Five Laws of a Successful Aphorism
In his magnificent study of all things aphorismic, The World in a Phrase, James Geary offers us the five laws of writing powerful aphorisms:
1 Aphorisms must be brief.
2 Aphorisms must be definitive.
3 Aphorisms must be personal.
4 Aphorisms must have a twist.
5 Aphorisms must be philosophical.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s ambition was “to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book—what everyone else does not say in a book.” Our ambition is to be briefer still. RR
1. Aphorisms Must Be Brief
Forget the thirty-second elevator speech: you’ve got five seconds to make your point. Take a moment and count them off: one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi—buzzer sounds! Time’s up! Put your pencil down. That’s it.
Aphorisms must work quickly because they are meant for times of emergencies.
James Geary, The World in a Phrase
But wait! I have so much more to say!
Maybe so, but people don’t have the time to listen to you say it.
“Aphorisms are like particle accelerators for the mind,” explains Geary. “When high-energy particles like electrons and positrons collide inside an accelerator, new particles are created as the energy of the crash is converted into matter. . . . Inside an aphorism, it is minds that collide, and the new matter that spins out at the speed of thought is that elusive thing we call wisdom.”18
What’s the emergency? People are drowning in a sea of nonsense and need a life raft now!
RR
2. Aphorisms Must Be Definitive
Aphorisms assert a truth rather than argue a position. When writing an aphorism, don’t bother to persuade; simply state the matter as you see it. Dare to be wrong. And don’t be afraid to be right. Don’t second-guess yourself. Don’t hedge, hem, or haw.
Of course there is more to say on the matter than what you can say in five seconds. This isn’t a doctoral dissertation; it’s a new meme intended to subvert the dominant meme by offering something no less assertive and compelling in its place. Your goal isn’t to get people to agree with you, but to invite them to think with you and for themselves.
For example, take the road sign “Jesus is the answer.” In just four words the aphorism affirms a simple belief without bogging you down in centuries of theological argument. Now hack the sign: “Jesus is the answer. But are you asking the right question?” With this slight twist (see law number 4) you invite people to think, to put their beliefs under the microscope of reflection. And this is what spiritual culture jamming is all about.
Aphorisms are not bits of uplifting text meant for passive consumption. They are challenging statements that demand a response: either the recognition of a shared insight . . . or a rejection and retort.
JAMES GEARY, The World in a Phrase
3. Aphorisms Must Be Personal
Your aphorisms articulate your wisdom. Write only what you hold to be true, not simply what you think is clever.
When someone asks, “Do you really mean this?” regarding an aphorism you’ve written, any response other than an unabashed “Yes!” suggests that your aphorism isn’t honest. Reveal yourself without defense. No hiding!
If your goal is to point out that the emperor has no clothes, you must be naked as well. Don’t hide behind any -ism or ideology. Don’t claim any authority. You are simply sharing what you see to be so. If you need people to agree with you, don’t become a holy rascal. If you need people to oppose you, don’t become a holy rascal. Holy rascality isn’t about you. Holy rascality is about rekindling spiritual creativity and critical thinking. Holy rascality is about freeing the human capacity for religiosity—the capacity for making meaning—from the confines of brand-name religion.
Aphorisms are not bland generalizations about life, the universe, and everything, but are deeply personal and idiosyncratic statements, as unique to [you] as a strand of [your] DNA.
JAMES GEARY, The World in a Phrase
4. Aphorisms Must Have a Twist
Aphorisms must have a twist, a hook, a punch line that catches the reader off guard and throws the reader off balance. Guy Debord called this détournement, meaning “turning around.” Détournement subverts the memes of the dominant culture by using them to promote alternative messages, creating a sense of cognitive dissonance that causes people to rethink the meaning of conventional wisdom.
Spiritual culture jamming aphorisms pull the rug of certainty out from under the believer, not to mock, but to liberate; not to make fun of religion, but to invite religion to be fun; not to insult belief, but to free the believer for faith. Our goal is to free religion and the religious from stifling literalism by reclaiming myth and metaphor, parable and story as tools for unleashing the imagination in service to wisdom.
If the response to your aphorism is “Duh,” you’re being too obvious. If the response is, “Huh?” you’re being too confusing. If the response is, “Oh!” you’re right on target.
Like a good joke, a good aphorism has a punch line, a quick verbal or psychological flip, a sudden sting in the tail that gives you a jolt. Both jokes and aphorisms lift you into a wonderful weightless state—that giddy point just after the joke is finished and just before you get it—then abruptly drop you back down to earth in some completely unexpected place. Aphorisms, like jokes, teach the mind to do the twist.
JAMES GEARY, The World in a Phrase
5. Aphorisms Must Be Philosophical
Your aphorisms should be about life: what it is, how to live it, and how to leave it. Aphorisms respond to the big questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? How should I live? and Why? Spiritually culture jamming aphorisms address the big issues: justice, truth, compassion, love, loss, et cetera. They are not signs pointing to some grand philosophy. They are not blurbs for a book-length discourse. They are not billboards advertising an institution or ideology. They are complete articulations of your wisdom in the moment.
Aphorisms reflect the shifting, scattershot nature of thinking—and the experience of life itself. Aphorisms are “the true form of Universal Philosophy” and contain “the greatest quantity of thought in the smallest space.”
FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL, Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms