“Early to bed
early to rise
makes a man
healthy, wealthy and wise.”
It’s a nicely written rhyme which is about all it has going for it.
As life advice, it makes no sense unless you’re prone to constant late night parties.
And that’s the thing about nicely constructed pat sayings—we tend to give them more credibility than perhaps they deserve: “perfect sound forever”, “vanishingly low distortion”, “audiophiles prefer vinyl”, “compressed music sounds that way”.
I am sure there’s plenty more where those came from, but it’s enough to make the point. Just because a saying, an idea, or a concept fits nicely into a box doesn’t mean it has any more validity than a loosely constructed jumble of thoughts.
We’ve gotten so used to marketing slogans and proverbs representing facts that we’re in danger of forgetting the underlying truth.
A mistruth or bad idea wrapped up with paper and a pretty bow is no more valuable than what’s inside.
