Asherisms: For Asher, maxims are a way of storing his voluminous thinking on any given subject via easy-access file labels in the soul. He's been writing them since 1992, when he read Kahlil Gibran's aphorisms in Sand and Foam, and he was spurred on a bit by Oscar Wilde. Some of his maxims are personal, and some are about the world, life, the universe, writing, love, pain, monsters, and nearly anything else he encounters. Some are things that go into making characters and stories and should be considered merely speculative and not taken too seriously.
Asher’s 77th Maxim
You can’t be objective about a women unless you see women as objects. That’s how those of us who are not misogynists get f*cked up. (a Sage Silver rule)
Asher’s 78th Maxim
The only reason for unconditional support of Israel, which is the root of our Crusade in the Middle East (not oil), is the thinly concealed fundamentalist superstition that Christ comes back when the Temple is rebuilt. US foreign policy is rife with eschatology.
Asher’s 79th Maxim
Spots teach the leopard to stalk, legs teach the stallion to run; find the cloth you’re cut from, and let it teach you your work. Then don’t let anyone take it from you ever again.
Asher’s 80th Maxim
If you’re not willing to resign, you’re not taking your work seriously; it has become a job.
Asher’s 81st Maxim
Your work consumes “the most productive hours of the best years of your life”. If you’re not doing the work you’re meant to do, you should at least be doing the work to get there.
Asher’s 82nd Maxim
Your identity is not about your job, but it sure as hell better be about your work.
Asher’s 83rd Maxim
Your work is too important to be a sideline to anything. If you need a job to get started on your work, do it. But don’t ever confuse the two.
Asher’s 84th Maxim
Never hold back your best creativity and ideas – always spend it all as though you’ll make more, because you will. (a Sage Silver rule)
Asher’s 85th Maxim
If it fits in a pocket or an office, it’s a tool, not a master. (cell phone rule)
Asher’s 86th Maxim
Win the weak, not the powerful, and you’ll win in spite of power.
Asher’s 87th Maxim
If you must choose, sell more rather than save more; then you’ll have money to save.
Asher’s 88th Maxim
Work is a church.
Asher’s 89th Maxim
Read only what interests you, not what you “should”; if you can’t, you’re in the wrong discipline. (a Farrell rule)
Asher’s 90th Maxim
Write what’s driving you right now, before it drives away.
Asher’s 91st Maxim
Work, our true work, is fundamentally ascetic (an ascesis).
Asher’s 92nd Maxim
There’s no time to be afraid, only time to be rational, and you can’t do both at once.
Asher’s 93rd Maxim
Ego and narcissism are as different as life and theatre.
Asher’s 94th Maxim
A house is a tool, not a prison. If it’s holding you in one place, and you need to move, dump it.
Asher’s 95th Maxim
Bullies aren’t bulls – they’re cows with bad attitudes.
Asher’s 96th Maxim
Cows eat whatever the pasture holds, but it takes a bull to break down the fence and declare a new pasture.
Asher’s 97th Maxim
If you need the degree, you don’t know what you’re doing.
Asher’s 98th Maxim
Never look for work. If you know what your work is, do it. If you don’t know, then you’re *not* looking for work, you’re looking for your soul.
Asher’s 99th Maxim
When you abandon the honor in your soul, you depart from the wellspring of your work.