Journals X-XII will form a trifecta of posts regarding aspects of personhood I consider often. These cover the influence of Wisdom, Authenticity, and Love. Together, these Journals can be called the Thoughtful Trilogy.
Wisdom is a myth. There is no such thing as wisdom.
It is unquantifiable and ineffable—a stranger to us. We may as well believe in God, to believe in wisdom1.
The world is too diverse and our perceptions perhaps more so. If there is such a thing as wisdom, then it does not mean what we generally take it to mean. Wisdom is, if anything, the absence of something where otherwise there would be the anticipation of something. Wisdom is the state of being without expectation. Therefore, its existence does not even matter. To practice such a thing undoes its own practice. One does not strive for wisdom under these conditions. One is either wise or worried.
From Old Notes: We call it wisdom interchangeably but all of it is knowledge. Wisdom is expressed in the spaces between the knowledge, between the folds of data that become our dogmas. It is beyond organization or chaos.2
I have thought to write about wisdom for some time now but was never certain what I should write. People have called me wise, and I think I understand why but I disagree with being considered so. Through analysis, I could be considered quite unwise, but there is no certain way to point at a life and say: that is a wise living. Life is too subjective. One woman’s wise is another’s idiocy.
The Buddhist’s say: “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.” This seems wise, but I do not think most people would think it so. So many seek wisdom as if it is a thing to be attained or held or seized. If anything, wisdom is an absence of desire to attain or hold or seize anything at all. If anything, wisdom is what babies do before they learn what they shouldn’t do.
Plants are ‘wise,’ I think, and most animals are probably wise like plants. Humans broadly lack wisdom in any capacity. Wisdom as a function of intelligence is mythical. Wisdom as a function of nature seems more likely to exist. The material wisdom v. the idealistic wisdom, I suppose. But let’s not concern ourselves with jargon here3.
How to be wise, then? If in search of wisdom, how best to emulate the ineffable? Should we throw up our hands and bend to the nihilism of infinite perception? Or should we seek to live in such a way that brings us closer to nature? Both seem fraught under our current cultures and systems. I have no answer. I merely recognize that I do not think wisdom exists as we conceptualize it through our idealism. So many seek wisdom, living by the adage that age brings wisdom. But age does not bring wisdom. Age brings life, life brings strife, strife brings suffering, suffering brings ten thousand things. We could consider wisdom a tonic for suffering—perhaps antithetical to the ten-thousand things—but whence comes wisdom, then?
In our philosophies we have all sorts of ideas for overcoming suffering. It is no secret that I believe Daoism to be the surest of these ideas, but I do not suppose Daoism to be wise alone. I do not believe Daoism is a path to wisdom, either. If I were to conceive wisdom in relation to my Daoist practice (remarking again that I don’t think wisdom exists), then I would characterize wisdom as the living practice embodied by the first line of Daodejing4. But this thought is of no help to you whatsoever, Sweet Reader, unless you are a Daoist. It’s worth attributing my lack of faith in wisdom to my Daoist practice, also.5
It has been said that enlightenment is removing something every day.
Perhaps this is wisdom.
But there is no wisdom, isn’t there? It’s a myth. It’s a straw dog. A finger pointing at the moon. Wisdom is an idea that suggests you are incomplete. It suggests that you still have learning to do. But this isn’t true. Things are in an ever state of change6.
In recent years, I have often considered ‘traumatic wisdom,’ a sort of intelligence and way of becoming that may appear wise but ultimately comes from a source of fear or displeasure with experiences one has endured. We consider wisdom as a system of thoughts and concerns and knowing that permit us to interact honestly with our environment. Traumatic wisdom would then be the most common form of this sort of wisdom.
But systems are not wise. They are intelligent, when they function as intended. That is why we often just call traumatic wisdom ‘trauma’ and discredit it as a legitimate way of living reasonably within our environment. There is no wisdom, then, but different systems that are acceptable or unacceptable and there is perhaps an idealized system that one could accidentally come upon that others may consider ‘wise.’ But it is not wisdom.
Where, then, is wisdom, if we must point to a thing and say: there, that is wise?
I turn back to nature. Some flowers grow in colours specific to the senses of the honeybees that support their lifecycle. How do they know to do this? It is not an effort they make, to be these colours. It is what is good in them. Is that wisdom? The intuition that precedes effort? How does this manifest in humans? When we sleep, are we practicing wisdom? I don’t know, Sweet Reader. Buddha says, what is enlightenment? When I am hungry, I eat, and when I am tired, I sleep.
There is no wisdom, except perhaps in plants and in most animals, and in the spaces where we do not let ourselves wander beyond the present.
Ultimately, I write about wisdom here because I don’t think wisdom is useful to our pedagogy. It is an elitist notion, if anything. Wisdom is a spectre that is held over others. It is a spectre we hold over ourselves. I am not wise, but others have commended me for my wisdom. What is it that they see in me that they identify as my wisdom? I say smart things, sometimes? I say dumb things, too, all the time. Is it because I try to be simple in my words, even when I speak of complex topics? That’s not wisdom, that’s just understanding. Perhaps it is because I am elusive to some people: my personality tends toward a quality that others find mystifying, and so they call this ‘wise.’ They call what they don’t yet understand ‘wise,’ like a new lover.
My Choctaw name is Hopoiyuksa Nowa, Wise Walker. It was gifted to me by my mother during her journey studying our ancestry. I do not know why she chose this name. I love it, though. It is among my favourite names. I do not feel that I walk wisely, or that I walk a wise path. I feel that I am one who walks the path between knowing and unknowing, and that is the wisdom of my gait. When we say ‘wise’, we mean to say ‘good’. Wisdom is the practice of cultivating the space to practice the good. Now, what do we mean by that? What is good?
Shakespeare said, “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” This is the good. There is no wisdom, and only wise folk can comprehend that. If you misunderstand my meaning, then you are not yet wise. If my meaning is misunderstood, then I am not wise yet either. Let us hope we never achieve it. That way, my words will mean exactly what is true despite their inability to express it. What is wisdom? The capacity to accept the non-dualism of contradiction. The mountain and the valley have a wise relationship. The moon and the sun have a wise relationship. The empty bowl has a wise relationship.
If you struggle to understand where the point of this is, what the lesson is, what I am trying to get at, then give up. You have read too far already. The wise fool would have read my opening sentence and been content. Do not worry, though. I am not wise, either, because I wrote that sentence and felt discontent. I felt that I had to explain myself. I do not. Wisdom is a myth. The rest is living. I’d love to be able to give you some kind of sweetness, Sweet Reader, but I have none for this subject. I have no pithy remarks that will bring you enlightenment beyond others’ quotations that would merely support my perception. But we have wasted too many words, and so I will only offer this quotation, the first thing I put in this space before starting the post:
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” — William James
Though, ‘wiser’ I think it may be to believe in wisdom than in a God. ‘Wiser’ and nobler.
Literally an old Apple Note I found saved to my Obsidian Vault—a vagrant thought at best.
Or, let’s, knowing that to overcome jargon is noble and productive for our fellow man. Learn jargon and teach it, thereby destroying it. No occlusive language, but only the inclusive.
“dao called dao is not Dao.”
“The wise are not learned. The learned are not wise.” — from Tao Te Ching, Addis & Lombardo’s translation.
Then, is that wisdom? The dialectic? No, it is only an observation.