1. "Success isn't about knowledge or talent, but the art of convincing others you have both."
2. "Don't be a hero, the graveyard is full of them."
3. "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind? No, it doesn't, it makes us even."
4. "Sorry, I can't make it, I have plans. My plan is to find something better to do."
5. "Be prepared, lost footballs, Moses, and piss heads have all been found whilst looking through the bushes and weeds."
6. "Knowledge, facts, figures can all be learned, but wisdom can only be experienced upon reflection."
7. "True compassion isn't colluding in delusion; it's guiding someone to their true self."
8. "To live a life without regret would be a regret in itself."
9. "Never underestimate the usefulness of a force replacing your will."
10. "When cynicism eclipses wonder, the soul begins to wither."

Portmanteau, but with aphorisms, is a "Portmantaphorism." (It's so meta, even this anagram : )

Example:

"Parasites eat free omelets for lunch."

A portmantaphorism of "there's no such thing as a free lunch" and "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."
It describes someone that is freely consuming something that requires others to 'break a few eggs' for.

I'm curious to see what others can come up with.

A smart self includes a smart ass.

https://lsobrien.substack.com/p/potshots-at-the-sun

https://lsobrien.substack.com/p/i-a-failed-stoic-or-the-evening-nothingness

https://lsobrien.substack.com/p/i-eclipse-or-a-worldview-raised-to

Check this out if it interests you, I went and filmed me reading some aphorisms in fitting places around my country (Northern Ireland), and did a bit of a presentation about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeRdZA1_Iuw

The ending is especially fun. If anyone knows who Billy Joe Shaver is then you'll appreciate it.

My two favourite from the video:

1. All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle.

2. God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.

At the end of the day, the best people are their own judges. For other aphorisms like these you can follow me on Reddit and others social

Love every post so far

cEP.

This randomly occurred to me today. I'm sure someone has said this before, but I don't know who to credit.

"Comedy is the antidote to Tradgedy, it's how we make light out of the dark.

If we fail to laugh in the face of the abyss, it's the abyss that gets the last laugh."

I came up with this a while ago, but never really had a good idea about where to share it.

I think that a lot of people reflexively reject certain forms of comedy, or the idea that certain topics should be joked about, simply because they have not experienced the benefit that true, raw, dark comedy can bring in the depths of tradgedy.

I think my aphorism sums up one of the benefits of comedy, and furthermore captures a mission. What are we trying to do with comedy? Make each other laugh. To feel joy, to feel good. We're trying to make light out of the dark, or make light of the dark. To reduce the power that darkness and tradegy has over us.

When you can laugh at the darkness, it no longer has the power to hold you captive, to trap you in a state of despair, or control your emotions.

The line between genius and madness is a tricky one to define, because to achieve what no one else is, you have to do what no one else is doing, the definition of madness.

A novel effect requires a novel cause.

If you see what no one else sees, if you hear what no one else hears, if you do what no one else does, if you think what no one else thinks, then people tend to call you mad.

Personally, I think that madness is unexpressed anger at the insanity of society.

People doing the same things over and over, and expecting things to change.

It takes someone of vision and courage to try something new, in order to achieve something new.

To do that, you have to be willing to be seen as mad.

The world will hate you for your anger at their ways, but their ways are wicked, for look at all the suffering their ways bring.

Bring new ways. Bring new destinations. Bring hope. Bring change. If people tire of the current situation, the only solution is to change.

And it takes a genius to realise the most simple and fundamental truths.

That's the paradox of our insane existence. Only the madman can see clearly. Only the madman sees things as they could be. Everyone else sees things as they are.

The genius is really the layman.

"Pain and suffering are the seeds of growth watered by the tears of our hearts."

I came up with this a while ago when processing some deep pain and suffering and noticing the tendency of all the things that bothered or hurt me at the time they were present to actually contribute to positive growth and improvement.

I realised that all pain is like an unwrapped present, and it's only by processing it, especially by allowing ourselves to cry, that we receive the benefits contained within.

The reason why we need pain and suffering, why we need the darkness, why we need the cold is that meaning cannot exist without context.

No thing (nothing) is self-sustaining. Things need other things. Something cannot exist without everything.

Things are meaningless without relativity, without context. Unless things are embedded in a wholistic structure, they fall away into the abyss.

There must be a contraction before there can be an expansion, or vice versa. A rise to infinity cannot occur without a fall from infinity to zero.

We want joy and happiness, peace and love. But these things are more than just the static snapshots, or processes unto themselves. They are actually the process of a rise. We do not experience joy as a specific point on a graph of neurochemcials. In a vaccuum, these are meaningless. But instead, joy is the curve, not the point.

True meaning, reality, consciousness. These are waves, not particles. It's about the journey, not the destination.

The destination is a marker for the start of a new journey. A place to rest and consolidate all that has occured. The aim is never the aim. It's the process of aiming that is the aim. It isn't about the target. It's about hitting the target.

If it were about the target, we'd walk up and admire it. But instead we admire the practice. We admire the arrow flying through the air. We admire the pulling of the bowstrings back.

The target is a structure that makes the practice possible.

The destination makes the journey possible.