(In Honor of Audrey)

What do I know? How do I know it? And, more importantly, how do I communicate this knowledge?

This is my wisdom. A common term for a person’s accumulation of experience and aptitude for meta-cognitive understanding of these experiences. One is wise if one can pontificate. But actually, it is if one can pontificate in a poignant manner for others.

One is wise if one knows one’s audience, really…

We have Jesus, Buddha and Plato; Shakespeare and Sarte. There are sages for every generation. I have friends whom I feel comfortable actually asking for advice. You have confidants. This seems to be the crux of our mutual wisdom: how we depend or explore. How our collective knowing is parsed among quotable phrases.

I may elect you wise if you appeal to my desires. Or perhaps if I fit within your curriculum. (David Field or Andrea Sununu…holla!) I may deign to call you wise if your political ambitions fit my life. (Dennis Kucinich?)

The problem with wisdom is that it is subjective. One’s experiences may reflect another’s. One’s words may appeal to someone. But that seems to be it. Wisdom is birthed within our own need to understand.

That’s as much as I know. The extent to which I am wise.