KEEP THE OLD WARM

“It requires no art to become stupid; the whole art lies in extracting wisdom from stupidity. Stupidity is the mother of the wise, but cleverness never.” – Carl Jung Psychological Reflections

Wisdom is passed down through generations because anyone can gain from it. It is not passed down for an exclusive set of people. All of us, regardless of how “clever” we are, can become wiser. We don’t need to have natural genius to be wise, but only some decency in our hearts.

For wisdom is more of an instinct than a form of intellect; we feel wisdom, we do not know and understand it, and all of us are capable of feeling it.

Us dummies and fools? We have wisdom in us that we can find and bring to light. The Old is critical to helping us find it and feel it; us fools can connect with the words of the past so they can guide us to live wiser throughout our lives (and hopefully pass on our own wisdom.)

A beautiful world can be made. We can live together with less hate and absurdity. We need only find the wisdom within our universal foolishness.

Yet we must beware cleverness; scheming, debating, thinking thinking thinking, desiring to be the most clever and “intelligent”. That does not lead to wisdom and does not improve others around us. It only leads to competition, envy, and fighting.

All wisdom is born from fools. So, we must not doubt ourselves, but lean into our foolishness and kindheartedness.

There we shall find the wisdom within us all.