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INDIVIDUAL WISDOM: Wisdom consists, amongst other things, in not understanding everything one reads, not liking everything one reads, not believing everything one reads, and not remembering everything one reads. A surfeit of wise ideas is, after all, another kind of folly, and there are many gifted men who foolishly consider themselves wise on account of the extent of their reading. What, do they not consider themselves wise enough already? Were they not born with the rudiments of wisdom, or are they now somewhat uncertain, in this age of material prosperity, as to exactly what it is?

Well, let us frankly admit that, irrespective of any aid the dictionary may give us, wisdom is not something that can be simply defined, since it takes as many forms as there are people, and what would suit one person, at any given time, could well be the ruination of another. For we all possess a wisdom peculiar to our daily circumstances and, depending on the nature of those circumstances, the kind of wisdom each one of us possesses must inevitably manifest itself as folly to someone else, to someone who, living in a different context, is not obliged to adopt identical tactics to us. There is no man who is without his quota of wisdom. Contend otherwise and you draw on your capacity for folly. Accept it, and your wisdom automatically leaps to the fore.

The wisdom of this moment may give way to the folly of the next. Whatever you understand to be wisdom here, you may be obliged to pay for with foolishness elsewhere. You don't become wiser generally, but only in certain contexts. Your given quota of wisdom remains the same whether you read all the philosophy of the nineteenth century or exclusively dedicate yourself to painting. The wisdom of the philosopher is not the same as that of the painter. Whereas the former may advise you to avoid taking various contentions of a particular philosopher too seriously and will indicate, by way of compensation, other contentions which he believes to be of consummate importance, the latter may warn you against over-using a particular colour or tone, and will draw your attention, it may be, to certain delicate harmonies of tonal composition which he feels to be of great beauty and technical significance. Their different kinds of wisdom are largely applicable to their respective occupations and, as such, they are as wise as they need be, each man having to contend with matters strictly pertinent to his own activity and to no-one else's.

Inevitably, this is the case for everybody. There is the wisdom of the monk, stockbroker, lawyer, baker, clerk, postman, teacher, cook, etc. Each of them knows what he has to do and, if he wants to survive, each one does it as well as possible, thereby being as wise as he needs to be within his particular context. Now a poet isn't necessarily wiser than a clerk; he is simply wiser in his own field. Much of what he does is only relevant to poets, and consequently much of what he says will strike a clerk as being somewhat foolish, just as much of what the latter does and says will strike him as being somewhat foolish, even though they are both doing and saying what they must.

But is a man any the less wise for becoming a clerk instead of a poet? Some poets may think so, especially if they belong to that vainglorious breed of men who always consider their own profession superior to everyone else's. However, people of a philosophic turn-of-mind will incline to think otherwise. For if a man isn't really interested in poetry, and is insufficiently gifted in poetic composition to become a professional poet, then his fundamental attitude to poetry will probably be either one of mild curiosity or, more likely, general indifference, so that any suggestion to the effect that he ought to have taken-up with poetry instead of, say, clerking will meet with little sympathy, its being inferred that not everyone was born to do the same thing!

Yet the logical implication of this is something that the self-conceit of certain illustrious poets may make them overlook - namely that men come in many shapes and sizes, in consequence of which the means to salvation for one would surely be the road to damnation of another!

No, it is not for us to presume a man less wise for becoming a clerk, lawyer, builder, or grocer instead of a poet, musician, painter, or sculptor, but to assume that whatever he does he does because he is unable, for a variety of reasons, to do anything else - in short, because it is the best thing for him. Heaven forbid that the human kind should ever progress to a point where all men can become poets, composers, artists, or writers simply because, with further development of machine technology, there will be little or no requirement for anything else! Heaven forbid that we should look upon human diversity as an objection, and subsequently endeavour to stamp everybody into exactly the same mould!

Talented youths often imagine that life is a battle for honours, a race to acquire the most prestigious places before it is too late, rather than an exercise, amongst other things, in finding out what one is especially good at and then in putting that ability or gift to the service of mankind. But youth is only a passing folly, an extra boost, as it were, to the essential nature of the emerging man. For when he finally emerges from his youthful pretensions into the more realistic perspective of adulthood, he will realize that it is only within his power to do a few things really well, and that he must do them to the best of his ability if he is to pass muster on the world's stage.

Yet as to whether his particular occupation makes him less wise than any of his differently-occupied fellows - that is something I must confess to having serious reservations about! Perhaps he is mostly drawing upon his foolishness when he does something he has no business doing, working in an incompatible context, and consequently being a neurotic nuisance to both himself and everybody else as well.