Good Morning Digital Neighbors & Friends! Happy Thursday visitors and guests to this humble Local's abode! How about a few quotes on wisdom? Something we could all use more of in life.
What makes a person wise? I have met a fair number of people my age and older that don't seem to possess much wisdom. I have met plenty of those younger than me that don't seem to any interest in wisdom. I am fairly certain that wisdom doesn't come much from glowing screens, but here we are. 😜 Perhaps the one exception to the self-interested dumbing down caused by our friendly glow screens is reading worthwhile subject as if it were a book or listening to thoughtful souls who share their own experience. If your discernment is lousy you will probably mistake a number of posers as people of experience or wisdom. I suspect we have more of these relationships as teenagers and younger adults. It is one of the things that worries many parents.
Does suffering lead to wisdom? Maybe. I have seen plenty of complaining and these days more fear about the idea of suffering than people who have learned from it. But I am thankful for the people who have learned from suffering, I am very appreciative of those who have gained perspective from their trials. Perspective and learning from one's suffering is never a given, but rather an invitation by life to see beyond the moment.
The present moment - it is glorious but rather limited. Once again a life of distraction, consumed by the present moment and distracted by "what's next" probably doesn't provide much material for future wisdom. I think visits there are a good escape, it is mostly a world of glowing screens dominated by our old friends TV and its favored child, the smart (ironically named) phone. Computers and Movies come in much further down the line. There are still the old, I mean really old fashioned, escapes like music, drama, reading, and Mother Nature. One of the best things about our glow screens is the ability to integrate those old escapes into a new presentation. Glow screens are not bad in and of themselves, turning them into the proverbial mirror from Snow White's Stepmother seems to be the real danger.
Wisdom - it seems to appreciate the present moment while looking back at the "whatness" of the past with a sense of integration for future engagement. It might be along the action line of engagement, it may be a change in attitude or the adoption of new perspective. Considering oneself wise it a bit too self-congratulatory, holding others as wise is better path to growing as a person. No pedestals for the living, even those we deem wise can make foolish choices. One who spouted wisdom yesterday is capable of massive blind-spots today. Most wise people seem to be more recognized as such after death, perhaps we forget the foolish choices they made or perhaps only the canvas of a whole life provides us with the perspective to say: "Sally had her shit together, she really got life." Sally may be more well known in death than life because most of would rather strive for wisdom than live in perpetual folly. The addiction of distraction might be the gravest threat to acquiring wisdom these days. I feel the constant pull of distraction in my own life. The desire to escape and inhabit empty entertainment is worrisome.
The flip side to such worrisome things, is all the wise souls I meet in life. I encounter them at work, in church, around the neighborhood and in my visits to Local's. I have met them in books, encountered them onscreen and discovered them in quotes and passages than open doors and provide some illumination. I am very thankful than I can listen to some of them on a frequent basis in life, they tend to be the most rewarding of conversations. On to the quotes and some Mother Nature - she sure is one sweet lady. Happy Thursday my friends! Thanks for indulging me once again. 😊
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity. - Calvin Coolidge
We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are. - Max de Pree
Meanwhile somewhere in Nevada - Autumn In Hope Valley
