Alive and Aware: Wisdom and Shiny, New Shoes

Wisdom comes from living life. I am not talking about experience; wisdom can be found at any age with any level of experience. I am talking about a mental attitude or an approach to life.

Life as we live it is a mixed bag of goods. It has its ups, its downs, and most especially its many uneventful hours where we quest after je ne sais quoi (we know not what). If we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that most of us feel unfulfilled much of the time. The reason is simple: we want life to unfold according to our own terms, which generally includes a lot more action, excitement, purpose, or whatever else than we think it does. Wisdom comes in learning through the many ups and downs to accept life as it comes, to be comfortable with the silence and the inaction. Wisdom is a process that unfolds over the course of a lifetime.

I said wisdom involves accepting life as it comes. Wisdom, then, involves acceptance. And in the acceptance of life comes an enjoyment of the quiet, ordinary moments. Wisdom understands that these moments are really the best things in life, and while we enjoy the ups when they come and are not wrong in doing so, they inevitably come with downs as well. We will find, when we learn to see clearly, that the ordinary moments are where our greatest happiness lies.

Wisdom is not perfection as the Greeks imagined it. Certainly we should seek to better ourselves. But nevertheless, wisdom is not perfection. It is acceptance of inevitable imperfection, acceptance that turns into its own enjoyment and insight, acceptance that sees in imperfection its own sort of perfection and winsomeness. Wisdom does not involve a change in the world so much as it involves a change in us. Wisdom involves making peace with ourselves, finding peace within ourselves, accepting and learning to enjoy the many uneventful hours, for that is where all of us live.

I said that wisdom does not involve change in the world so much as it involves change in us. Yet it does involve change in the world: as we learn to live in and accept life on its own terms, we learn a secret that is relevant to every human being alive. We all are learning to live, and the more that we learn to live—the more that we can accept, embrace, and find enjoyment in the dull, lackluster, ordinary moments—the more relevant we will be to everyone else who is on the same quest. Others will see that our lives also are ordinary, yet somehow in that ordinariness is a spark of extraordinariness, a spark of life, that attracts them in some silent, ineffable way. As we change, others take notice, others find inspiration and insight in the changes effected in us, and thus as we change, we change the world simply by seeing it through different eyes.

Wisdom comes from living life. Not trying to control life. Not trying to find meaning or purpose so much as simply living and letting meaning and purpose find us. It will. But there will be lots of uneventful moments in between. That is as it should be. Meaning and purpose will be found in those uneventful moments, even if the more dramatic exceptions bring momentary fireworks of insight and perception. The dramatic exceptions simply inform the ordinary moments, not define them. There will be a great more ordinary events by far than the fireworks, the ups, the excitement of new things, new people, new places. Most of our life will be ordinary, at least outwardly, but it does not have to be ordinary inwardly, or, put another way, in that ordinariness we can find joy.

Life has its seasons. Often the rainy skies produce a feeling of melancholy. Yet rainy skies can be a chance to simply sit back and be, simply exist, simply live life in all of its ordinary aspects. There is rain and there is sun. There is snow and there is the summertime heat. There is the reflective fall and the energizing spring. Throughout it all, wisdom comes.

Wisdom is learning to lie on one’s back in the ocean and let the waves—now large and looming, now soft and lapping—buoy us as they will without being overly concerned where they will take us. Wisdom comes in relaxing, in accepting the fear and concern as the billowing crests threaten to swallow and living through the desire for more when the water is too placid for our content. We surrender to the waves; we surrender to the seasons. In surrender—in acceptance—we find meaning.

Life’s greatest joys are not large. They are invariably the simple things, the simple words, the simple sights and sounds and smells and tastes, the simple touch. We are not wrong to enjoy the big things. But it is in the simple things that we will find our greatest sustenance, and there will be many more simple things by far than big things. There is joy to be found in simple things. There is joy to be found in breathing, in simply sucking air into our lungs. There is joy to be found in waking up in the morning, alive, refreshed, energized, ready for the challenges and routine tasks of a new day. There is joy to be found in sitting with nothing to do. There is joy to be found in simply being and letting be, of simply being in a world with other beings who are also simply being, all sharing the same sun, the same air, the same rain. There is joy to be found in existence. There is even joy to be found in great busyness and the sense of accomplishment that follows. Joy is a product of wisdom, and joy, though prima facie less scintillating and filled with excitement, is more profound than happiness, though it can and often does lead to happiness. Joy, and the wisdom that leads to it, is subtle.

Wisdom is not something we find by striving, though in striving we may find wisdom. Wisdom comes from living life. While we are passive, wisdom is active. While we are active, wisdom is still there, sitting silently by, growing even as we move about throughout our day. Wisdom sneaks up on us unawares, bringing with it joy and understanding and awareness. There is nothing that we must do to gain it, save simply be aware, simply watch, observe, and be. Awareness comes from living. Wisdom is awareness.

Wisdom is not facts and figures. Facts and figures are means to ends, but they are not the ends themselves.

There are many interesting ideas that are not wise. They are not wrong, but they are not wise either. They are what they are, and wisdom is capable of enjoying them, capable of transforming them into life and therefore into itself. For part of wisdom is living life, and part of living life is pleasure: therefore, all things that bring pleasure can and often do bring their own wisdom.

Wisdom comes from God. Lots of people write about God. I have too and likely still will. But writing about God is not wisdom unless it is written with wisdom. And wisdom is a matter of being; wisdom is awareness, and awareness is not possible without life. Therefore, writing about God that is written with wisdom is written from living life with God. God begets life, life begets wisdom, and wisdom in turn begets life.

Being with God is a matter of being, it is not a matter of great words and far-blown ideas. Yet being with God can and does result in great words and far-blown ideas, not in their great complexity (though the simple things in life are always most complex), but in the fact that they truly embody life. For since wisdom comes from living life, wisdom speaks to living life. Wisdom, then, speaks to life, for wisdom comes from living life, and all life comes from God in whom we live and breathe and have our being.

Living life with God is a matter of living life. It isn’t about words or ideas. Words or ideas can communicate a life lived with God—we call such words wise—but living life with God is still a matter of living. It is never anything else. Living life with God is a matter of being.

I have, recently, bemoaned my lack of apparent inspiration in writing newsletters. That is because I often think that spiritual newsletters need to be “spiritual.” But spiritual newsletters do not have to be “spiritual,” they just have to be: they need only reflect living life. For it is only in living life that anything meaningful is to be found, and the most spiritual thoughts are simply reflections twice removed, reflections of life that speak to life and have no real meaning outside that context.

I talk to God all the time. It doesn’t seem spiritual. It just is. But “just is” is spiritual, for wisdom comes from living life. What most of us call spiritual is only a reflection of spirituality. Spirituality “just is” if it is, and isn’t spiritual if it isn’t.

In many ways, talking to God is like a comfortable old pair of shoes. Those shoes are not shiny, they’re not new, they’re not likely to turn too many heads in themselves. But they are heaven on our feet, just as God is heaven to our souls. And while the old shoes will not turn too many heads, the comfort with which we walk in them will. There will be something about how relaxed we feel in our skins when we have them on that will catch the attention of others, at least if their attention is to be caught. If their attention is not to be caught, shiny new shoes will probably not catch it either, or if does, we will not have caught their attention, only our shoes, and that is really far from flattering when one pauses to consider. And the minute we catch the attention of others, most of us, insecure perhaps, run to the store to buy new shoes. Why? Because we have forgotten that wisdom comes from living life. While there is nothing wrong with new shoes in themselves, nevertheless wisdom is not a shiny new pair of shoes.

Archive note: See also the discussion forum thread regarding this newsletter.

There is much more to be said, and more that probably should be said, for it seems we have only gotten started only to stop, but this newsletter isn’t about saying. It’s about being, and as such, it has probably said all it needs to say, at least for now. The rest of it is to be written by your own life, in your own growing awareness as you suck air into your lungs and go about your day, however lackluster and ordinary it seems. In the ordinariness it is possible to find great joy, great peace, great contentment: wisdom. Therefore, enjoy the day, and all days, and the busy season of summer, for it soon will pass and the leaves will turn yellow and orange, and then the snowy winter will follow, and each season will bring its own insights and joys and sorrows as we all learn to live and breathe and have our being.

P.S. As a follow-up to my note in Better Liked and Better Liking, it’s official: I teach two sections of critical thinking this fall (PHI 105). I even got my mug online this time—smile.

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