School History & Heaven

From time to time each one of us wonders into thoughts of the truly vast complexity of life.  There are days when the weight of our world and the worlds beyond us rests in our heads and pin down our hearts.

Humanity is a complex and complicated endeavor a truth that you need not look further than your own individual existence to understand.  Though we all inherently know the truth behind this statement these words only represent one of our lives many truths.  There is no ultimate truth behind life.  However, there are infinite layers of truths that guide our lives like stars.

For all the complex truths living just beyond our comprehensive reach there are those truisms all our humblest children come to know.  Perhaps our most basic and clearly stated truth is defined by our own life’s end.  All life ends in death.

This singular and simple thought carries with it a powerful gravity we all face before our own living story turns its final page.  From the beginning of time through our present moments all conscious beings occasionally toil over this reality.

Generally speaking I would assume for most of us our sophomore year high school world history class would not be the place nor the time to be thinking deeply about death or the afterlife.

But, that happens to be a moment in my life I specifically started to think about what comes after death in an entirely new way.

One day my high school history teacher who was an interesting storyteller in his own right walked into the classroom and started writing notes on the board much the same as he would on any other normal boring day in learning of the histories of the world.  But, for some reason on this specific day he started his lecture out by saying, “I know what Heaven is.”

This got my attention.  What is he talking about?  What does this have to do with history?  What is for lunch?  I hate high school.  He proceeded.

“Heaven is whatever you think it is….”

High History Teacher Heaven

He continued. “Since Heaven is whatever you think it is I know what my Heaven is…”

“Heaven is a place with a polish sausage stand.  And not just any polish sausage stand, but the best polish sausage stand ever created.  The polish sausage stand in Heaven has every kind of the most fresh polish sausages you could ever imagine.  A round and red-faced old Polish man who is also extremely friendly operates this stand.  He has any and every kind of polish sausage fixing you’d ever need or want.  He is always ready with your favorite order calling you out by name and asking you how your day is going with a smile.  And in Heaven the polish sausages are always free.”

I remember his story very clearly.  Thinking at the time – WTF?

He continued, “Also, in Heaven this wonderful polish sausage stand is on a street corner next to a beautiful park with gently rolling hills and nice grassy open spaces.  In the middle of the park on the top of a small hill is an old, large, gentle, and stoic oak tree.

Across the street from the park is a library with ornate and wonderfully carved marble pillars and elaborate glowing stained-glass windows.  When you go into the library there are many helpful librarians ready to help you find any book on any topic you could ever imagine.  They will take you to the card catalog knowing just where to search out the answers to you questions and lead you right to the books you’re looking for.  In this library they have many copies of every book so there will always be a copy waiting for you.  And of course, there are no late fees.

If I am able to make it into Heaven I will go into the library to search out a wonderful read for the day and grab a delicious polish sausage with all the fixings.  I will walk across the street and sit in the shade of the large oak tree on the hill to eat, and read, and watch all of the other happy people eating while others are coming and going in and out of the library with the sun shining and a gentle breeze blowing the wonderful polish sausage smells my way.

This my friends is Heaven.”

Hum.  Repeat thought number 1. – WTF?

After hearing my history teacher’s version of what Heaven was to him I had two preceding thoughts.  One being – that is most certainly not what my version of Heaven would be. And two – well then, what is my version of Heaven?

I’m not sure if I thought about it much more on that specific day, but I have thought about it from time to time since then.  And I imagine that my answer would probably be just as absurd to most people as his idea of Heaven was to me.

My version of Heaven is also fairly simple and for whatever reason I can’t seem to imagine much beyond it even though I have, as some would describe, a bit of an ‘overactive imagination’.

I’m happy with my version.  Maybe someday that will change, but for now I know what Heaven is too.

My Version of Heaven

I’ve likely seen too many movies, but for some reason I imagine that in order to get into Heaven you need to walk up an imaginary set of cloud stairs and stand in line at the ‘pearly gates’.  When it’s your turn to get into Heaven you get to the bouncer Angel and he asks for your name and ID like you’re at a bar.  He has a big book in front of him to look you up and make sure you’re on the list.

The list is determined by a very simple thing – did you do more good things in your life than you did bad things?  Were you mostly a good person?  And it’s all there if he wants to look it up.  He might ask you a couple questions like, “Why did you push that girl off the dock when you where 7?  Or why did you throw away your little sisters toys when you were 9?  Or why did you stop to help that old man change a flat tire when you were 19 on the way to the first day of your new job making you 2 hours late? Etc. etc. He would ask you these questions in the same way the bouncer at the bar would ask you your address, birthday, what color are your eyes, etc. etc. making sure you didn’t have a fake ID.

He would ask you a few questions already knowing if you where in or not.  You wouldn’t be on the staircase in the first place if you weren’t already in, but you don’t know that. After a few questions he’s like, “Cool, you’re in.  You did more good stuff in your life than bad stuff, you get to go into Heaven.  Here are your books.”

Your Book of Statistics

At this point he gives you two books.  One is a book of stats.  And the other is a book of people.  The book of stats is a book that has all the statistics from your whole life.  For example, how many hours you slept in your whole life.  How many times you clipped your fingernails, how many pizzas you ate, how many movies you watched, how many times you cried, how many specific sunrises you watched… it is the book of facts of your entire life.  Any single specific fact you could imagine that you would like to know the numbers on from your whole life would be in this book.

It is amazing.  It is everything.  It is your whole life in numbers.  The thought of this makes me happy.

Your Book of People

The other book is a bit more complicated because it is more interactive.  The book of people is a list in order from birth to death of every single person you ever interacted with in your whole life.  And it has notes about these interactions, it has the specific dialogue between you and that person, your side thoughts on this interaction, and their side thoughts on this interaction – it has a written form of perspective on the interaction.  All of them, all of your interactions with everyone you ever meet in your entire life.

This book is also amazing because you can see your whole life in relation to people that were a part of it.  But, this book also has another element to it.

When you read this book it is in a room that for better or worse sort of resembles a police interrogation room.  There is a small white empty table in the middle of an empty room with a single light hanging down from the ceiling with two plain chairs, one on both sides of the empty table, one for you and one for them.  Because when you read through this book you get to bring the people in you’re reading about into Heaven to chat with you.  One on one.

It works in an amazing way.  You can bring them up into your plain empty room and talk with them at the same point in time you interacted with them in your book (in your former life) or at any other point in their living lives as well.

For example, say you had a fight with your best friend on the third day back to school your senior year of college.  You could bring them up to your room in Heaven and talk about it.  You could figure it out… you could talk with them knowing how the rest of your entire life unfolded.  You would be talking with them not as your college self, but as your afterlife self.

Or in that same scenario after having not talking to your best friend from college for 25 years because you moved to India and lost track of most of your friends from before your mid thirties because they abandoned you after your second divorce – you get to talk to him as an old man.  You could talk with him about the rest of his own life.  You would get to find out about his grandchildren, his various careers, and the cabin he loved in northern Idaho.  You would get a chance to reconnect with a person who was for a time one of, if not, the most important person in your life.  You would get to come full circle and answer some questions that you never knew you needed answers to.

Or you could even begin a new friendship with someone you met only once for 3 seconds when they took your money for a movie ticket when you where 42 traveling by yourself in St. Louis on business.

You would get a chance to connect in a new way with everyone who was ever in your life at any point for any amount of time.

But, that is it.  When you get to Heaven there is no one else there.  There are no new connections.  Your living life was your opportunity to know everyone you’ll ever need to know for the rest of your eternity.  The people of your living life are the only people that get to be apart of your afterlife because when you were alive that was your opportunity to meet everyone you should ever need to know.

Beyond this my version of Heaven has a few other perks, but they don’t seem to have the gravity or importance as the 2 books you are given once you pass through the gates.

I guess my version of Heaven would have a comfy bed, I wouldn’t need to work any more, I could eat basically whatever I wanted via a kind of Heaven room service, (I would order lots of pizza, nachos, pasta, beer, whatever I felt like I guess…) and there would be a really cool personalized home theater system with endless amounts of movies that popped up with whatever I was feeling like watching at that time.  My room would have a nice view.  Maybe mountains, a busy street, the ocean, a sunrise or sunset, or whatever I needed at the moment.

But, mostly my Heaven would be the sum total of my living life with a chance to talk to those people who made it so.

That is my version of Heaven.

Again, I’m not exactly sure at what point this became my version.  I doubt it was the same day as my history teacher proclaimed to the class his ideas on the subject.  But, I find it interesting that as I’ve aged and from time to time think about what my version of Heaven would be I continue to be satisfied with the version I imagined.

I like the idea of having a finite amount of people that make up your life and eternity.  It makes me want to reach out to more people.  It makes me want to make sure to say hi to every girl I see that catches my eye because even if I can’t falling in love her now I might get a chance to fall in love her in the afterlife.  It makes me want to say something to everyone I see who seems like they need help because even if I can’t help them now maybe I’ll be able to help them later.

It is kind of like an automatic second chance at the life you are living right now.  But, not a second chance at a life you never lived in the first place.   My version of Heaven makes real life right now feel more important.

And I love the idea that real life right now sets the stage for our afterlives.  My afterlife isn’t a second change, but rather an extension of the here and now.

What about Hell?

After thoroughly confusing our entire class that day my history teacher said one more thing.

“I know what Hell is to.  It’s being chained to that damn tree smelling the polish sausages and watching happy people go in and out of the library for the rest of eternity.”  I think my version of Hell would be if I dropped my books in a puddle and my life was erased forever.  I would be stuck in a tiny white room by myself forever with nothing to do and no one to spend my time with.

To be on the safe side I’m trying hard to be a good person.  So, say hi, and I’ll see you on the other side!

I don’t want to be an artist. I just want to be happy. Maybe I can be both.

I had a really important realization last night. My 1989 and 1999-self would have been really proud to be my 2009-self.  Which means I’m doing the right things even if I don’t always feel successful.  It seems I have always wanted to be 10 years ahead of myself without being able to enjoy where I am now.  But, no matter what happens today – I’ll be happy with how it turns out.

A Little Man with Sunshine in his Pocket

I would like to believe that if I try hard enough I can still talk with my grampa.  And even if logic tells me this cannot be so – I know what he might say anyway.

When he felt like it he could get anyone to smile and make anyone feel better.  I remember a time when I was about 7 or 8 and we went to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant together just the two of us.  The waitress seemed like she was having a really bad day.  My grandpa said to her right away (using her real name, which was written on her name tag), “Hey Sally, how are you doing today?”  She replied, “I’m fine.” (clearly not so…)  And he said, “Well Sally, you could have fooled me – looks like you might be having a rough day, but don’t worry my grandson and I won’t be too much trouble for ya — In fact, my little man over there carries a bit of sunshine in his pocket and if you ask him nicely I bet he’ll leave a little here for you on our way out. (- with a smile)”  She smiled back halfheartedly with a nod for his effort.  As we sat there and continued to interact with her my grandfather in the most natural way was able to change our waitresses’ whole attitude.  On our way out the waitress said to me, “Hey there little man you keep that sunshine in your pocket- someone else might need it soon- you guys have a good day and take care of that grandpa of yours.”

He wasn’t perfect, but he was the most capable person I’ve ever seen at making people feel better.  Most of the time my grampa was about 50% full of bullshit, but he was also 100% full of the truth.  And because of that combination  he was able to connect on a real human level to anyone, anywhere, anytime.  He was an artist of happy interactions.  And his work was beautiful.

I could use a little of his sunshine now.  Because lately I seem to be losing too much of my own.  It seems like as soon as I find the hole it is leaking out of – I find another one.  Maybe I just need a new pair of pants.

A Riddle

What is beyond infinity,
Smaller than the smallest thing ever,
The poor have it,
If you eat it you will die,
And if you don’t move your life forward – it will happen to you.

- Nothing.

What Does Failure Feel Like?

(About five years ago I wrote this in a journal.  Even though I have written on and off many times over the years about my experiences, at that point in my life, I rarely wrote about what I thought or felt about them.  When I wrote about my own life it was only as a log to serve as a kind memory tool for my future self.   This entry was a departure for me because it was one of the first times I had felt like a true failure and I needed to let it out.  I felt that the world had conspired against me.  I was really confused as to why and had no idea what to do next with my life.  I felt really lost and was crushed.  I was a talented, motivated, creative, college-educated person who had fallen hard.)

Well, it’s been a month since I left Austin and Texas.  I have been putting off writing this entry for a while because I think, honestly, it was weighing heavier on my spirits then I would’ve liked to admit.  As I left Texas I was feeling good about my choice to move on and hopefully forward.  As I drove late into the night I was pulled over by a Texas state trooper because I had a tail light out and because I think he was racial profiling my car.  It was a 96 Lincoln Towncar with tinted windows and was really lowered because my suspension was out and everything I owned was in the car weighing it down. The police officer asked me a bunch of times if I was on drugs.  I wasn’t, but I was really tired and probably looked like it.

(As a funny side note, the reason I owned a 96 Lincoln Towncar in the first place was because the car I owned before that, a 94 Jeep Wrangler, (which I loved!) had literately broken in half a few months before that due to the fact that, without my knowledge, the frame had turned into Swiss cheese from rust during the years I lived in MN.  I actually took a 10-hour bus ride to pick up this car (long story about why) in a Mexican border town.  And then rollerbladed 5 miles from the bus stop, with little Mexican children watching me in amazement as I’m sure non of them had seen anything like that before, only to find this car with not one but four flat tires.  Insert foreshadowing here…)

This was a minor issue to start out my trip.  I continued to drive all night stopping to sleep at 5:00am at a truck stop in Kansas.  I woke up feeling good and hoped to make it all the way home in one more day.  A few hours later I got a flat tire.  Of course, I had no jack and only a tiny spare.  So, I waited for a fairly short amount of time and an old man with a strong Kansas accent helped me out.  Since I only had a temporary spare tire, I needed to get another one for the rest of my trip home.  After driving all around the small nameless Kansas town I was in I finally stopped at a Wal-Mart for a cheap new tire.  The tire guys were not in a hurry.  After about 6 or so hours from when I first got my flat I was back on the road.  However, 30 minutes later I got another flat tire – the front right tire.  Only this time things were worse, much worse.  Not only did I get a second flat tire (of course I didn’t get another spare tire or a jack, thinking who gets two flat tires in one day. right?).  But, my car destroyed itself.  When the tire blew-out the tread came off and ripped the wheel-well out to the side of the car.  Along with the wheel-well came all of the electrical wiring, the motherboard, and all of the fuses for the car.  When this happened the car went dead and I skidded off to the side of the road.  I was screwed.

I sat on the top of my car until I was picked up by a Latino guy who had just quit his job and seemed like he needed to tell someone about it.  I went to a gas station and called a tow-truck driver who picked up my car and took it to the last open service station in the town.  The mechanic took one look at it and laughed.  He said it could take a week or so just to find all the parts and would probably cost more than a grand to fix it.  Having no money, no job, nowhere to stay in Kansas, I had no choice but to figure out a way to get rid of it.  In the end, I sold it to the lady who owned the service station for 250 bucks even though it was worth close to $3,000 only a couple hours beforehand.  And it had one new tire on it as well…

That night I stayed in a dingy hotel nearby.  I was extremely hungry and had exactly one twenty-dollar bill left to my person.  I walked a few blocks from the hotel to an equally dingy looking all night diner.  I ordered whatever the five-dollar special breakfast was and waited in pain for my food.  While I was waiting for my take-out I was sitting fairly close to the register listening to the conversation between the waitress who took my order and another woman who was clearly a local patron.  The waitress sounded like death, sick with some sort of major chest cold, and her friend was asking her why she didn’t stay home from work.  The waitress told her that she had to work because she was out of money due to some random financial hit along the lines of my car explosion and because her kids needed new school supplies, she was taking care of her ill father, etc. etc. – A completely horrible-sounding story.  While I was sitting there I couldn’t help but think, right there in that exact moment – at my lowest point, I was with someone else who had it worse.

When my food was finally ready the waitress gave me the bill for five-bucks and change.  I handed her the twenty, smiled, and walked out without her realizing that I had just overheard her conversation with her friend.  I figured I was already screwed so I would rather give her my very last fifteen dollars because at least it would give me something to feel good about.  Plus, I figured it had to be worth some kind of karma points and I really do believe good deeds come back to you in  time.

In the morning I went to the local courthouse to transfer the title and the woman at the service station gave me the money, which I turned around and used to pay for the rental car I needed to get home.  I transferred all my stuff into the rental and took off for home.  At least it was a nice fall day as I was leaving Newton, Kansas.  I drove for 13 hours and pulled into my parent’s house around 11:00pm.

On the bright side I can say that everyone who helped me out in KS was very nice and the rest of my drive home was problem-free.  But, the fatality of my car sort of represented the deeper sense of failure my whole Texas experience has felt like for me.  In a way, it was like one last kick in the nuts from Texas.  For the year and a half that I lived there is was a process of taking one step forward and three steps back over an over again, until it was apparent I needed to leave.

I didn’t really show any emotional reaction to my situation, I didn’t get really upset, or cry, or freak out, but I was very bummed.  Although, I didn’t really react to my trip home, my spirit was totally and completely broken.  I was literally penniless, had built up debt for the first time in my life from the many other car related problems I had experienced over the last year, I hadn’t accomplished what I set out to do in Austin, and I was heading home only a couple weeks before winter.  And I hate winter.

It has taken me a couple weeks to start to move forward again, and I must admit I don’t think I’m totally over how stuck I feel being back in MN.  I don’t want to see my friends, because I have to explain to them why I’m back.  My feeling of failure even haunts me in my sleep.  I have had many strange dreams that repeatedly involve falling trees.  I looked into the meaning behind this and simply put it means you feel like you are heading in the wrong direction, or that your life is a lowly mess.  Yep, that about sums up my thoughts on that.

(After I got home I lived in my parent’s basement.  I worked outside most of that winter at a Zoo in the maintenance department taking apart children’s amusement park rides with freezing tools.  And my transportation back and forth to work was via one of my dad’s extra utility work vans.  I didn’t get my own car again until a friend of mine basically gave me his old pizza delivery car the next spring.  Before winter ended I got a corporate sales job halfway related to my college degree.  But, it really took me almost 2 years to get back on my feet again.)

11 Thoughts on Choices

I wrote this during a bit of a rough patch while in college and still believe it holds true.

1.) Have faith in your choices.

2.) If you trust yourself to make good choices because you’ve thought about them and you’ve listened to your intuition then you have no reason not to have faith in them.

3.) Enjoy the mystery of your choices because you can never know for sure what the outcomes will be, nor can you control them.

4.) When you are faced with the outcomes of your choices whether they are good or bad, (even though you made them based on your faith in a positive outcome) you still have control over your life, because you are faced with new choices in response to your original choices’ outcomes.

5.) In other words, 90% of life is made up of your choices, 10% is the outcomes.  The outcomes are just as important as the choices, but in the end the only thing you have control over is each choice you make.

6.) If you make a mistake or something bad happens to you, you can dwell on it or choose to move forward and make your situation better.

7.) The better you can get at turning negative things into new starting points and seeing them as positives the faster all of your choices will become positives for your life.

8.) Sometimes you need to let negative things be negative, and to feel the emotion of it for a bit: it is the true balance to our positive experiences.

9.) Freedom through decisions – Once you make a choice all that remains is the outcome and you get to find out what happens. You don’t have to think about the outcomes anymore so you have the freedom to choose again.

10.) Take responsibility for your choices and actions.

11.) Sometimes you shouldn’t think so hard about your choices, make random decisions.

What is a Clark Patrick Aphorism?

Glad you asked.

In case you haven’t noticed this blog is broken into three parts – My Road, Aphorisms, & Quotes.  The “My Road” section of this blog is about my process of reaching out to and trying to shoot for my top-3 most ideal clients.  Writing in the “My Road” section will only be on that topic.  The Quotes section of my blog is self-explanatory; it is a place for me to post quotes that inspire me and will hopefully inspire you, too.

The Aphorism section on my blog is the grey zone.  Under my definition an Aphorism is a short truth.  And this section is place for me to write out my own personal short truths.  Traditionally Aphorisms are short clever statements, but taking liberty with that definition I will use this section as a place for my more long-form truths.  And by truths I mean writing about whatever I feel like.

Generally, I’ll write about photography.  But, I have a lot of views outside of the photo-world that need an outlet.  This section is “the flood that follows.”

I will write things that might be better kept to myself, but I have always been one of those people who lays it all out on the table.  And catches the hell or praise that comes after.

I put myself out there with my heart on my sleeve.  And won’t take cheap shots in my writing here so please return this favor to me.

I can’t wait to meet you.

What is an Aphorism?

Usually an aphorism, sometimes known as wisdom literature, is a concise statement containing a subjective truth or observation cleverly and pithily written.

The word aphorism (literally “distinction” or “definition”, from the Greek: ἀφορισμός, aphorismós ap-horizein “from-to bound”) denotes an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and easily memorable form.

The name was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates. The term came to be applied later to other sententious statements of physical science and later still to statements of all kinds of philosophical, moral or literary principles.

The Aphorisms of Hippocrates were one of the earliest collections, although the earlier Book of Proverbs is similar. Hippocrates includes such notable and often invoked phrases as:

“Life is short, [the] art long, opportunity fleeting, experience misleading, judgment difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate.”

The aphoristic genre developed together with literacy and, after the invention of printing, aphorisms were collected and published in book form. The first noted published collection of aphorisms is Adagia by Erasmus of Rotterdam. Other important early aphorists were François de La Rochefoucauld and Blaise Pascal.

Two influential collections of aphorisms published in the 20th century were The Uncombed Thoughts by Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (in Polish), and Itch of Wisdom by Mikhail Turovsky (in Russian).  Many societies have traditional sages or culture heroes to whom aphorisms are commonly attributed, such as the Seven Sages of Greece, Confucius or King Solomon.

Aphorisms can be both prosaic or poetic, sometimes they have repeated words or phrases, and sometimes they have two parts that are of the same grammatical structure. Some examples include:

Good Art seems ancient to its contemporaries, and modern – to their descendants. – Plutarch
All is Vanity – Solomon
Lost time is never found again. – Benjamin Franklin
Mediocrity is forgiven more easily than talent.
- Emil Krotky
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry.
- John Cage
That which does not destroy us makes us stronger.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
So many ingredients in the soup, no room for a spoon.
- Paul Haines
Many of those who tried to enlighten were hanged from the lampposts.
- Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.
- John Coltrane
It is not uncommon to commiserate with a stranger’s misfortune, but it takes a really fine nature to appreciate a friend’s success.
- Oscar Wilde
Only that which always existed can be eternal.
- G. Antuan Suárez
Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see.
- Mark Twain
Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.
- Charlie Parker
It is better to be hated for what one is, than loved for what one is not.
- André Gide
Like a road in Autumn: Hardly is it swept clean before it is covered again with dead leaves. – Franz Kafka
There is no such thing as a wrong note. – Art Tatum
Truths are not relative. What are relative are opinions about truth.
- Nicolás Gómez Dávila
(This information on Aphorisms can be found on Wikipedia.)