I’m a little embarrassed to title something “Aphorisms”, because it seems a little too pretentious and presumptuous. But I recently overheard 30 seconds of a book review of some philosopher’s book of aphorisms as I was walking past a radio. And the reviewer noted that aphorisms tend towards concision (obviously) and humor. And that’s the combination I need.
And when I started scanning through what I already wrote, I realized that I might be able to distill the essence of all these words to a nub, or many little nubs. And when I started throwing them in a list, I noticed that there’s a natural ebb and flow to the nubs. And with a little rough tweaking here and there, and the addition of a few new nubs, the ebbs and flows take on a certain rhythm and direction, without the need for a unifying voice or any tiresomely self-conscious Self, such as the one who is speaking now.
Admittedly, these nubs, ebbs and flows still came out to 37 pages, which doesn’t seem too concise after all. But that’s 6,129 fewer pages than the essays in total. So, count yourselves lucky.
I broke them into three “volumes” (so far). And I’ll post one every few days. I allowed some similar observations to sneak into each volume, because the different contexts add enough nuance to justify the repetition.
So, the whole thing ends up forming something in between an essay and a disjointed list of one-liners. They were fun to compile, tweak and expand. So, I hope they are fun to read.
I’m not sure this ends up “better” or “worse”, but it’s different. And as a different “approach” (an almost headless approach, trusting the connective tissue to form on its own, trusting it to make more sense than the sum of individual observations) it cuts out the middleman (“me”), and hones in on some of the essential insights that might otherwise get lost in the verbose flow of narrative. (I mean, I can’t picture too many people who actually read all this stuff. So, this is like digging up a few of the potatoes that probably got lost in the bed).
So, maybe it’s both better and worse, because these “nubs” also miss more subtle narrative themes that are only possible within the more long-winded essays (which includes this preface).
And now there’s the possibility of a hybrid form of essay, which I might try later.
I should note that any hyperlinked asterisks lead to the essay where the aphorism (or something similar) can be found in its natural habitat.
Negative Geography 
Have you read the aphorisms of Antonio Porchia? His were my introduction to the ‘form’ and I still enjoy revisiting my book of his.
Here are a few:
A door opens to me.
I go in and am faced with a hundred closed doors.
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My poverty is not complete: it lacks me.
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If you do not raise your eyes
you will think that you are the highest point.
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Before I traveled my road I was my road.
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In no one did I find who I should be like.
And I stayed like that: like no one.
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I come from dying, not from having been born.
From having been born I am going.
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One lives in the hope of becoming a memory.
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I believe that the soul consists of its sufferings.
For the soul that cures its own sufferings dies.
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Nothing that is complete breathes.
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They have stopped deceiving you, not loving you.
And it seems to you that they have stopped loving you.
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You will find the distance that separates you from them,
by joining them.
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When the superficial wearies me,
it wearies me so much that I need an abyss in order to rest.
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I will help you to approach if you approach,
and to keep away if you keep away.
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The mystery brings peace to my eyes, not blindness.
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When your suffering is a little greater than my suffering
I feel that I am a little cruel.
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He who tells the truth says almost nothing.
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A thing, until it is everything, is noise,
and once it is everything it is silence.
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That in man which cannot be domesticated
is not his evil but his goodness.
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The flower that you hold in your hands was born today
and already it is as old as you are.
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They will say that you are on the wrong road,
if it is your own.
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I have come one step away from everything.
And here I stay, far from everything, one step away.
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Would there be this eternal seeking if the found existed?
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Suffering does not follow us. It goes before us.
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The tree is alone, the cloud is alone.
Everything is alone when I am alone.
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A hundred years die in a moment,
just as a moment dies in a moment.
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Suffering is above, not below.
And everyone thinks that suffering is below.
And everyone wants to rise.
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My body separates me from every being
and from every thing.
Nothing but my body.
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I saw a dead man. And I was little, little, little…
My God, what a great thing a dead man is!
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Yes, one must suffer, even in vain,
so as not to have lived in vain.
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Only a few arrive at nothing,
because the way is long.
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In my silence only my voice is missing.
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Human suffering, while it is asleep, is shapeless.
If it is wakened it takes the form of the waker.
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A child shows his toy, a man hides his.
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Near me nothing but distances.
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The loss of a thing affects us
until we have lost it altogether.
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When one does not love the impossible,
one does not love anything.
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All that I know does not even help me to know it.
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All that I have lost I find at every step
and remember that I have lost it.
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My pieces of time play with eternity.
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I am chained to the earth
to pay for the freedom of my eyes.
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To wound the heart is to create it.
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The fear of separation is all that unites.
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When you seem to be listening to my words,
they seem to be your words, with me listening.
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When I have nothing left, I will ask for no more.
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Every toy has the right to break.
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Sometimes I believe that evil is everything,
and that good is only a beautiful desire for evil.
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A large heart can be filled with very little.
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The love that is not all pain is not all love.
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As long as we think we are worth something,
we wrong ourselves.
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The harm that I have not done,
what harm it has done!
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He who makes a paradise of his bread
makes a hell of his hunger.
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I would ask something more of this world
if it had something more.
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You do not see the river of tears
because it lacks one tear of your own.
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My neighbor’s poverty makes me feel poor;
my own does not.
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Almost always it is the fear of being ourselves
that brings us to the mirror.
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I can wait for you no longer.
Because you have arrived.
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The chains that bind us most closely
are the ones we have broken.
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You wound and you will wound again.
Because you wound and then you go away.
You do not stay with the wound.
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Flowers are without hope.
Because hope is tomorrow and flowers have no tomorrow.
-Antonio Porchia
“Voices is a collection of poetic aphorisms written over several decades by Antonio Porchia and translated by W.S. Merwin. Spontaneous, succinct and wise, these aphorisms have the spiritual character of the world’s great religions—especially Buddhist and Taoist epigrams—and the subtle attention to language of our best literature.
Voices is Porchia’s only book, which he augmented and revised throughout his life. By the time of his death, it had become a classic, published in over a dozen different Spanish-language editions; today there are also translations into German, French, and Italian.
This new bilingual edition, revised and updated with an introduction by Merwin, brings back into print one of Latin America’s great literary enigmas.”
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Thanks for sharing!
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These are harder for me to “see.” The suffering and despair in them is very strong.
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