Monday, November 9, 2009

Our wisdom

Why do we have such a difficult time accepting wisdom? Leave a teaching around long enough, to be found by enough people, and it's accepted (almost) without question. But uncover or voice it for the first time and we often seem in a hurry to bury it in a pit someplace until it's dusty enough to trust.

I quote other people a lot. Not that I don't think of these things myself, but I generally feel like if it's just coming from me, maybe it isn't all that wise. Or take the Desiderata. I read someplace that it was written in the last century (the 20th, of course) and that its author made up the story about finding this centuries-old document. And yet, the words are beautiful and the teachings even more so.

I wonder what would happen if we all accepted ourselves as innately wise, as teachers as well as students.

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