Paul's Aphorisms

This page reveals some bits of wisdom that Wikidelphia editor Paul has learned by living, observing, listening, and reading:

• Age is not an excuse.

Your age does not excuse you from anything. If you're blind, on the other hand, you have an excuse in cases where vision is absolutely required, and that's only if you haven't figured out some other way of getting it done. So if you find yourself saying, "I'm too old for this," then cancel that statement, get specific, and admit the real reason.

• Where there's God's will, there's a way.

For about a decade, I had a radio show about poverty, and I believed that I had a calling from God to do it. So whenever I ran up against an obstacle that made it seem too difficult or maybe even impossible to keep the show going, I said to myself, "Where there's God's will, there's a way", and then I just kept on trying to find whatever that way was. It worked every time; if it didn't, the show wouldn't have accumulated over 540 weekly episodes. People say, "Where there's a will, there's a way", but I don't buy that, because circumstances can defeat an individual's self-willed efforts. But God has all circumstances under control, so if you're doing His will, He will make it possible for you to get it done.

• I am what I am and that's all. Labeling oneself is not conducive to maximum happiness.

I reject "identity". Labels are useful conveniences for certain kinds of discussion, but when I speak carefully, I don't use them. Speaking loosely, I'll say, "I'm staff editor for Wikidelphia", but when I speak carefully, I'll say, "I help maintain Wikidelphia". See? I dump the "to be" and replace it with an active verb. I refuse to make an "identity" out of my sexual preferences, so I may, "I have desires for ____," but I won't say, "I'm a _____sexual". Speaking loosely, I'll say, "I'm __ years old," but speaking carefully, I'll say, "I've lived __ years". Maybe I'd like to say, "I'm a Christian," but I can't even say that, because it's up to God to judge whether I really make the grade, so all I can say is, "I try and often fail to live like a real Christian". I originally learned the "I am what I am" idea from Theodore Isaac Rubin's book, Compassion and Self-Hate. I originally learned to omit the various forms of "to be" from A Guide to Rational Living by Albert Ellis; the entire book omits "to be" ("is", "am", etc.), thus exemplifying a slight variant of English called "E-Prime".

• The Sexual Revolution is the mother of social problems.

When I first could drink alcohol legally, I had a short-lived interest in going to bars. One of the regulars at my local haunt tried to persuade me to abandon God's Word on sex. This was some decades ago, when the Revolution was young. I decided to make a page of Pro's and Con's. So I did some research and then went back to the guy with my list. The Con list was way longer than the Pro list. He wasn't persuaded. Don't get me wrong; I haven't always followed God's Word in my actions, but I don't try to justify certain things I did. Now that I've had a few decades for further observations and the acquisition of wisdom, I have no doubt that if the Pro's and Con's were weighed in a balance, the Con side would so outweigh the Pro that the resulting fall would make a hole in the floor. Yes, there are other causes, but sexual immorality has been the first cause of so many serious, painful, and expensive problems that the Sexual Revolution looks to me like an unmitigated disaster. Society has truly been robbed! Like Esau, we have given up much in exchange for very little. When God gave us rules about sex, He wasn't just being "puritanical" and spoiling our fun; those rules are needed for humans to thrive, flourish, and achieve our maximum potential. Over and over, as the years go by, I see more and more evidence.