In a world starved on inspiration, everybody can only be seen trying madly to become a living phrase. The wise words are hurled like confetti on a chaos party. “Just be yourself,” they say — but also, don’t too much, otherwise, you will break the machine. “Pursue your dreams” they say, even though some people can never even get a good night sleep. “Time is money” but the majority of us are still being charged interests on borrowed hours.
We are living through a time where each remarkable quote seems like the universe is teasing us. The words which used to be the product of intense introspection are now just a part of a social media post or a caption underneath a selfie. Yes, that’s right, Einstein sells coffee, and Gandhi sells exercise equipment. Irony has replaced honesty. The human race truly has a remarkable skill of adorning chaos with the glow of wisdom.
The sharpest sarcasm is found in the truth itself: wise words have not become meaningless because they were erroneous, but due to the fact that they were repeated until they lost their value. “Knowledge is power,” however, the people who never read past the headline are those who have the biggest voices online. “Patience is a virtue,” yet, patience vanishes as fast as your Wi-Fi slows.
In this nonsensical theater, notable quotations have evolved into existential memes -- eloquent quips about how easily we adore words without inquiring about their sense, search for profundity without reasoning, and pursue motivation without having a goal. Probably the most sincere quote of our time is: “Pretend to be deep, and you shall be retweeted.”
Once, wise words opened minds. Now, they only open notifications.