"Why do I write these short aphorisms? Because words fail me!” - Satnislaw J. Lec

 "Why do I write these short aphorisms? Because words fail me!” - Satnislaw J. Lec (1909-1966). Unkempt Thoughts, p. 110, tr. Jacek Galazka, 1962

- Words often fail us. We do not know what to say, or how to say it - we sit and struggle to remember the exact word we wish to use, we can picture something in our head but not describe it, and we use metaphor and simile to get our point across. We express our love and sorrow in poetry, our deepest concerns and worries in our actions, and pass bit of information along, by glance and innuendo. An aphorism is a short, pithy phrase, which says a lot in a few words. Many of these quotes have been aphorisms, a short series of words which contains the ability to seemingly contain more information than it does. This happens hin one of two ways. Either we hear the phrase and then ponder upon it in order to figure out what it means, or we hear the phrase, and those words act like a spark to the tinder of our memories. Aphorisms can be general as in 'the golden rule', or they can be personal, as in 'hail, hail, the dusk returning' (which mean something to me, for personally historical reasons). 

Aphorisms are useful for their ability to do this, because we often are unable to recall all the information that we wish we could have, when making a decision. If we were able to take all the time we wished, to read all the books we wanted to, and ask all the questions we could, before a decision, then I suspect that we would make a better decision than we do. We often regret our decisions, not only because they turned out bad, but also because we sometimes recognize when we have made stupid decisions, only realizing this hours or days later. That a risk turned out badly is much easier to take, than to a;dmit that we made the wrong decision. Yet, we do make, if not wrong decisions, at least suboptimal decisions, all the time. Ahprmisms are an attempt to deal with this.  Instead of remembering every relevant fact and piece of information, every story we have ever heard, and having the ability to ask a dozen questions before each decision, we can sometimes simply recall a single phrase. This makes our decision making faster and more capable, as well as more consistent. If we remember to, for example, always ask ourselves 'what would Yoda do', then we may also have a type of short-circuit in our decision making process, something which disrupts our flow, the same same flow that, while it sometimes opens up grand vista's to us, will also sometimes drag us along where we do not want to go, as we get caught up in the moment. 

Aphorisms are not just for remembering - they can also be for the purpose of expressions. Someone must say the aphorisms, as well as hear them. It is a wonderful gift, the ability to condense your thoughts down into a single sentence, to distill the essence of your intentions so finely that they can be accurately translated without the need for hours and hours of lectures and diagrams. Perhaps these aphorisms tie in somehow to the human condition - They do not just transmit new information, they can also drag up old information, old stories, and make them shine in a different and relevant fashion.