Taco.s Rigor

A couple more aphorisms in this wildly popular blogging series. :-)

With tongue in cheek there’s room for a foot in the mouth.

And from years working on minority issues of all sorts:

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy.

(I should have a more weighty post coming; today is my kid’s “family spotlight” at their school. Wish me luck :-).)

I. Or Rag Cost

A couple rules I try to follow regarding money:

Give freely. Lend no more than what you’d pay to measure the integrity of the person in your debt. If the debt is never repaid, you've spent your money wisely.

A good man is charitable without care for recognition. A better man aims to make charity fashionable, even at the loss of the respect of other good men.

please excuse the use of 'men,' it just sounds better than 'people' :-))

Cigar.s Root

Nothing makes the world seem more simultaneously threatening and hopeful, both broken and perfect than welcoming a child into it.

A Change of Pace

I’m trying now to force out the long fabled “site,” yes, the one I gave up on last year. It will come screaming into this world sooner or later, and, now that I’ve some gracious help, it should be sooner.

To that end, my free time will be split again for a while. What to do?

I’ve been reading Geary’s Guide to the World’s Great Aphorisms. It’s been a fun read from Mae West’s “Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before” to Bertrand Russell’s “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” According to Geary a good aphorism should be short and have some sort of memerable twist.

I didn’t get a page into the book before I realized that I’m actually a collector of personal aphorisms and never knew it. I’m just so naturally longwinded. I suddenly remembered a file from years ago where I'd collected some aphorisms and just found it again.

I know I generally write posts that are way too long, and so now for something completely different (and time saving :-)). The next couple posts will be short, unbearably so for my traditional self, longing to explain in detail. But I think these short sentences get to some middle of my perspective and motivations, and, hey, I liked them enough to save them for years, and I’d love to see what sort of feedback they could elicit. Do you have a similar aphorism? A counter aphorism? Just keep in mind that:

As Laub says:

“Men appreciate aphorisms because, among other reasons, they contain half-truths. That is an unusually high percentage.”

;-)

So here begins a bunch of posts of some of my short aphorisms, starting with the notion behind the origin of my blog name:

Never look to complete yourself in love. Look instead to be the subordinate cog missing from a work much larger than any two individuals could ever become on their own.

Eh, I’d probably phrase that differently nowadays… Maybe:

Don’t aim to fill your missing pieces, but learn how they could help you fill a missing piece.

Or maybe:

Every cog inside a machine is as significant as that machine. Every other cog is as significant as a cog.

Or maybe:

A man has never been completed by completing himself.

(That picture is actually of a sculpture in our home; I guess I like the analogy.)