It's so easy to become offended. It actually comes pretty natural. Someone says something. You feel it's directed at you Strong reaction follows No need to react, it's got nothing to do with you as a person Imagine some remarks about academic work versus manual one, a bit dismissive about the latter. You don't have a degree and never wanted one. You know very well it takes years of experience and training to do what you're doing. Talent is involved too, as some people do have "two left hands". You still feel you should add something to the conversation, but not sure if it is going to be well-received. No need to enlighten the other party right now Most people think in terms of opposites. If it's not this, it's that and it can't be anything else. Certainty of one's convictions is also a form of self-reassurance that everything is stable in one's world. Other points of view cannot be allowed because they are disruptive. Cognitive disrup...
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| We never step twice into the same river, let alone walk in the same forest |
I never tried to go any deeper into the mystery of having such a fantastic memory when it comes to famous quotes, while the same brain does not seem to care about house keys or mobile.
Can it be a case of acquiring "fast wisdom", in an age of ads that promote "faster fast food"?
Reading a whole book is is a slow experience, and wisdom, if any at all, comes in dribs and drabs.
The reader is told lots of metaphors or small facts, goes through the maze of literary infrastructure and at some point, if paying enough attention, stumbles upon the memorable phrase.
Take John Milton, for instance. How many people can say in all honesty that they have read each and every page of 'Paradise Lost'?
Still, the lines 'The mind is its own place and in itself/Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven' would have brought comfort to many a quote aficionado. It makes easier understanding how distress and joyfulness change places so abruptly inside the same person.
Same for the succinct 'Carpe diem' (Seize the day), just two words in an otherwise brief ode by the Roman poet Horace. These words come up quite naturally in people's conversation (or in print, if it's an article). From convincing a ditherer to act and up to a deep discussion around the topic of "there's no day like today", this Carpe Diem has got now a life of its own. Had he been a contemporary author, Horace could have trade-marked his phrase and live very comfortably on the resulting royalties.
Is the world speeding up, hurtling into the next stage, all impatient and cutting corners, blowing up whole chunks of time?
Definitely not. Quoting memorable words has always been a rhetorical tool. When trying to convince someone else of one's truth, bringing in the heavy guns helps.
Unless I read a proper challenge to Shakespeare's "The lunatic, the lover and the poet/Are of imagination all compact', I will continue to believe that using quotes is not just a way of showing-off or a sign of intellectual laziness.
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