The Forward: Wisdom

There is no greater pursuit than wisdom. And that’s what I’m trying to do here. I’m trying to build universal wisdom. But we owe it to our kids to start educating them better. [KK1] Working in the restaurant industry for a total of 10 years and being in the military for 8 years, there are a few things I’ve learned in my life up to now. But there are also many things that I know I’ll discover as I grow into whatever age imaginable. What I’m trying to do here is aggregate the summation of my experiences plus what I’ve read over the years to come out with some sort of comprehendible guidance as to what life is all about (up until the point I die, which hopefully won’t be for a long time). Either way, this is my attempt at the universe, this is my attempt to teach my future kids (if I have any), and my attempt to explain to anyone else interested in my philosophy, that nothing really matters.

Wisdom is the correct adaptation of experience-based knowledge into the current situation.

Wisdom is our noblest pursuit. Books and movies and art and music may come and go and fade and be lost. But wisdom is timeless. The proverbs and epithets, the quotes and values. They are timeless and as unique to mankind as our own existence is. Our values and the wisdom we use to define those values is what drives our civilization apart from our more animalistic desires. The pursuit and passing of wisdom is a tradition as timeless as life itself and it does our entire humanity good to prevent ourselves from being stuck in the tedium of learning the same lessons over and over in each generation.

So many times we conflate fortune with success[KK2] . We look at those richer than us and say, “now there’s a successful person”, ignoring the fact that money and fame fades with time. Wisdom is timeless. Often true happiness is found in eschewing the traditional measures of happiness.[KK3] Money, things, and even time (off) is held aloft as worthy goals worth accumulating more. Yet what happens when we stop pursuing money and let it come to us? Or what happens when we seek to lead simpler lives, not more complex ones jumbled up with stuff? Or what happens when we recognize and value the benefits of work and the wholeness that a hard day’s work gives you, rather than constantly seek to avoid it[KK4] .

At the end of the day, one must train for wisdom[KK5] . You must practice in staying the hand of your tongue. You must hold back a smiting comment or response and instead choose repose, reflection, and introspection. When you begin to practice looking at life in wise ways instead of “smart” or “clever” ways, you begin to see the world for what it truly is.

There’s a reason why Obama believes in the youth[KK6] . Our generations are too ingrained with the mistakes of our past. But our youth can revitalize us. It’s the conservative’s job to foster liberal viewpoints. Guide it and accept the changes that it brings forth. Don’t just hedge and wall against new and foreign concepts.

The universal access to the accumulated wisdom of all of mankind is your birthright as a human being. As a generation we owe it to successive generations to teach them the timeless values of the universe. Thusly it is incumbent upon us to keep on gathering and acquiring more wisdom. To pit preconceived wisdom against new information. And to ever strive to reach the singular universal truths that we all must accept regardless of race, religion, gender, or background. At the end of the day wisdom must be shared, broken, rebuilt, rejected and accepted. It does us no good to hide our wisdom in the dank and dusty libraries of our own minds. Instead we must bring it out to the light and temper it with experience. [KK7] Our wisdom must be shared and we must strive to speak and say wise things instead of trying to be smarter than one another. Our wisdom deserves to be a universal conquest of man, not a ideological fight against one another. And to that end, we all must deserve to share our opinions as well as accept others’ in equal measure.

How nice that we live long enough an safe enough to have existential crises. Does it behoove us to advance the human race because we all live in relative health? We’ve conquered all the small obstacles to human existence. Why don’t we now start conquering the bigger ones? Just as we look at medieval times and would certainly not allow someone to live in much or squalor considering our advanced society today, so too should we ensure that everyone has the basic building blocks for success so that they may think greater things without being distracted by hunger or disease or how they’re going to stay warm tonight.[KK8]

At the end of the day, wisdom is nothing more than taking in a situation, identifying the proper life principles that apply to that given situation, and advising or taking action to achieve the best possible result, whether that was the intentional result or not.

[KK1]20201122–0805 — Journal — Dude, we have absolutely FUCKED our kids

[KK2]20201130–1019 — medium.com — Why So Many Billionaires are College Dropouts

[KK3]20201229–0903 — psychologytoday.com — Who Do You Want To Be

[KK4]20201122–2235 — They Say, I Say — Why Rural America Voted for Trump

[KK5]20201229–0903 — psychologytoday.com — Who Do You Want To Be

[KK6]20201130–2046 — They Say, I Say — Obama’s Howard University Commencement Speech

[KK7]20210106–1109 — psychologytoday.com — What If Age Was Expressed as Experience Versus Time

[KK8]20210325–0807 — psychologytoday.com — The Curse Of Character