When I was younger, I used to read the works of great writers and feel a certain kinship to them. Reading a book, I would often go, “So true! This is how I feel as well!”. Because great writers wrote about some of the same stuff I used to think about, I would tell myself that I must be wise like them.
Now that I am older, I realize that I felt close to them not because I was anything like them, but because they, being great writers, wrote about stuff anyone would relate to. That’s what had made them great in the first place. Their work was timeless and universal. I related to their writings not because I was wise, but because they were.
And having had this wise epiphany about my own erstwhile stupidity, I (again) tell myself that I must have now become wiser. No doubt, at some later point of life, I would again realize the follies of what I now consider wisdom. Maybe this is what all wisdom is: an ever-increasing appreciation of your own stupidity.
24 January 2019