Doubts · Human Wisdom

Doubts 2 June 2011

This quest of wisdom grew dramatic for me and appears to be endless. As I reached for one or other of its avatars, wisdom receded and grew into an elusive protean dragon, now high like the sky, next fragile like a butterfly, then scattered into a constellation of points of view.

Wisdom proves to be a subject of subjects and an ocean of streams; humankind, craving to improve. Nobody ever concludes a subject of subjects. Everything that really counts for our living and dying – deciding freely what is true and worthy and - in the light of that - what we want in this short existence, striving for survival, keeping away from harm, discerning good and evil, finding or giving meaning to life, succeeding and achieving, seeking happiness and facing adversity, preparing to die - is a subject of wisdom. All the spiritual powers in history claim to possess and impart wisdom, usually one and theirs. This is a huge mountain to climb; or is it a bottomless pit?

Are these many wisdoms too unlike and incompatible for one mind to embrace and reconcile?

Is it not hopeless vanity try to stretch out my arms around the scattered disputes of the sages and the certain ones? Am I able to pin down what is common in such diversity ?

Is wisdom not an ineffable estimate? Delicate, subtle butterflies of paradoxical wit ?[1] Is this not a swarm of fuzzy notions? A myth of humanistic faith or of received religion? Did not the "positive" scientists judge that it had no substance? Did not the 20th century psychologists shamefully desert its study? Did not philosophers, those “lovers of wisdom” bury it at the time of their Enlightenment?

Who am I to believe that I can size up what wisdom is ? Is not my life a striking proof of my lack of wisdom ? Isn't foolishness a subject better fit to my experience ?

Doesn't wisdom simply mean: “shut up and be wise ! Just sit in your place and do what you are told! ” ?

Do not religions and ideologies teach that wisdom is nothing but whatever they reveal and preach?

Does the word still mean today what it meant in times past?

Is not old wisdom losing its substance and truth with time and change and progress of new wisdoms? Isn't the past obsolete and valueless, as some philosophers made us believe ? Is wisdom not buried and decayed in mountains of dusty books nobody reads any more?

After all, is wisdom so good ? What good is it ? Does it really lead to happiness ? Then why did wise ones write that “in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow [2].” ? In fact, what will this wisdom help me in a few years when I could be helpless, senile or demented by Alzheimer’s disease ? Do not the sages decay, hurt and die all the same as the fools? Maybe I should simply eat drink and be merry each present moment, as long as I can, like an animal, instead of troubling myself. "After me the Deluge!" as His Majesty King Louis XIV said.

There is a humbling point in such dissuading doubts but I got past them. The Lao Tzu is right: a voyage of one thousand miles must start with one step; I will think for myself as deep as I can. Soon, there will be no tomorrow for me, that is true; but other people will have their time to learn and live a wiser life and I want to be part of this ideal at work. I will give what I think to other people : for "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me ? And if I am only for myself, then what am I ? And if not now, when ?" [3]

This paragraph stood on the home page until September 2026. It is a doubt about the standing of the whole book, and it stands here now.

And what about proofs of my beliefs and advice ? Are they objective and replicable ? My collection of advice is not science but instead - purposefully - a personal toolbox of common and uncommon sense devices of practical wisdom proposing meaning and inventing conduct. I avoid jargon, write what I think and devise solutions. I gave myself the freedom to take temporary leave from the iron-clad requirements of scientific method and proof. I allow myself to just think. I believe in the unique power of the human mind, as it is. Certainly, my experience is limited. I weave a web of intuition and of thoughts. I also take my sides and follow my own values. This wisdom seems verified or at least its moral value confirmed in my circumstances in my life-world. Other people seem to live in other moral spheres. Your own wisdom may arise by reaching an opposite conclusion to what I write. My findings do not promise advice for everyone; of course I will be wrong here and there. Some worth is certain though, if not in my conclusions, but in provoking one’s thoughts about these matters. The odyssey is more important than the destination I reached. Do your own journey!

Ethos or How I Learned Some Wisdom __________________________________________________________________________

[1] If you cannot suffer this purposefully metaphoric style, sorry, my essay is not for you.

[2] Ecclesiastes, KJV, I, 18

[3] Rabbi Hillel, recorded in Pirke Avot (Sayings of the Fathers, a tractate of the Mishnah [Mishnah 14])