For Friday, April 26: The touchstone of sorrow for happiness

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace. Chuck Palahniuk

While being happy is the preferred, the ideal, the coveted it is in experiencing sorrow that we grow in character and appreciate the happier times. It is easy to forget about happiness as it leaves behind no true reminder of its presence. Sorrow, however, leaves behind a mark on our hearts and we have a touchstone to go back to after we have learned what we should from the time of sorrow. It is in the happier times that the touchstone is acknowledged and used because our happier times are made sweeter by the sorrow we have experienced and learned from. If you do not know what I mean then I would suggest that you have not experienced and learned from sorrow. If you are tracking with me then we are kindred spirits in the touchstones sorrow has birthed in our lives.

Comments

Call it a Day

The literal use of this phrase hails from 1838 when the phrase originally was "call it half a day" to mean leaving work early. (source) The modern use of the phrase is to indicate ending something due to false sense of accomplishment.

More bang for your buck

This phrase was used a lot in 1953 but an earlier citation puts it at 1940 in a Metals and Plastics Publications advertisement. Read about it here . The phrase means you get more for your money.

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

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