The Most Precious Gift: Wisdom

The working man with his warm little house, well, warm as long as he is working, and his nice little family may indeed be happier but that he is wiser is a matter for question. He still envies the Richard Cories of this world. Do not we all?

What wisdom does is to judge things as they really are. It gives good counsel and always commends the right and the good. It is based on knowledge but it is discerning and can select the knowledge relevant to the case before it. It will then eschew personal advantage simply because that is the right thing for it to do. It can often see through to the real and often dubious motives of others yet it does not judge and it does not criticize. It will, if necessary keep silence when it knows where and when a person is too weak to accept good advice. It knows when to speak and when to keep silence. It can discern the appropriate action of course to take according to circumstances without giving way to temporary expediency because it will value the long term over the short.

Is it better to strive to know these things or “go with the flow,” not “rocking the boat”? How will the wise person feel who sees the disaster coming as it looms over the horizon? How does he feel when he sees it approaching but his friends mocking at his warnings calling him a “prophet of doom, a Jeremiah? How does he feel when he experiences the laughter and foolish mockery of the ignorant knowing that they are immature and without discernment? How does he feel when he knows it is better to love those same mockers than to hate them or despise them, for they too are human and his brothers and sisters?

Is it better to puzzle oneself over a problem as what it is to be good, or whether values are there in the nature of things or merely what we think about matters, or is it better to go along with the crowd and enjoy oneself? And if one did would the enjoyment really be enjoyed? It seems that for most of his time the wise man is doomed to disappointment, to hurt and to failure.

There is a parable in Ecclesiastes that tells of a poor wise man and a great king. The king sets up his battering rams and his siege engines outside the town where the poor wise man lives and the citizens come to him for advice. He shows them what to do to drive off the overwhelming military threat and the would be conqueror goes away frustrated. The citizens then go back to their daily lives and to their small enjoyments leaving the poor wise man to his rejection and his poverty and to his wisdom.

Here is the crux. Wisdom is a hard taskmaster, it will allow no sloppy thinking, no easy solutions and no compromise with popular thinking. It does, however give some deep satisfactions. Take, for instance, that “eureka’ moment as when Pythagoras leapt out of his bath and ran out naked because he was elated over seeing the solution to the problem that the king had set him.

May you have many eureka moments. May you search and strive for wisdom and not for wealth, pleasures, power, status or anything else the world counts as worthwhile. Wisdom is for all and not for the few, though those who have been called philosophers have been among the few. May you earn both respect and contempt as one who does not care about the things people usually care about but because you care about knowledge, understanding and wisdom. May you be good, poor and wise.