I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. – Umberto Eco
Where the fuck is my wisdom?
Seriously, wisdom was supposed to part of the deal, the salve that soothes amidst aging’s unceasing, unending parade of insults and torments. I am now well into my 36th year – my hair is thinning, my back is creaking, my sex drive is waning.
Wisdom should be accumulating, dammit.
I should know more about who I am, what I want to do, and why I’m here on this Earth. I should know more about how the world operates, more about love and relationships, more about politics and economics, more about morality and religion, more about culture and art.
I should know more.
And yet I feel at least as uncertain and confused about life as I’ve ever felt.
It’s not like I haven’t tried finding wisdom. I’m always searching for it. I am at least wise enough to know that more gray hairs don’t automatically translate into more gray matter. So I listen, I observe, I travel, I read, I muse, I cogitate, I study, I analyze. And yet the answers are as elusive as ever.
(I blog as well, obviously, though that’s a process I’ve come to see as mainly an attempt to convince others you have wisdom. Faking wisdom is of course a mighty poor substitute for having wisdom, but in a world populated mostly by fools, it will at least likely get you through the days.)
It’s scary how little I know and how contradictory my beliefs are. When it comes to religion, I’m an incredibly superstitious agnostic who prays when danger nears. When it comes to love, I’m a romantic who doesn’t quite believe in monogamy. When it comes to politics, I’m a bleeding-heart libertarian who has done nothing to change the world for the better other than exercise a wildly underappreciated right to vote.
Most days, I don’t even know who I am. What makes me happy? What is my purpose? Will having a family fulfill me or stultify me? Am I wasting my days away?
When will the wisdom come?
Sometimes I feel I’m right on the edge of being struck by some tremendous, life-changing insight. It’s hard to explain but I literally can feel wisdom’s presence hovering around me, just outside my grasp, like that of a pleasant, long-forgotten memory which I just can’t quite summon for recall.
My biggest fear is that one day very late in my life, I will finally grasp that elusive wisdom – the clouds will lift, the light bulb will go off, the angels will sing – only to find in the very next moment, before I can even share my hard-earned pearl with anyone, aging will exact its cruelest trick, and I won’t be able to remember what was so wise in the first place.
you speak of wisdom as something you just find in a moment, or as a result of some life changing event like a birthday. why cant it be a process? as you study, read, analyze, live, experience etc…you slowly gain wisdom without realizing it. as your ideas, beliefs and thoughts change and develop that is all part of the process of acquiring and digesting wisdom and becoming wise. you seem to want answers, not wisdom. you seem to be a confused soul looking for absolute truth and answers to the deepest and most confounding mysteries of life, but there arent simple answers. your seemingly paradoxical beliefs ARE the wisdom – that there arent any absolute answers, there is no black and white. perhaps wisdom is the process of slowly realizing that. you are in that process, and have gained much wisdom, your only real lack of wisdom is realizing it and appreciating it.