So I had to try my hand at writing aphorisms for a class. They were pretty fun to try and come up with, although its hard to not feel like you're being cliche. But anyways, try it sometime if you're bored. It's fun.
Man is constantly shaped by yesterday. Tomorrow should be looked at as a hammer to shatter his form.
Days are casually handed to men like coins after a purchase. Though the hours of the day shouldn’t be resigned to a dark pocket like loose change, rather, held onto like a small fortune.
Today is a bench that shouldn’t be sat on but instead it should be stood upon so one’s head is always above the trudging of the mob.
To qualify your hour with a wage is to admit your time is worth nothing.
Tomorrow comes to man, but it is his duty to pursue every possibility contained within it.
These aphorisms did not follow a distinct form through out. Some of them seem to be truism, others examples of topsy-turvy aphorisms. But anyway, when I had read Antonio Porchia’s aphorism the one that stood out most to me was “Man goes nowhere. Everything comes to men, like tomorrow.” I thought it was a really amazing idea and it caused me to sit and think on it and then it passed the true litmus test when it became an away message on AIM. I knew that for this assignment I wanted to work alongside that aphorism and the last attempt I gave at aphorism is a distinct re-working of his phrase. So part of these aphorisms were born from that specific Porchia phrase and the other half came out of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s lecture, “The American Scholar,” which I had to read recently for another class. In it he talked about a persons need for action and an active life as well as the need for thoughts and books. Some of what he wrote in the lecture seemed very aphoristic to me. One in particular stood out, “The day is always his, who works in it with serenity and great aims.” I really enjoyed that thought and decided I wanted to work with Emerson’s idea of possessing the day as well as Porchia’s view on the approach of a new day.
KT
4 comments:
i really like "the days are handed to men..." I can picture it on a motivational Zen phrases calender lol seriously though
haha yeah man definitely. thats the vibe I got from it as well. thats why its funny righting them, you can try and sound prophetic and get away with it because the form of aphorism forces it to sound that way.
kt
kyle,
i am really feelin this post. I tried to think of some after reading those that you posted.
sometimes a simple saying like "a wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart" sounds cheesy but is the truth. i think its important to look at cliche ideas from their origins. the values behind such sayings come from genuine beginnings.
For example, falling in love "at first sight" is cliche yet powerful as hell. i don't think there's anything more extreme than that.
anyhoo, i'm gonna work on some aphorisms and maybe post em, only if their psychologically stimulating enough. haha
As soon as there is life there is danger.
-Emerson
roz
The first one is dope. very poetic and very good imagery. good play on words in number two with the repeated coin change fortune, 3 different ways to look a the same cluster of pocket change that usually gets overlooked and discarded. Reminds me of a short story I wrote last year in short fiction class I'll have to post that sometime soon.
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