Wise Men & Fools

Daily Meditation 862–7/10/2024

A lifetime spent reading every one of these could make you very smart, even wise…but you’d still be a fool.

Although we have certainly written previously about the idea of embracing the fact we are fools and that, for the most part, even by the time we are quite old — regardless of how “studied” we may be — we are still not very intelligent or wise in the grand scheme of life.

Even if we had read a book a day for the middle 50 years of our life, we would still be “stupid,” which is okay! (Arguably, those who pretend to be wise are the biggest fools and those who pretend to know nothing and are with humility are the wisest)
This is not to say wisdom cannot be gathered outside of books. Look at electricians, woodsmen, and masons — they have incredible knowledge at trades and nature. Wisdom is distilled in myriad ways.

For many, this may seem like:

Well, if I’ve got a choice between “reading a book a day” for 50 years (18,262 books) and being a fool and, instead, NOT reading those books and still being a fool, give me my reading time as free time instead.

Here’s the rub, though:

Just because you’ll be a fool whether you’ve sought wisdom or not doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek for wisdom.