Odd Wisdom

One can find wisdom in the strangest of places.

Today my good friend asked me to randomly give him some advice.  No context.  No explanation.  Simply hand him some random advice.  (That's right, bud.  You inspired my blog today.  If this sucks, it's all your fault???)

So, to that, I told him "Always... no, wait... Never, hit a man with glasses.  Use a brick.  It's more solid."

I suspect I was the "victim" of a personal experiment on his part.  Later I transmitted something more serious towards his direction.  

One of my other favorite off the cuff advice snippets I love to throw at people when they ask is "If you build a man a fire, he's warm for an evening.  But if you set a man on fire, he's warm for the rest of his life."

And, it's true.  But only in horrible, illegal ways.

Wisdom, by it's modern definition (as opposed to the Archaic/pre-Archaic definition.  ask me about that sometime, it's an awesome discussion), is a strange guide and road map.  Sometimes a catalyst.  Sometimes it's straightforward and full of obvious logic.  Other times it seems random and without purpose, but in all cases, if it's wisdom, it takes the receiving person exactly where they need to go, should they intern be wise enough to follow.

Wisdom is meant to inspire.  Inspire a good decision.  Perhaps a series of them.  For example, if someone breaks into your home and you are forced to defend yourself (in one of those extreme examples where you are left with no choice), use a brick, not glasses.  (assuming those are your only options and there isn't some other, more effective implement of destruction laying about.)

There is the wisdom that doesn't seem to make sense.  According to the late, great Yogi Berra "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."  

Was that simply meant to be amusing?  Does it make some sort of secret sense?  Does it make any kind of sense at all?  

Or perhaps was that the point?  Perhaps the fact that it's a contradictory, albeit amusing, statement is where the wisdom lies.  Perhaps for the right person, it will force them to think sideways and see their individual situation in a way they hadn't considered before.

Wisdom doesn't always have to make sense.  It only needs to work.

In fact, it seems that the best wisdom is the wisdom that makes you think the hardest, not necessarily the wisdom that is the most direct.  This, I believe, is because almost all solutions come when we force ourselves to think differently.  To see a thing from another angle.  To pull ourselves out of the current pattern and view another one.

The more one can truly think otherly (I think I just made up that word), the more often they can either solve, or completely bypass their hiccups in the road (and I think that is a mixed metaphor.).

But once someone becomes inspired, once they learn to shift those mental gears more often, they will become less reliant upon someone else's warmth of wisdom.  They themselves will be set aflame and be forever warmed.

As I said, wisdom and inspiration can come from the darndest places.