Catching Wisdom

Michaele AlexanderThoughts on Things

Catching Wisdom is allegorically a lot like fishing. One can cast a wide net to try to capture as much as possible, chasing the shining forms en masse, but the individual quality as well as the quality for the individual is forgotten, blinded by desperation or a competitive craving. Forsaken is the individuality of the experience, for one body of knowledge becomes indistinguishable from another.

One can venture into the deep sea with more complex equipment in quest of the “Big One”, but ego and status can be so interwoven that even though a monumental body is found, lost can be the understanding of where it has come from, what it’s place is in the world and the effect it will have upon ourselves and others when we take it from it’s natural environment into ours.

Should we instead choose to contemplate what it is that we are fishing for we can see clearly through the waters as it will eventually present itself. It becomes not another fish in the sea, but a fish who has come to join our way of seeing life. It does not swim toward us with the trepidation that it may not be enough, or worse yet that it will never be enough. It simply is and with that simplicity comes the understanding of how it fits in the here and now as we approach the future, leaving the past in our wake.

The careful fisherman weaves his or her net with appreciation, not expectation. Their hooks are ordained by a connection to the give and take of what it means to be alive and lifeless, self and selfless. Their knives are swift to cut away any pain or fear for it does not belong where there exists loving attention to the present. Their eyes are keen for the leaping brilliance of newness and its possibilities. Yet their hearts are filled with the surety of what can be depended upon that may quietly swim alongside.

Wisdom should never be sought for the sake of hording it. Nor should it be a quest to bend others under one’s force by scarcity, harm or comparison. Wisdom is quiet. Wisdom is kind. Wisdom is gentle and genteel. Wisdom is the strength to heal, help and build. Wisdom can walk through barriers as if they were not there, because with Wisdom they do not exist. Wisdom is quick to play a vital part when little noticed before. Wisdom is available to all in their own measure.

But more than anything Wisdom is Choice. For we have always the choice to be Artful and Wise. Or play the Fool within the roles of the Victim and the Savior. To catch what Wisdom we can for the reasons we decide is forever our fate. But be aware, for once hooked, Wisdom is a responsibility and how you choose what you will keep for yourself and what you will put back in the water feeds both your own life and the lives of everyone around you.