Member-only story
Wisdom Isn’t Earned, It’s Survived
The real lesson is buried under the rubble of who you thought you were
They’ll tell you that wisdom comes with age.
That it descends gently, like snowfall on the brow of the elderly, as if grey hairs are antennae for divine signals. But that’s nonsense, isn’t it?
If age brought wisdom, your racist uncle would be the Dalai Lama by now.
It doesn’t grow, it strips
Wisdom is no heirloom passed down through the bloodline of chronology.
It’s a ruination. It’s the carcass of falsehoods laid bare by affliction. Not amassed like coins in the coffers of scholars, but unearthed, shard by grimy shard, beneath the charred rubble of one’s own vanities.
You don’t ascend to wisdom; you are lowered into it like a corpse into the cold grave.
Beware the wisdom salesmen
The loudest voices in the wisdom business usually haven’t suffered enough to know what they’re talking about. They sell reassurance, not truth. They deal in symmetry, quotes, curated calm.
