Fnord.

129.
Most creatures find what they need by descend-
ing unthinkingly the slope of chemical con-
centrations, best thought of as odors. To few is
given the ability to see with any clarity where
they are going. Thought is the imaginative
extension of the eyes. Or is it the legs?

Richardson again.

I”ve not been doing my bit for National Poetry Month, have I? Here’s some Richardson to savor:

121.
The worst part of fear is not knowing what
to do. And often you only have to ask What
would I do if I were not afraid? to know what to
do, and do it, and not be afraid.

and this one for my week of time off:

146.
Seizing on a piece of business, I become tiny,
eager, efficient: roiled water I cannot see into.
But to really live is to expand like a pupil in the
dark, like a pool gradually seen into. If I do
not waste time, I am wasting my time.

Richardson, of course.

178.
If you say All is well, I believe you. If I say All is
well, I’m abbreviating.

and maybe a smidgen of this one too:

475.
We have secrets from others. But our secrets
have secrets from us.

Yeah, bad stuff happening offline, so posting much reduced for a while. I’m in there swinging and doing ok, all things considered, but expect less posting while I learn to swim in the deep end.

Other than my man James Richardson, the publishing world isn’t exactly awash with aphorisms these days. I kind of suspect that they’re difficult to write, since there’s no room for error, excess or clumsiness. Along those lines, 43 Folders sends me to a 400-year-old book of ‘em by a Spanish monk named Balthasar Gracian. Title is “The Art of Worldly Wisdom,” and since copyright wasn’t an issue it’s available online. Enjoy!

A quick sample from reading the first set:

xviii Application and Ability.

There is no attaining eminence without both, and where they unite there is the greatest eminence. Mediocrity obtains more with application than superiority without it. Work is the price which is paid for reputation. What costs little is little worth. Even for the highest posts it is only in some cases application that is wanting, rarely the talent. To prefer moderate success in great things than eminence in a humble post has the excuse of a generous mind, but not so to be content with humble mediocrity when you could shine among the highest. Thus nature and art are both needed, and application sets on them the seal.

From Richardson, as usual. 

208.
If you change your mind, you are free. Or you
were.

…

214.
Someone’s deceleration to exit, read a sign or
rubberneck starts a little chain of responses
that becomes a five-mile backup. So much of
what turns out to be the huge evil of systems
is the amplification of tiny reluctances to let go
of a habit, to lift a phone, to look up and meet
someone’s eyes.

92.
All but the most durable books serve us simply
by opening a window on all we wanted to say
and feel and think about. We may not even
notice that they have not said it themselves till
we go back to them years later and do not find
what we loved in them. You cannot keep
the view by taking the window with you.

From Vectors, of course.

My man James Richardson, of course.

392.
Succeed and the world becomes just.

and

450.
That the bookstores divide into romance and
mystery suggests that the two most powerful fan-
tasies are someone to love and someone to
blame.

Well, one more. This is more practical advice:

173:
Shop: for shoes in the afternoon, when the foot
is largest; for groceries overfed, when nothing
pleases.

I like this one for its brevity and thought:

234.
Why should the whole lake have the same name?

and this one too:

383.
A screwdriver is for screws. When you pry
open a paint can with it, you have committed
metaphor, which is the second use of things,
their will gone. As for us, since we don’t know
what our purpose is, all we do is metaphori-
cal.

and one more as a bonus. I remember this one whenever I hear the old city-vs-country argument.

431.
What’s the difference between provincialism,
which unthinkingly takes its situation for ev-
eryone’s, and cosmopolitanism, which is con-
fident it has the right to?

…all from James Richardson’s ‘Aphorisms’.

James Richardson, click for his home page.

In reference to recent news, a related aphorism from James Richardson:

59.
When she was little her face rose up before
me, reading, driving. Even now I cannot have
her out of my sight for thirty seconds in a
supermarket. But she will leave home, and
there will be whole days I hardly think of her.
Between this beginning and that ending is a
story I cannot admit I am being told. Com-
pared to it, what is the failure of my work, out
language, the planet?

This is from Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-second Essays, a book I cannot recommend enough. That and