Thursday 15 January 2004

"With you is Wisdom, she who knows your works
and was present when you made the world."
"Send her forth from the holy heavens,
and from the throne of your glory send her..."
(Pic of the day: Detail of Mandelbrot fractal.)

Words of wisdom

To quote a friend: "Words of wisdom are, uhm, hard." And indeed they are hard to write. But are they also hard to read? I don't think so.

The reason I came to think of this is that I looked for another quote, and I thought it might be in the apocryphal "Wisdom of Solomon". I found a good translation of it for free on the Net, here. And found myself reading. And reading. And marveling at the clarity of the writing. I know you may disagree with some of the text, depending on your religion or lack thereof. But you should have to admit, for wisdom it is very well written. I wish I could write like that.

From I laid eyes on the Norwegian translation in my younger years, I have wondered why "Wisdom of Solomon" was not in the Bible, while Ecclesiastes (life is pointless and then you die) is in there. Both of them strongly hint that they are by King Solomon, famous for his divine wisdom. About that, however, it is important to know this: For a long long time it was common for a student or disciple to write in his teacher's name. Or his teacher's teacher, or his teacher again … you get the drift. So if a school of wisdom sincerely believed to have been founded by Solomon, and to have preserved his tradition in spirit if not verbatim, then they would give due credit when they eventually wrote it down and attribute it to Solomon. It is entirely possible that this is also true here. And this time, they just may be right.

The ancient Greek word "philosophia" means "friendship-love of wisdom", but in the case of Solomon (or his disciple) you have to wonder if there was more than just friendship. There is a chapter filled with glowing declaration of love for "her" (evidently in Hebrew wisdom was a feminine, something I guess my female readers may agree with). But unlike modern philosophers, Solomon sees no need to invent new words or utterly change the meaning of established words to fit some new concept. His writing is filled with action, emotion, assertion, inspiration. Or so it seems to me.

Then again, it may be crystal clear to me because I have the same spirit. I certainly don't mean that in a personal sense, as in "I am the Solomon reborn!" (Although now that I think about it, being reincarnated as me would be a great way to atone for his excessive polygamy, which eventually became his downfall…) I mean more generally, as a co-spirit. After all, it seems from the Biblical story that Solomon was not born wise, but that he chose wisdom as one of several offered gifts from Yahweh. Yahweh was so pleased with this choice that the young King also got the other gifts as a bonus.

No you may say this is a myth, and indeed it is. That does not mean it isn't true, although I can neither prove nor disprove it and am not sure how much it matters. Probably a bit. But also the life of several recent, well-documented persons have mythical traits. Think of Hitler, or Gandhi. Certainly if we read about them 3000 years later we would out of hand call them mythical. So I would not be quick to say that Solomon's wisdom was mere myth. Though we probably don't know the whole truth, as usual.

***

There is a lot to be said about this particular book. That was not my intention however.

I have also read other works of wisdom, including competing religions. The Dhammapada in particular, a rather terse collection of sayings supposedly by the Buddha himself. Even though I am not a Buddhist (nor am I a Jew, come to think of it), I still found it pretty clear. (Admittedly the Norwegian translation I first read was better than any English translations I have later seen. But the content was the same, just phrased in a more Edda-like way.)

No, words of wisdom are not hard to read. But they can be hard to heed. For when the time comes, and wisdom is needed, there is always a sacrifice. There seems to be something that must be cut, taken away, given up. What we fail to see is that time always brings cuts. We just choose what to give up. To choose one is to reject the other. Wisdom sacrifices the twigs to save the trunk; but foolishness tries to save the twigs and branches, but gives up the trunk. And so falls the tree, branch and twig and all.

Wisdom simplifies. It separates the essential from the irrelevant. To take a word of wisdom from Jesus: Life is more than the food, and the body is more than the clothes. It seems so obvious, why would anyone even say it? And yet today we are in the situation where people shorten their life with food – it is indeed an international trend – and wear clothes that hurt the body. Even though it is sheer folly, it is still wildly popular. Why? Because one seems to gain something, and the price to pay for it is not obvious at first sight. But if we took a little time to think things through, we would see the obvious wisdom.

People today are more intelligent than ever, and most live long lives. But where are the wise old men and women, whose insight and wisdom should guide us into an ever better future? Instead we see mostly whiny old people who desperately try to cling to the illusions of youth. What a folly. What a sadness. What a tragic waste.

Well, that was that. Now off to play games and watch cartoons! ^_^