Everything I have Learned In My Life So Far...

Blogging is awesome because it gives me a place to say things that i otherwise would have to find someone to say to... 

About a year ago i read an article in Harper's on the decline of reading.  Other than the actually quite fascinating history of reading that it shed light upon, and the satisfaction that it gave me (yay: I read!), its main feat was leading me to an essay on the art of the aphorism.  the aphorism is the lingusitic answer to a painting.  Nietzsche said that people write badly because they write the whole process by which they came to a final thought (SOROS!!).  The aphorism, which Nietzsche was a master of, is the thought itself, or, both the hook and the bait.   What a thought - lets take out all the explaining, justifying, rationalizing ... make a powerful statement...

Am now reading Stefan Sagmeister's "Everything I have Learned In My Life So Far."  It's beautiful.  The intertwined process of writing, reading, and thinking was another cornerstone of the aphorism article.  Back in the day people would  have these notebooks where they would write, read, think, re-read, re-write, re-arrange...  I always wanted to read one of these as I wanted to be able to get inside the head of someone.  I always wanted to model my notebooks on them... Sagmeister returns to his list of things and recomposes them graphically and expounds upon them and shows how they came about and how they work...  While not in the model per-se, it comes pretty damn close and is probably a better version to live and play with... life, thinking, creativity, thoughtfulness, inspirations... the book is beautiful.  Reading it, i want to be him.

Of course I am rambling and doing exactly what i quoted as "bad" but whatever.  this is a blog.   

things i have learned so far in my life