Aphorisms are fun to read but are they useful?
The aphorisms that cover the screens on Facebook and Google+ are what the people posting them consider to be important “information” they want to remind you of. Essentially they are saying, “Live this way and improve the quality of your life.” But if you take a look at the aphorisms you like and respond to, the ones that you nod to and say: “Yeah, that makes perfect sense”—notice that the ones you like are the ones you either already agree with or that made immediate sense to you. So the aphorism is not necessarily telling you something new, something that [...]
