A plethora of wisdom landed in my inbox today in the form of “an eschatological* laundry list” through Oliver Burkman’s newsletter, which I eagerly await and devour the minute it lands in my inbox.
The ‘laundry list’ of 43 aphorisms is compiled by Sheldon Kopp, an American psychotherapist, and appears as an appendix in his book If you meet the Buddha on the Road kill him.
Some of the aphorisms are real bombshells.
You are free to do whatever you want. You need only face the consequences.
If you have a hero, look again: you have diminished yourself in some way.
We must live with the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and partial knowledge.
All important decisions must be made on the basis of insufficient data.
Learn to forgive yourself, again and again, and again and again.
And Sheldon’s own:
All of the significant battles are waged within the self.
“An aphorism of this kind,” writes the literature scholar James Lough, “is anarchic, a bomb exploding in an empty house, blasting out the windows, blowing the doors off their hinges.”
You can find the complete list here.
The list reminded me about my own collection of aphorisms, which I like reminding myself from time to time. Here are some:
That which does not kill us makes us stronger. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Find what you love and let it kill you…For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover. - Kinky Friedman
“If a given aphorism works for you, writes Burkman, “then for at least a few moments, you experience something more than intellectual illumination. Things feel different, too. Life somehow feels more doable. Your problems feel more tractable. The world makes slightly more sense.”
Often you feel empowered and invincible. You apply yourself with renewed energy because you don’t want to pay the ‘cost of not doing it,’ or are heartened by the fact that since you are still alive, you must be getting stronger.
This is precisely what I have been testing this week. My book number 3 (previously titled Your Best Is Yet To Come, now titled Dare To Create) will either kill me or make me stronger. I have written this book three times already. This is the book that my inner critic (Jack in the Box) was not happy with. He still is not. I was supposed to finish the book today, yet yesterday I changed the structure altogether.
Now I am racing to finish it by Sunday afternoon because NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is starting from Monday. Next month, I want to spend time on my novel, another project that is testing my nerves. I started it in 2014. Until I finish it, I can’t begin the next one.
The covers for the second book have arrived. Which one do you like the best?
That’s it from me this week.
I would love to hear from you. Please drop me a line in the comments section.
Take care.
If you enjoyed this letter, you click here to get it every week.
* eschatological stands for ‘concerned with the ultimate or final things, such as death, the destiny of humanity, the future state.’
Neera, I admire your strength. You were the first person I felt a connection with when I first joined medium. You never seem to amaze me. I like all the book covers but I'm drawn more to the one in the middle.
Now to get back on the subject you wrote about. I don't know if I have aphorisms but I certainly have a lot of questions that I ask myself from time to time. They are my wake-up moments that call for action. I usually obey them. BTW, I miss your publication last week. I don't know if you had one.
They’re not aphorisms but they are questions that keep me aware of the “crux of the biscuit” (Frank Zappa): “What has four pairs of pants, lives in Philadelphia and when it rains it pours?”(The Marx Brothers) and, “If you were travelling in a car at the speed of light and you turned on the headlights, would anything happen?” (Steven Wright). I don’t care about the answers, I just love how the questions skew the absurdity of the universe.