Living is Proof of Wisdom
“What time is it?” “Don’t you know.” “Is it time to wake up?” “Yes” “How long have I been sleeping?” “You were never asleep.”
If you are reading this, then you, us, we have been fortunate enough to witness, life, death, and renewal of life; and some of us, have seen this cycle repeated several times over. In my back yard I have two large Oak trees, and every year with no prompting, they drop literally tons of leaves. Leaves everywhere, particularly in the rain gutters A feeling of exhaustion engulfs me during the Fall season, as every time I stare out the widow that looks over the back yard, I watch as the ground slowly turns from green to brown. If you have trees in your yard or on your street, then you truly know the meaning of “Fall”. During this time of the year in my neighborhood, there is a procession of rakes laying in yards, and clear plastic bags filled to the brim with leaves lined up on curbs like boulders. Massive piles of leaves everywhere, just waiting for the disposal truck or a child on a bicycle to come along and scatter them. While watching the trees go bare this time of the year, I often wonder; how will this tree survive the winter? It's baron, empty. Then Spring appears and again as if on cue, I see the beginning of buds on the branches. It’s amazing. How do these trees lose nearly everything, while being pushed into the harshest conditions, without any foliage, only to return return in six months even stronger? Nature is amazing. Because it quietly goes about teaching lessons, that cannot be taught in a classroom, only learned, experienced, and lived. We stand in stark contrast to this cycle, because many of our lessons are taught in a controlled environment. A classroom. But as a testament to the strength of nature, we possess the ability to learn that which cannot be taught in the classroom. It's called wisdom. Unfortunately, you can’t pass on wisdom; you can’t leave it in an inheritance, or a will. You can’t indiscriminately determine who has it and who doesn’t. If I have leaned anything that I can apply to life from watching these trees, it is growth, perseverance, and survival. That is the lesson, and my back yard is the classroom.
These magnificent Oak trees are synonymous with wisdom. Throughout their lives, through natural and even some unnatural events they possess the ability to learn, and to quietly teach. It a marvelous achievement, weeks without water, oppressive heat and the blistering rays from the Sun. Wouldn’t it be amazing to touch an old tree and have it verbally convey its life to you. What it has seen, the visitors who have inhabited its branches, the pain it has felt, and the joy of each successive sunrise. We all seek the same, to know. But in order to know, we have to live, and that’s the problem; because life in a word is A Mutha! Life gives no quarters, no guarantees, no promises, and it takes so much from us. It’s a wonder, how can a process that is called Life be so dam hard to live? I have come to believe that life, just as with poker game, the longer you stay in the game the better your chances. Not a guarantee of winning or survival, just an equal chance at each, but you have to say in the game. Because if you’re not in the game, then you have already lost and your chances improve the longer you stay in the game. Literally surviving in this era that we now live surpassing 60-years-old, we deserve something. We are still here and we haven't given up on life. Some, if not many of us have gotten so good at this, they have gone on to literally become, The Game and acquiring wisdom is equal to knowing the how to win at this game. Life.
By the time we reach our 60’s we have learned to maneuver through a landscape wrought with obstacles, landmines, and pit falls with a greater understanding of their role, and ours. For 30 plus years, I watched and learned from others as I spent years walking up the steps at Penn Station Plaza. I have seen it all. I have seen the falls, slips, rushing water, snow cover steps, ice covered steps, even the occasional urine covered steps. The seen and heard the sound of endless footsteps, and the noise of trains and indistinguishable vocalizations from muffled speakers. What track? The chaos is intoxicating, as it is overwhelming mentally and physically. But I learned, The How. How to move, how to not be moved, and most importantly, how to get to where I was going. Actually, I got so good at how that it almost became mundane to eat a hot dog, with an orange drink, (shout-out to Nedick’s) with the newspaper under my arm. At the same time carrying my briefcase and not spill a drop on my white shirt; all while walking up some stairs or on the escalator. How? What secret did I discover? I don't know, it was the unlocking of some mental map. I learned through trial and error. I gained knowledge that wasn’t taught to me from a specific person or a book, or in a classroom. As I got older, I got smarter, and I got wiser. We have taken these lessons taught by time and the hardships associated with living, and applied that knowledge to everyday life. Wisdom.
We may have gotten older, but we are dam sure smarter. Proof? Have you ever asked yourself a question as opposed to asking another person? Why is that? I believe that our answer is more often the right one, and we tend to trust our own answers which allows us to trust ourselves. This brings me to non human reasoning. AI wants to know what we know. It wants to know how we know, what we know? Because machine cant have wisdom and time means nothing to a watch. AI is always listening, and watching, and studying, us. The blog writings of this website are NOT written with the use of AI. This is not done out of fear, it is done out of trust. A trust in the natural occurrence of life, which is that mistakes will be made. But with time and faith we can overcome the mistakes, and even avoid them in the future. Closer to the truth is that you and I have a shared wealth of information that is unmatched, it's not just 1’s and 0’s. This wealth of information is derived from living and experiencing the highs and the lows of life. William Blake may have said it best in his poem, Proverbs of Hell; “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”
Our under appreciated teachers of life have been texture, tone, taste, smell, sight, and sound. As abstract as these senses all are, they allow to distinguish and map a pathway that intuitively determines the right direction. At an age in life when many still have questions and doubts; in the midst of all the chaos that surrounds us, we still make make good decisions. If you subtract greed from the equation, I believe you, I, we make very good decisions. At 60 years old, as decision makers when we whisper people still listen. My credo; "We live by the decision we make". That's Wisdom speaking. Many of us have worked most of our lives in virtual obscurity, but we are still heavily relied on and trusted. I defy you to go to any back office and peak in at the people working there, especially a business that over the course of years is still performing very well. It’s not a batch of computers and mainframes, draining our resources, it’s us. Data mining will never supplant wisdom. It’s us who answer and greet you, it's us who lift and carry, it’s us the voice you trust, it’s us who many sit in front of and wish it was them; it’s us behind the wheel of your dream car, it’s us in that house with the big windows. AI "artificial intelligence" will invent the truth if it doesn't know the answer; it will exaggerate speculation. There is no need to exaggerate when the body of work, the life lived, speaks for itself. There is no need to lie, when the proof is in the pudding.
These shared experiences have come with time, and lives spent living, and learning. I will refer to Webster’s Dictionary and it's definition of wisdom; “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.” This experience is carved out through time and a life of doing something that made/makes life better for someone else. I began with the premise that wisdom was acquired through living. Unlike with many equations, using the inverse or solving the problem in reverse, fails when trying to understand wisdom. Because you cant be wise, and not have lived. Just as you can't be dead and be wise, but you can live, then died and be considered wise. See Solomon. Neither can you just acquire wisdom for the amount of time you have lived, conversely it’s what you have done with that time you lived. How many lives have you positively affected? How, many stories can your hands and eyes tell? In 1971 the late Bill Withers wrote and a song that plays louder in my ears now since I've lost both my Grand Mother's. He sings of the strength of a woman hands, he tells of her courage to accept pain, and the ability to show love. Bill Withers wrote and sang; "Grand Ma's hands, used to hand me piece of candy. Grandma's hands, picked me up each time I fell. Grandma's hands, boy they really came in handy. She'd say, Matty don't you whip that boy. What you want to spank him for? He didn' t drop no apple core. But I don't have grandma anymore. If I get to heaven I'll look for, Grandma's hands."
Our hands should be the tools that build our faith, and our hearts the glue that holds families together. If gold is one of the most precious metals on earth, then your Word should be made of gold. What we say is who we are, but what we don’t say or fail to say anything, speaks just as loudly. Wisdom can be as simple as a look, a nod, a shrug, and a smile. Wisdom doesn't come in the from of words, its not a single speech or a single act. At this stage in our lives we have crafted a persona, one that provides hope and stability to countless people. That nod nod, turn of the head, the furrowing of our brow now means something. Once long ago when we were young, it all seemed so incomprehensible, me wise? But we have lived through so much and we have gained an unspoken knowledge this life. So much so that it all seems routine. So easy. I often, like many, ask why I couldn't have learned all this faster, sooner? I guess the answer is, I wasn't supposed to.
Finally, I think back to when I was very young and I would sit next to my grandfather and he would whittle. For those of you who don't know what that is; my memory of the moment is my grandfather would find a soft piece of wood and he would take out his pocket knife and just slowly slice off thin shivers of wood. I can still see the piles of slivers of wood beneath the bench we would sit on. While he was dong this he would talk with and to me. Sadly, because of my impatience, I cant recall the conversations. Back then it never really made sense to me. Ironically, now that I am over 60 years old, it all makes complete sense. Mr. Minor, speaking softly, would say, "Ask me a question, and I have an answer. Watch me do something, and you’ll learn how to do it. But know that it may take while. Be patient Jr." In this, he was trying to teach me patience.
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