4 A-4-isms

So I saw James Richardson's Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays on a must-read list, and then I heard the author interviewed the Joe Milford Poetry (radio) Show, so I made sure to get my hands on a copy of the book.

There are 500 aphorisms/short essays/entries in the book, and in the three days I took to read through them, I ticked off 28 of them as remarkable, although this is the sort of book that I can tell I will read again and again, and I will find something different and remarkable each time, I'm sure. (As aphorism #369 says, "Why shouldn't you read this the way I wrote it, with days between the lines?" Exactly.)

So today I am going to present 4 of the aphorisms that struck me during my first reading.

204. By looking for the origins of things we deceive ourselves about their inevitability. Things that did not happen also have origins.

208. If you change your mind, you are free. Or you were.

243. I believe in nothing. But I'd prefer that you did not agree with me.
(As a mother, I find this one particularly poignant.)

383. A screwdriver is for screws. When you pry open a paint can with it, you have committed metaphor, which is the second use of things, their will gone. As for us, since we don't know what our purpose is, all we do is metaphorical.

Wow, that's four already, and there are still more I want to share. Okay, I will have to do this again some time, obviously.