Aphorisms - Advice and Antidote for an Attention-Deficit-Addled Age

I am an aspiring aphorist. No, that doesn't mean that I'm afraid of florists or want to become a wrist specialist. An aphorist is someone who writes aphorisms. 

What is an aphorism, you ask? Many people don't recognize the word, yet an aphorism is one of those rare concepts in the English language that everyone knows what it is but no one knows what it's called. 

Thoroughly confused? I thought so. Let me try to do for aphorisms what they do for us, namely make a complicated idea both beautiful and simple. An aphorism is a profound but pithy phrase of wisdom, often perfectly put in a memorable sentence or two. They embody the Jesuits' maxim, so perfectly summed up in the epigram 'Precision of Thought, Economy of Expression'.

They can be both poetic and prosaic. Some people know them as adages, others as sayings. The more derisive among us might dismiss them as cliches and fortune cookie messages, while Zen monks recite them as koans and mantras. However you feel about aphorisms, the one undeniable reality is that they've been around as long as man has been able to think and speak (in that order). 

Socrates gave us one of history's first aphorisms when he noted - almost as a coda for future aphorists - that "the unexamined life is not worth living." That's essentially what aphorists do: they examine a particular aspect of life and distill it into a pointed or poignant phrase that captures - and delivers - an enormous amount of wisdom in a wonderfully economical way. 

As you've probably gathered by now, I love aphorisms (just for the record, it's pronounced Ah-Four-ISM). They appeal to my penchant for (pop) philosophical analysis, but also to my love of language. Aphorisms are examples of style and substance, form and function; They deliver more punch in a phrase than most writers do in a page. Aphorisms are to life's observers what the japanese haiku is to an aspiring poet: they represent the most challenging medium through which to express one's art. 

Aphorisms are also, quite accidentally, perhaps the perfect antidote to our current attention-deficit-addled age. This is because they have the unique capability of passing on profound lessons in incredibly concise doses. In an era characterized (and cursed) by six-second attention spans, aphorisms deliver valuable advice in energy-efficient vehicles. Twitter, IM and SMS are the most important media to this generation, and even these limited text technologies can be used to deliver these concise nuggets of wisdom. 

 George Bernard Shaw memorably wrote that "Youth is wasted on the young." Oscar Wilde - one of history's great aphorists - added: "I am not young enough to know everything." I couldn't agree with them more. As the recent film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button artfully demonstrated, life would make a lot more sense if we 'aged' in the other direction and got younger as we advanced in years. Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard understood this intuitively when he noted wryly that "you understand life backward but you live life forward." 

I believe that today's younger generations have a tremendous amount to gain from studying these 'Ancients' through their aphorisms. In fact, these proverbs represent almost perfect nano-philosophies for the ADD Generation. What college student, blithely bingeing on pizza and beer at 3 am, would not benefit from Wilde's advice that they shouldn't take the power of their youth for granted? What twenty-something young professional, about to embark on an uncertain career trajectory, would not take some solace in Lao-Tzu's immortal adage that even "a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step"? 

In fact, the journey analogy is quite apt. Aphorisms provide you with a road map to life, giving you turn-by-turn directions to navigate around almost any obstacle. 

Have you recently lost a job as a result of the global economic crisis? You would do well to remember Epicurus's words that "a man is wealthy in proportion to the things he can do without." 

Perhaps you are a recent college graduate, looking for your first 'real' job, or even a mid-career professional contemplating a radical change in vocation? Then this proverb from Confucius will provide some sound advice to you: "find a job that you love, and you'll never work a day in your life." 

Maybe you're an anxious boyfriend, wracked with worry about whether your girl will cheat on you? Then this observation from Mark Twain can soothe your soul: "I have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened." 

Aphorisms don't just help you with the challenges that life throws at you; they can also teach you how to enjoy life itself. They don't always come inscribed on stone tablets or in musty old tomes, either. One of the simplest - but paradoxically most profound - pieces of wisdom I've ever received came from a lyric in a Sheryl Crow song, namely that "happiness is wanting what you have, not getting what you want". 

I come from a long line of aphorists. My grandfather penned one of the better (but alas least well-known) epigrams of his time when he used to sign his philosophical pamphlets with the tag line "Wealth, like health, should be at the expense of nobody." Later, his son, my Dad, the original 'Pop' Philosopher, eloquently observed one day, when talking about the difference between academics and political leaders, that unfortunately "thinkers rarely get the opportunity to do, and doers rarely get the opportunity to think." 

Not one to break with family tradition, I have also tried my hand at coining the pithy, philosophical phrase. For instance, friends have often heard me remark that "you have to have a Wednesday to have a Saturday", meaning that we have to suffer the difficult first in order to enjoy the sublime. Others have agreed with my observation that "relationships are like snowflakes; they look alike, but no two are identical." One of my former bosses like to quote my saying (probably unconsciously cribbed from someone else, no doubt) that "people prefer to edit rather than write". I appear to like to do both ... 

Clearly, my best days in this field are in front of me. Luckily, as someone once poetically observed, I feel like I have 'more tomorrows than yesterdays' right now. I may be wrong on that front, but I don't think I am on the other, larger point that these phrases deliver trenchant - and sometimes transcendental - truths that are perfectly suited for this era of Twitter attention spans. 

I wish that I had discovered aphorisms earlier in life. Armed with their wisdom, I might have saved myself from some sadness and instead followed Eleanor Roosevelt's sound advice to "learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself." After all, aphorisms are essentially attempts by their authors to pass on for free the hard-earned wisdom for which they paid dearly. Why not take them up on their generous offer? The price is right, and in the parlance of finance professionals - a group of people, if I ever met one, that would also benefit from studying aphorisms - the upside reward far outweighs the downside risk. 

I'm still only an aspiring aphorist. However, even if I never add my name to this most distinguished list, I'll have benefited from being in their company. As the French essayist (and extremely prolific aphorist in his own right) Montaigne eloquently once said, "I quote others only the better to express myself."

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Everytime I think you've stopped blogging for good you come up with another nice one :)