Aeshylus wrote,
He who learns must suffer.
And even in our sleep
pain that cannot forget
falls drop by drop
upon the heart,
and in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom to us
by the awful grace of God.
Wisdom is the result
of reflection upon experience.
The wise are often old
because it takes a long time
for wisdom to accumulate
through years of reflection upon experience.
And, like it or not,
people are often
just not old enough to understand
what is beyond being explained,
defined,
spelled out,
made clear...
and have to live longer
with their eyes open
to have a clue.
Too many people
only know what they have been told.
Having never reflected on any of it
in light of their experience,
and have never, therefore,
experienced anything,
particularly anything
that would dispute
what they have been told.
Telling them to sit down,
shut up,
and listen to their own reflections
on their own experience
every day their whole life long,
may work,
but I have my doubts.
Some things like
the right kind of reflection
have to be innate
or stumbled upon.
Wisdom is not, it seems,
for everybody,
only for those who are able
to pay the price.
–0–
Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 