Like everyone all over the world I grew up with sayings passed on by my elders about how to live life and what happens to people although I never took to them as golden rules but thought of them as rather quaint.
I have been amazed that one of the most prevalent parts of the Internet, not only through social networking but certainly through graphics, is the plethora of sayings and wise-saws that are posted and e-mailed. The thing about apothegms is that they are easy to remember and act a little like guides amongst most illiterate people. They may even start life as excerpts from religious texts that the population are given so that they can ‘learn’ what they believe.
So why do an educated, on-line, scientific generation still share them, and delight in them? Because, and I say this with genuine affection, adults are still basically child-like and they long for a simple life, an easier understanding, a deeper series of thoughts that underpin their daily lives and make more sense to them than the life they live. When everyday is a battle for money it lifts their imaginations to know that they are like the roots of trees, or that a picture can sum up the whole of existence.
It isn’t about immaturity, it is about simplicity.