Accumulating Wisdom

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to wisdom today in light of recent conversations with several people. It’s another one of those things that I thought would just come to me one day. It was right up there with self esteem and courage, a healthy diet and a whole host of other concepts that no two people define the same way. I think I used to view all of them as an end result, or some kind of achievement. I understand now, that’s not the way it works. You don’t suddenly have wisdom or courage or self esteem, you accumulate them. Some people accumulate them quicker or sooner, but they're not sudden achievements. I’ve had wisdom for decades and not even known it.

If you truly want to realize your own wisdom, try being 45 and having a conversation with a twenty something. It’s not that there’s a generation gap. It’s not that I don’t remember what it’s like to be 22. It’s not that I don’t remember how painful it was to be young and have no clue how to deal with the pain and fear I was carrying around back them. But a whole entire amazing journey has taken place since I was 22. Life. Life happens and the 22 year old you once were has sorted out a whole hell of a lot by the time you’re 45. I remember what it’s like to be 22, but they have no idea what it it will be like to be who they are when they're 45. And I have no clue what it will be like to be 60. You of course can’t tell a 22 year old any of that, just like you can’t make an addict come clean. You can’t keep someone from killing themselves if they’re bound and determined to. People change when they accumulate enough wisdom to change at whatever age. They don’t change because you want them or tell them to. Period, end of story. You can learn international trade law and cosmetology from a teacher, but you cannot learn wisdom from anyone.

Part of the problem I have shutting up and walking away from eminent train wrecks these days is that we live in a world that’s in so much pain. It’s hard to be surrounded by eminent, occurring and having occurred train wrecks with people all around you in every stage of pain and grief. I’m not even talking about global issues of war and pollution. It seems as a country the U.S. is determined to tear itself into factions based on so much deeply held pain and fear. We’ve projected that fear and loathing out onto the world like some kind of deathly dark grave robbing wandering demon. There seems to be an accumulating mass of grief and pain here that grows exponentially each day. And I can’t do a thing for them. All I can do is create my wisdom, police my little piece of the world. That’s it.

People in pain remain in pain until they find a way out by looking inside. Until the accumulated masses look inside, that fear and pain is just going to circle the globe relentlessly. We’re not taught as a people to solve our problems that way. We’re not guided towards self awareness, in part because fear is such a lovely way to control children. "Do what we say or else" works so much better than "what do you think you should do?" There’s more of a guarantee with "do what we say." We teach the children to live in fear and they teach their children. We teach them to take direction from others but not to be self directed. We were not taught that the most amazing journey, the most relevant revelations take place inside our own minds hearts and souls between us and ourselves. We’re not taught that because what goes on in there can’t be controlled by anyone. We’re taught from day one literally to look for ourselves and our answers "out there" somewhere somehow. How absurd. You don’t live "out there", you live in here, in your mind body and soul. We’re taught to compare ourselves to others, and judge our self worth by the size shape beauty wealth and abilities of other people. We’re literally taught to be anyone but ourselves from day one.

So I believe this is one more step down the road today. One more movement towards a stronger self esteem, towards more inner peace, towards accumulating more wisdom. There came a realization today that there is this place I’m waiting to get to where I completely accept myself without loathing, without comparison, without wishing to change for the sake of some societal standard. Lately the phrase "It is what it is" comes out of my mouth a lot. It is what it is, so how do you feel about it? What is in the world isn’t nearly as important as how you respond to what is. That my body is rounder and larger isn’t nearly as important as how I feel about myself. Losing or gaining a pound doesn’t matter. What matters is that I find a way to accept who I am minute by minute. The weight game is more of the "out there" bullshit. It’s like they tell actors; figure out the inner life of the character and the rest will follow; the speech the mannerisms will all spring from knowing the character. Come to know and accept yourself and everything else will spring from that. The goal is the knowing and accepting. What springs from that is icing on the cake. And ironically the icing on the cake is what most people are searching for, not the cake itself.

So I give up. You all are officially on your own from now on. It’s not why I’m here anyway. I’m here for me, and not for anyone else. I’m not here to be a teacher, I’m here to be a learner. All I can do is accumulate my own wisdom and understanding and grow with it. The purpose of living is to come to understand myself, my place in the world, and surmount the issues I’ve been handed using my accumulating wisdom. No one else can help me, and I can help no one else.