#aphorism — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #aphorism, aggregated by home.social.
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Love & the Shadow of Truth
Claude, comment on this saying of mine:
“The shadow of Truth falls on everything and everyone I love in my life.”–DSR
Claude:
This one earns its keep through a genuine ambiguity — “shadow” pulls in two directions at once, and the aphorism works only because it refuses to resolve which.
Read one way, the shadow is a chastening. Truth here is the Advaitic Truth — Brahman, the sole reality — and its shadow falling on everything you love means every beloved person and thing stands revealed as nāma-rūpa, appearance, provisional. To love anything while knowing this is to love in penumbra: the affection is real, but it can never again be naive. The jnani’s melancholy, if there is one, is exactly this — nothing loved can be loved as ultimate anymore. The shadow is the “not this, not this” that neti neti drapes over the beloved’s face.
Read the other way, the shadow is a consecration. A shadow is proof of proximity — something casts a shadow on you only if it is near. If Truth’s shadow falls on everyone you love, then your loves are precisely where Truth has come closest; love is the site of its visitation. This reading turns the aphorism from lament into benediction: the beloved is shadowed the way one is shadowed by a tree one rests under.
Now the pushback, since you invite it. There’s a metaphysical awkwardness in the image that a strict Advaitin would press: Truth, in your own tradition, is the light itself — svayamprakāśa, self-luminous. Light casts no shadow. Only an object interposed between light and world casts one. So what is the opaque thing standing between Truth and your loved ones? The honest answer the aphorism smuggles in without admitting is: the “I” in “I love.” The shadow on everything you love may not be Truth’s shadow at all — it may be the shadow of the lover, the ego silhouetted against the light, projected onto everyone it holds dear. That would make the saying an inadvertent confession rather than an observation, and arguably a deeper one.
Note also what the aphorism quietly excludes: the shadow falls only on what you love. Not on what you’re indifferent to. That restriction is doing real work — Truth troubles us precisely at the points of attachment, because that’s where something is at stake. Where nothing is clung to, no shadow registers. Ghalib would have recognized the move instantly: the beloved and the veil arriving together, inseparable.
If you wanted a companion line that closes the loop, it might run something like: the shadow on my beloveds is my own; Truth casts none. But as it stands, the ambiguity is the strength — I’d resist the temptation to clarify it.
#AdvaitaVedanta #aphorism #Attachment #Beloved #Ego #Love #NamaRupa #netiNeti #NonDuality #Philosophy #SelfInquiry #shadow #spiritualReflection #Truth -
Love & the Shadow of Truth
Claude, comment on this saying of mine:
“The shadow of Truth falls on everything and everyone I love in my life.”–DSR
Claude:
This one earns its keep through a genuine ambiguity — “shadow” pulls in two directions at once, and the aphorism works only because it refuses to resolve which.
Read one way, the shadow is a chastening. Truth here is the Advaitic Truth — Brahman, the sole reality — and its shadow falling on everything you love means every beloved person and thing stands revealed as nāma-rūpa, appearance, provisional. To love anything while knowing this is to love in penumbra: the affection is real, but it can never again be naive. The jnani’s melancholy, if there is one, is exactly this — nothing loved can be loved as ultimate anymore. The shadow is the “not this, not this” that neti neti drapes over the beloved’s face.
Read the other way, the shadow is a consecration. A shadow is proof of proximity — something casts a shadow on you only if it is near. If Truth’s shadow falls on everyone you love, then your loves are precisely where Truth has come closest; love is the site of its visitation. This reading turns the aphorism from lament into benediction: the beloved is shadowed the way one is shadowed by a tree one rests under.
Now the pushback, since you invite it. There’s a metaphysical awkwardness in the image that a strict Advaitin would press: Truth, in your own tradition, is the light itself — svayamprakāśa, self-luminous. Light casts no shadow. Only an object interposed between light and world casts one. So what is the opaque thing standing between Truth and your loved ones? The honest answer the aphorism smuggles in without admitting is: the “I” in “I love.” The shadow on everything you love may not be Truth’s shadow at all — it may be the shadow of the lover, the ego silhouetted against the light, projected onto everyone it holds dear. That would make the saying an inadvertent confession rather than an observation, and arguably a deeper one.
Note also what the aphorism quietly excludes: the shadow falls only on what you love. Not on what you’re indifferent to. That restriction is doing real work — Truth troubles us precisely at the points of attachment, because that’s where something is at stake. Where nothing is clung to, no shadow registers. Ghalib would have recognized the move instantly: the beloved and the veil arriving together, inseparable.
If you wanted a companion line that closes the loop, it might run something like: the shadow on my beloveds is my own; Truth casts none. But as it stands, the ambiguity is the strength — I’d resist the temptation to clarify it.
#AdvaitaVedanta #aphorism #Attachment #Beloved #Ego #Life #Love #NamaRupa #netiNeti #NonDuality #Philosophy #SelfInquiry #shadow #spiritualReflection #Spirituality #Truth #Writing -
When Adam delv’d and Eve span,
Who was then a Gentleman?James Howell (c. 1594–1666) Welsh historian and writer
Paroimiographia [Παροιμιογραφία]: Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Sawes & Adages, “English Proverbs” (1659)
[compiler]More about this quote: wist.info/howell-james/83593/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #jameshowell #proverb #aphorism #class #equality #gentleman #humanity #naturalorder
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The Blunt Edge of Ockham's Razor. What are the risks?
I needed to take a break from video editing. No Judas Priest references inside.
#philosophy #logic #simplicity #grammar #language #sufficiency #ontology #metaphysics #blog #podcast #aphorism #heuristic #naturallaw #humility #razor
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The Blunt Edge of Ockham's Razor. What are the risks?
I needed to take a break from video editing. No Judas Priest references inside.
#philosophy #logic #simplicity #grammar #language #sufficiency #ontology #metaphysics #blog #podcast #aphorism #heuristic #naturallaw #humility #razor
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The Blunt Edge of Ockham's Razor. What are the risks?
I needed to take a break from video editing. No Judas Priest references inside.
#philosophy #logic #simplicity #grammar #language #sufficiency #ontology #metaphysics #blog #podcast #aphorism #heuristic #naturallaw #humility #razor
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The Blunt Edge of Ockham's Razor. What are the risks?
I needed to take a break from video editing. No Judas Priest references inside.
#philosophy #logic #simplicity #grammar #language #sufficiency #ontology #metaphysics #blog #podcast #aphorism #heuristic #naturallaw #humility #razor
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The Blunt Edge of Ockham's Razor. What are the risks?
I needed to take a break from video editing. No Judas Priest references inside.
#philosophy #logic #simplicity #grammar #language #sufficiency #ontology #metaphysics #blog #podcast #aphorism #heuristic #naturallaw #humility #razor
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A quotation from Ambrose Bierce
ADAGE, n. A hoary-headed platitude that is kicked along the centuries until nothing is left of it but its clothes. A “saw” which has worn out its teeth on the human understanding.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Adage,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1881-03-05)More about this quote: wist.info/bierce-ambrose/81811…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #ambrosebierce #devilsdictionary #adage #aphorism #banality #cliche #meaninglessness #platitude #proverb #receivedwisdom #saw #saying #truism
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A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson
There is a strong feeling in favour of cowardly and prudential proverbs. The sentiments of a man while he is full of ardour and hope are to be received, it is supposed, with some qualification. But when the same person has ignominiously failed and begins to eat up his words, he should be listened to like an oracle. Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity. And since mediocre people constitute the bulk of humanity, this is no doubt very properly so. But it does not follow that the one sort of proposition is any less true than the other, or that Icarus is not to be more praised, and perhaps more envied, than Mr. Samuel Budgett the Successful Merchant.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1878-03), “Crabbed Age and Youth,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 38More info about this quote: wist.info/stevenson-robert-lou…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertlouisstevenson #aphorism #apprehension #cowardice #discouragement #fear #humility #mediocrity #proverb #restraint #saying #wisdom
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A quotation from Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Whatever you think you have to do is simply what you want to do.
[Was Du zu müssen glaubst, ist das, was Du willst.]Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) Austrian writer
Aphorisms [Aphorismen], No. 60 (1880) [tr. Scrase/Mieder (1994)]Sourcing, notes, other translation: wist.info/von-ebner-eschenbach…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #aphorism #compulsion #desire #duty #justification #moralduty #must #obligation #preference #requirement #selfrighteousness #volition #will #wishing #excuse
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A quotation from Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Whatever you think you have to do is simply what you want to do.
[Was Du zu müssen glaubst, ist das, was Du willst.]Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) Austrian writer
Aphorisms [Aphorismen], No. 60 (1880) [tr. Scrase/Mieder (1994)]Sourcing, notes, other translation: wist.info/von-ebner-eschenbach…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #aphorism #compulsion #desire #duty #justification #moralduty #must #obligation #preference #requirement #selfrighteousness #volition #will #wishing #excuse
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A quotation from Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Whatever you think you have to do is simply what you want to do.
[Was Du zu müssen glaubst, ist das, was Du willst.]Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) Austrian writer
Aphorisms [Aphorismen], No. 60 (1880) [tr. Scrase/Mieder (1994)]Sourcing, notes, other translation: wist.info/von-ebner-eschenbach…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #aphorism #compulsion #desire #duty #justification #moralduty #must #obligation #preference #requirement #selfrighteousness #volition #will #wishing #excuse
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✒ 𝔖𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔢 𝔖𝔭𝔢𝔞𝔨𝔢𝔯 ℑ𝔫 ℜ𝔦𝔪𝔞
✒ 𝔖𝔭𝔬𝔨𝔢𝔫 𝔚𝔬𝔯𝔡 ✒ 𝔘𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯𝔉𝔯𝔢𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔶𝔩𝔢
✒ 𝔐𝔦𝔫𝔡𝔰𝔢𝔱✒ e𝔟𝔬𝔬𝔨𝔰
FREE GRATIS
✒ 𝔴𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔫 𝔟𝔶 I𝔟𝔯𝔞 I𝔫𝔨𝔯𝔬𝔰𝔢 ©🌪️ 𝔘𝔫 ℭ𝔩𝔬𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔡 ℑ𝔩 𝔖𝔲𝔬 𝔏𝔞𝔳𝔬𝔯𝔬 𝔈 ℑ𝔩 ℭ𝔩𝔬𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔡
+16 𝔇𝔞𝔩 2020 ©
🚬 𝔐𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔢 𝔇𝔢𝔩 𝔊𝔥𝔢𝔱𝔱𝔬 (𝔈𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔦)
+16 𝔇𝔞𝔩 2025 ©
🌺 ℨ𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔞𝔯𝔬 𝔇𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔞 ℜ𝔬𝔰𝔞
+16 𝔇𝔞𝔩 2025 ©
🐿️ 𝔓𝔢𝔱𝔞𝔲𝔯𝔞
+3 𝔇𝔞𝔩 2026 ©✉️ 𝔦𝔟𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔯𝔬𝔰𝔢@𝔩𝔦𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔬.𝔦𝔱
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#aphorism -
✒ 𝔖𝔠𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔢 𝔖𝔭𝔢𝔞𝔨𝔢𝔯 ℑ𝔫 ℜ𝔦𝔪𝔞
✒ 𝔖𝔭𝔬𝔨𝔢𝔫 𝔚𝔬𝔯𝔡 ✒ 𝔘𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯𝔉𝔯𝔢𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔶𝔩𝔢
✒ 𝔐𝔦𝔫𝔡𝔰𝔢𝔱✒ e𝔟𝔬𝔬𝔨𝔰
FREE GRATIS
✒ 𝔴𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔢𝔫 𝔟𝔶 I𝔟𝔯𝔞 I𝔫𝔨𝔯𝔬𝔰𝔢 ©🌪️ 𝔘𝔫 ℭ𝔩𝔬𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔡 ℑ𝔩 𝔖𝔲𝔬 𝔏𝔞𝔳𝔬𝔯𝔬 𝔈 ℑ𝔩 ℭ𝔩𝔬𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔡
+16 𝔇𝔞𝔩 2020 ©
🚬 𝔐𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔢 𝔇𝔢𝔩 𝔊𝔥𝔢𝔱𝔱𝔬 (𝔈𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔱𝔱𝔦)
+16 𝔇𝔞𝔩 2025 ©
🌺 ℨ𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔞𝔯𝔬 𝔇𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔞 ℜ𝔬𝔰𝔞
+16 𝔇𝔞𝔩 2025 ©
🐿️ 𝔓𝔢𝔱𝔞𝔲𝔯𝔞
+3 𝔇𝔞𝔩 2026 ©✉️ 𝔦𝔟𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔫𝔨𝔯𝔬𝔰𝔢@𝔩𝔦𝔟𝔢𝔯𝔬.𝔦𝔱
#read
#readmorebooks
#readmore
#book
#ebook
#ebookgratis
#gratis
#free
#scrittore
#scrittura
#scritturacreativa
#speaker
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#spokenword
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#aphorism -
📉📉📉
Scrittore Speaker In Rima
Blogger Podcaster
Libero Professionista
Microazienda Digitale
Dal 2020#motivation
#mind
#map
#libertá
#freedom
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#freedom
#perugia -
Nature our mother
her serenity disarms
when we're not loving---
#VssPoem - #loving
#DailyHaikuPrompt - serene
#vss365 - #disarmed
#BlueSkyRelay - #aphorism
#WritingCommunity #poetry #haiku
#NaHaiWriMo#KBFPhotography #MobilePhonePhotography #Photography
#FotoVorschlag - 'Ganz nah dran' -
5/ Meditation time 🤔 Another of Paul F. Velleman's Fourteen Data Aphorisms for Data Analysis to contemplate on:
#Aphorism #DataAnalysis #DataScience #Data #DataViz #Science #Statistics #CriticalThinking #STEM #StatisticalLiteracy #LabPlot #FOSS #FLOSS #OpenSource
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5/ Meditation time 🤔 Another of Paul F. Velleman's Fourteen Data Aphorisms for Data Analysis to contemplate on:
#Aphorism #DataAnalysis #DataScience #Data #DataViz #Science #Statistics #CriticalThinking #STEM #StatisticalLiteracy #LabPlot #FOSS #FLOSS #OpenSource
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5/ Meditation time 🤔 Another of Paul F. Velleman's Fourteen Data Aphorisms for Data Analysis to contemplate on:
#Aphorism #DataAnalysis #DataScience #Data #DataViz #Science #Statistics #CriticalThinking #STEM #StatisticalLiteracy #LabPlot #FOSS #FLOSS #OpenSource
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5/ Meditation time 🤔 Another of Paul F. Velleman's Fourteen Data Aphorisms for Data Analysis to contemplate on:
#Aphorism #DataAnalysis #DataScience #Data #DataViz #Science #Statistics #CriticalThinking #STEM #StatisticalLiteracy #LabPlot #FOSS #FLOSS #OpenSource
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5/ Meditation time 🤔 Another of Paul F. Velleman's Fourteen Data Aphorisms for Data Analysis to contemplate on:
#Aphorism #DataAnalysis #DataScience #Data #DataViz #Science #Statistics #CriticalThinking #STEM #StatisticalLiteracy #LabPlot #FOSS #FLOSS #OpenSource
