By: Ethan Goffman

Aphorisms for a Lonely Planet

• Perception is reality. At least until reality socks you in the face and breaks your jaw.
• All of us will spend infinitely more time dead than alive. Our life is a tiny sliver in a vast cosmos of time.
• All of humanity is a family. Dysfunctional, filled with people who despise and undermine each other.
• It’s not the cards you’re dealt in life, it’s how you play them. Although if you’re dealt four aces, then it’s the cards.
• I have a party every Saturday night so exclusive that I’m the only one who ever shows up.
• Remember when the lions in Rome were Real Lions, killing and eating Real Christians, instead of the highly processed hydrogenated Christian food product lions are fed today.
• It’s not whether you win the game, it’s whether the other person loses.
• The milk of human kindness is often sour, when it’s flowing at all.
• Whatever decision you make, a better one was probably available. The pessimist thinks this means all decisions are wrong. The realist understands that, even if you don’t make the best decision, it’ll probably be okay.
• As humans we have a deep faith because we are all desperate. Even atheists are desperate, although most deny it. Atheism is a form of desperation and self-deception, although the deception of the religious is even greater.
• You can’t really succeed until someone believes in you. Take God, for instance. God didn’t exist until someone believed in Him.
• If correlation did prove cause, life would be much simpler.

Mourning Dove

A mourning dove chose to nest on the lantern just above our patio, which seemed too low to be safe. Day after day, the dove sat diligently, nurturing her eggs. Often, a large animal would come by, poking about on some business or other. At times, the strange animal would stare briefly at the dove then look away. Did the dove feel fear, being scrutinized by a creature so much larger? Or was she impassive? The large animal never knew. It pulled its bicycle around to the front of the house, to set off on another day.