The 5 Aphorisms of Life

Words on an index card….

I am coming out of the office products closet. I feel compelled to reveal a secret from my life that I have never knowingly disclosed before in my life.

I have a thing. Yeah, it’s one of those psychological fetishes. It’s one of those bizarre, weird things that most of us try to hide. It’s one of those things that the hands of Alzheimer patients remember even if their minds don’t. It’s a very focused medium in which we direct life energy into the outline of our life script. It is a reminder of plans made.

My unrelenting addiction is to 3 X 5 index cards — one side ruled and the other side blank.

When inspiration slaps me across the face — as it sometimes will when I am open to it — I try to capture that inspiration with notes on a 3 X 5 index card. Sometimes it is the perfect size. I always use the un-ruled blank side of the card.

Every 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 months I go through all those aforementioned index cards. Usually there are enough cards to build a small campfire. I end up feeding between 75 and 90 percent into the fire. Gosh, those fires are so empowering.

There are always a few index cards that somehow manage to escape the bonfire. I read them over somehow thinking that they must be important for having escaped any personal thermonuclear war. They must be worthy of expressing so-called truth in a world of advertising slogans. They must be enduring in some way that circumvents the duration of a Tweet. Surely, they are messages from spirit. Surely they are from an intelligence that goes beyond our habitual, routine life. Surely they are secrets to help us ‘go beyond’ that which we have already gone beyond.

Or they could just be words squirted out of an over-active ego. I am not entirely sure. But the fact remains that a lot of those words end up on five by three index cards.

Being one of those obnoxious new agers, I try to capture those pearls of wisdom as they reveal themselves although often it is the refuse, the scrapings from the bottom of the barrel that I end up with. My stack of index cards grows.

There was a time a couple of years ago when I ran out of index cards. It was like having an appendage cut off. I was beside myself in every metaphorical sense of the word. I was in a state of panic. I simply cannot live without 3 by 5 index cards. I can’t.

I walked all the way out to Wal-mart at the edge of town to get more 3 by 5 index cards. Sure, I needed groceries, too, but at the very top of my shopping list, which was written on a 3 by 5 index card, was, ‘index cards.’ While the Marlboro Man of decades past would have walked a mile for a Camel (or whatever brand), I walked more than a mile for a pack of index cards. That is how integral they are to my life. That is how disgustingly paper-oriented I am. Entire forests are being clear-cut because of me. Guilt oozes from my every pore.

Atop my dresser next to my desk sits a stack of index cards. I add cards to the stack while only rarely going back through the stack to see what is written on those cards. But today is the new moon. That’s the day to begin new things. The best way to begin new things is to throw out old things that hold us in the past. Purgation is good medicine even if it is not recognized by Spell Check as a real word.

I made two stacks as I went through those index cards in the dark of the moon. One stack was for the trash and the other was of thoughts that I’ve had that could be expounded upon for some Medium post.

The trash pile ended up being significantly larger than the pile containing thoughts worth exploring. I felt horrible. I felt responsible for the endless deforestation of our planet.

After throwing the larger pile of index cards in the trash while apologizing to Mother Nature, I went back to the small stack of index cards and re-read through them. There was one particular index card that caught my attention. The title scrawled atop the card read, “Aphorisms for Life.”

Yeah, right. Like I knew any secrets. If I did, why was I in such a rut?

But the index card made me laugh and smile. Isn’t that the very purpose of index cards?

So I decided to share and make an entire post on Medium about what was on that index card. I have no idea when I wrote the aphorisms down. I have no idea what state I was in when I wrote them down. I’m not even entirely sure what they mean.

But I dutifully share them here nonetheless. With those five aphorisms shared here on the internet I can now rip up that index card and shorten the stack to make room for subsequent cards to be written upon during various lunar stages. At least the stack will be shorter the next time I decide to read through it. I thought briefly about taping the index card to the front of my refrigerator but sadly no one sees the front of my refrigerator except me and whatever ghosts happen to live in my apartment. No, the aphorisms need to go out on the internet. They need to be enjoyed by everyone.

So without further adieu here is the full uncensored content of an index card found in the stack of index cards on my dresser. I have not altered the words in any way. I’m not adding any commentary. I am presenting it in its raw and naked state….

Five Aphorisms For Life

1. Trees are people, too.
2. Without birdsong the universe would collapse.
3. Staring at flowers will not make you blind.
4. Why be naked if you can’t be naked out of doors?
5. Unconditional love transforms all things.

Now I can throw out that index card and simplify my life. Or maybe I’ll save a tree and use the back of that index card to make my newest grocery list. At the top of the list will be, “index cards.” Sure, I need food but I also need a blank canvas upon which random ideas can be jotted down. Whether or not those ideas make it into print on the internet is not as important as simply jotting them down. After all, how the heck would I remember them?

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