Writey, writey!
Just thought I'd post a snippet from the essay I wrote tonight on "the path to wisdom" (thanks, Prof. Hargis). I'm particularly pleased with the way this analogy played out...
"Let us return to the idea of water momentarily. If knowledge is like a beautiful stream only waiting for us to dip our hands into, what is wisdom? Is she a river? A bottomless pool? Perhaps. But I would prefer to think of wisdom as a lake-pure, cold, and hidden high in the breathless mountains. To find this lake is a task conquerable only by the stout of heart and the courageous and the adventurous. She is fed by a glacier-flawless and lower only than the sun, ancient of ancients and beyond all mortal reproach-nestled in among the mighty peaks of Power, Wealth, Authority, and Fame. These summits are easy enough to climb with the right companions and equipment, but Lake Wisdom is so often shadowed by her mightier counterparts that the climbers never see her. They rest atop Peak Power, or Peak Fame, but soon die of thirst-never knowing that to reach the summits and survive requires passing through Lake Wisdom, where they will encounter even more hardships, but also sustaining water.
"To drink from this purest lake, I would imagine, is unpleasant. It requires much discomfort-the drinker must first kneel in the rough gravel of the lake's shores, his knees acquiring a lifetime's scars in a matter of minutes, and he faces the glacier, squinting as it is so far away and yet so bright and life-giving. Then he casts aside the belongings he brought with him from the civilized world, lest it causes him to fall into the water and drown, and edges carefully, cautiously, prone on all fours like a lowly servant, towards the water's precarious edge. And the drink itself is bitter, so cold it makes his head ache, and tasting of the many ages the glacier has seen and experienced-salt and condensation and death and life and beginnings and ends all pass through the drinker's mouth and settle deep inside him.
"He stands, wiping his raw mouth, feeling the worse for having drunk of it, but then he takes up his things-are they lighter?-and ascends one of the soaring peaks, the lake on his lips and the mighty glacier always ahead and above him."
"Let us return to the idea of water momentarily. If knowledge is like a beautiful stream only waiting for us to dip our hands into, what is wisdom? Is she a river? A bottomless pool? Perhaps. But I would prefer to think of wisdom as a lake-pure, cold, and hidden high in the breathless mountains. To find this lake is a task conquerable only by the stout of heart and the courageous and the adventurous. She is fed by a glacier-flawless and lower only than the sun, ancient of ancients and beyond all mortal reproach-nestled in among the mighty peaks of Power, Wealth, Authority, and Fame. These summits are easy enough to climb with the right companions and equipment, but Lake Wisdom is so often shadowed by her mightier counterparts that the climbers never see her. They rest atop Peak Power, or Peak Fame, but soon die of thirst-never knowing that to reach the summits and survive requires passing through Lake Wisdom, where they will encounter even more hardships, but also sustaining water.
"To drink from this purest lake, I would imagine, is unpleasant. It requires much discomfort-the drinker must first kneel in the rough gravel of the lake's shores, his knees acquiring a lifetime's scars in a matter of minutes, and he faces the glacier, squinting as it is so far away and yet so bright and life-giving. Then he casts aside the belongings he brought with him from the civilized world, lest it causes him to fall into the water and drown, and edges carefully, cautiously, prone on all fours like a lowly servant, towards the water's precarious edge. And the drink itself is bitter, so cold it makes his head ache, and tasting of the many ages the glacier has seen and experienced-salt and condensation and death and life and beginnings and ends all pass through the drinker's mouth and settle deep inside him.
"He stands, wiping his raw mouth, feeling the worse for having drunk of it, but then he takes up his things-are they lighter?-and ascends one of the soaring peaks, the lake on his lips and the mighty glacier always ahead and above him."