Fun with Aphorism
You can probably find a better, more accurate definition of
“aphorism” than the one I am about to give: an opinion rendered memorably. We experience aphorism as insight into human
nature and the human condition. Aphorism
is a social thing—it could not be otherwise.
Even a recluse is being social when writing an aphorism. It implies a degree of civilization in the
writer and the reader of it, not to mention a certain shared
understanding. And in this sense,
aphorism belongs to the family of pun, joke, allusion, satire, parody, and, in
an extended way, metaphor, image, even poetry.
That is, it’s a figure of speech, meaning speech given shape.
An aphorism is somebody’s opinion about the state of the
world and humankind. It can be acerbic,
caustic, sardonic, ironic, politic and impolitic, homiletic, Vedic, anarchic,
archaic, [1]
heuristic, rustic, mystic, gnomic . . .
As I just mentioned, it is a figure of speech. It expresses a thought about “the world we
live in” and the “we” who live in it. It
is an opinion rendered memorably.
Here are some synonyms for it: maxim, saying, adage, saw,
truism, axiom, apothegm, and, perhaps more tenuously, truth, principle, precept. And like these more or less synonymous terms,
an aphorism can become a cliché, inviting mockery or satire. Here’s one that became cliché the very first
time it was uttered: “There is no ‘I’ in ‘team’.” I used to hear certain executives—especially
those who routinely made you do all the work while they took all the credit
(but deflected any blame back onto you)—say this in “team meetings.” One day I wrote down an antidote to it:
Beware the boss who says ‘there is no I in team’; he often means there is no
You. Let me put this as aphoristically
as I can: in aphorism we sometimes find respite from the self-regarding.
But in aphorism we also find poetry, or something like it;
like it enough that writing aphorisms is probably a good way of exercising our
figurative skills—turn of phrase, compression of language, color, music and
rhythm, tone. I’ve spent many happy
hours writing aphorisms in journals. My
method is usually to select a word, something concrete or abstract,[2] it
doesn’t matter, and then to incorporate it in statements of one or two lines
(never more). What I find, often enough,
is that I refresh my understanding of the word, how it can be used, how far its
meaning can be bent to some insight or thought, and how it can produce a
thought or an insight. (And I always aim
for the fresh, not the clichéd. I don't always succeed.) I also
find among these aphorisms lines for poems to be developed later, sometimes
years later. Page two shares an example of
the method from a 2003 journal.
So have some fun with aphorisms. Save what you write. You may want to use a line or two somewhere,
sometime, say in a poem.
Dry Spells
Dry spells . . . How can one put them to use?
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Pray for rain, endure dry spells.
---
We call them dry spells because they induce thirst, or
torpor?
---
Much business, and afterwards a welcome dry spell.
---
To suffer a dry
spell is to miss its greater interest.
---
You can find deep pools of insight even in a dry spell.
---
In a dry spell, dig.
---
Wells are valuable only in dry spells.
---
Without dry spells, who knows about rain?
---
Imagine the discomfort and inconvenience of a dry spell;
remember it in the soggy times.
[1]
Please, someone stop me!
[2]
Some examples: command, fog, cursing, time, work, compromise, seconds (as in
not being first), the usual, talk, giving, dry spells. I steer clear of cliché-inducing subjects
like love, friendship, God, sorrow, happiness.
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