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generator: pandoc

title: 'polished-aphorism'

viewport: 'width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=yes'

---

+++ date = "2019-06-30T10:42:06Z" title = "polished aphorism" +++

By L Campbell Cooper

The process of formulating a thought into some polished aphorism or

other is more like fishing or whale watching than art or science. It is

not that the thinker takes the marble of his raw impressions and

carefully sculpts it with the finesse of the practiced artist, or

methodically applies the routine of measurement and analysis of his

conjectures, but rather that he is simply patient enough to observe the

rolling ocean of the fathomless unconscious, capturing and pleasingly

relating those moments when a dolphin leaps out of the water. Rather

than a fishing rod with which he catches ideas, however, he uses a kind

of conductor that we all share: language. He reveals that the ocean need

not appear a dreaded place in which we are constantly at risk of

drowning, blank and threatening unto the ends of the horizon, but rather

a pleasant refuge in which we are free to swim and rejoice.