What Is Wisdom?

A good although greatly oversimplified example of a tiny bit of wisdom, is a inspirational movie scene, where visuals may fill in for the lack of content.

And it is always just a scene or two, but never more, because movies never tell a functional story.

Movies are the chicken scratch version of well narrated books, preferably by their authors.

Allow me to give you three examples, with a sprinkle of expanded ideas.

In 1997’s Good Will Hunting, you hear, “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library.”

This quote fails to mention that this $150K gets you a diploma, that open other doors, not better or higher doors, just other.

Paid education is a carrot on a stick scam, and the companies that hire those graduates, deserve what they get.

As a result we have liars in politics, doctors that cause drug epidemics, high ranking officials that think UFOs are real, and a lot of people in debt.

The idea of standardized education is a fantasy, as we can't really learn in a lowest-common-denominator sequence.

Only self directed education will work, replicating college education with books from the library is a terrible waste of time.

We have to navigate the constellation of our own curiosities, only then can we really make lasting contributions to human kind.

Be careful where hoping to win the great prizes, wherever there is prestige, there will be fraud.

In 2006’s Peaceful Warrior, the main character upon some contemplation states, “There are no ordinary moments”

It is better to say that all moments are special, that no day should be thrown away.

Nor should anyone go through life waiting for Wednesdays, that mark the middle of the week.

Or worst yet Thursdays, which marks a person to be so stressed out as to need to mess with their brain chemistry.

And just as bad Fridays, if your life starts at the end of the week, than that is not really living at all – also mentioned in this move.

In 1994’s Renaissance Man we get, “the choices we make dictate the life we lead”.

And that is as solid of a wisdom as three is, our decisions change the paths we walk.

You see that in politics, elected officials often don’t know what to do, or how to go about fulfilling their campaign promises.

False leaders are completely incompatible with their environment, and often all they do, is enjoy is prestige.

They just golf, and give speeches, that somebody else wrote.

And if they do give their own speeches, they are just changing words or quotes.

As they unable to navigate complex concepts, they don’t have real education.

Just enough money to stay on the election carousel, for long enough to get picked.

For almost a hundred years now, we have been living in something worse... than climate change, and pollution.

A state of mutually assured destruction, and, without a single politician who ever cared to authentically undo that.

Finally, movie wisdom does not really work, because it is just a snippet, part of a business product crafted to sell movie seats.

It is a disconnected snippet, one taken out of context, and the place where it originally came form.

In narrated non-fiction books, tings are a lot different, a well written book, will always push you minor wisdoms ans observations.

To put you in the context of some greater wisdom, where you can immediately add it to your decision making.

A well crafted book won’t just give you a snippet, but rather, gradually introduce you to a lifetime of fully functional integrated wisdom.

From which you will be able to pick and choose, in such a way as to match who you are, and what you need, and what you may need later on as you revisit.

There is however a problem, a problem of comprehending books, comprehension is nearly impossible when one is stressed out.

And quite difficult when you are always tired, and very tedious in any state other than serenity.

To achieve the state of serenity from which you can begin, freely inheriting from entire lifetimes of wisdom – you will need adventure.

The state of serenity is found under the naked stars, away from liars, and pretenders, and half-measures, and all forms of stress.

Bukowski beautifully captures the urgency in his poem “All The Way”, but it is Thoreau that helps us see life as a whole, and why we need wisdom.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...”