What Matters Wisdom?

I have lived as a fool for decades and loathe myself for the mess I have made of my life. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise. If the American Dream is morphing into the American Nightmare as fools in congress and business continue to dismantle our country, our economy, and our constitution, it occurs to me that if I had lived wisely all these years that, in the end, it would have made no difference. I may even be better off for having gotten so good at barely getting by.

Like an insect, my kind of low-life may be better equipped to survive the national and social melt down that increasingly seems to be the eventual fate of a once powerful and prosperous nation that may be trapped on a dead end hell slide into poverty and shame. Who's better equipped to hunker down and survive in a hovel while grubbing for enough food to keep body and soul together: the "winner" who is well invested, lives in a nice big house, and is used to a wide range of comforts and diversions – or the "loser" who is used to doing without, struggling to get by, and discovering in the process that he is no more or less bored than he was in the earlier, more affluent days of his youth.

Now, just because I'm a fool doesn't mean I'm ignorant. I recognize that a significant portion of the population who currently enjoy a comfortable, well supplied, and – seemingly – secure life style are persons of strength, character, and courage. When faced with adversity, they are capable of responding to the shifting fortunes of circumstance, making adjustments, taking action – and surviving. Many who have made their way through challenging times find that the experience has benefitted them. Sometimes a real shake down of the status quo is an opportunity to sift through the detritus of our lives and adjusts our values.

However, there are others who are living lives which are in great jeopardy, yet they settle into their daily routine blithely unaware that they are walking on a tight rope stretched between two houses of cards. Captive in a culture of consumerism, they spend every dollar they earn – and more (thank you, Visa; thank you, MasterCard). Never having made up their minds just what it was they really wanted to do to earn their livings, they graduate college the slaves of their student loans and, if they are lucky, get a job in a nice, clean career. Having grown up with televisions, computers, and cell phones, many of them don't know one end of a screw driver from the other. They hire everything done, while having no desire, and often no skill, to do anything for themselves. God help them, because when the financial egg hits the fan they may look to the government for help to survive – and find the government bankrupt. The coffers empty. No bread in the bread line. No soup in the soup kitchen.

So, what matters wisdom? A great deal. Just because I didn't apply a great deal of wisdom doesn't mean I don't recognize it's value. Quite the contrary; because I find myself old, crippled up, tired, and bitterly paying the price for not having lived wisely, I see clearly the value of what could have been – if only…

Some of what I learned the hard way and too late:

• Put the plug in the jug. There is nothing that can happen to you that can't be made worse by booze and drugs.
• It's not the high cost of living that is your curse, it's the cost of living high.
• You don't NEED a new car… nor the payments. A mechanically sound used car will serve you better by costing you less.
• The bigger the house, the more costly the maintenance.
• The longer your commute, the more money you're burning on gas and the more time you are losing on the road.
• Learn how to do stuff for yourself. Mechanical skills, building skills, gardening.
• You don't have to be extremely wealthy to be financially independent. You just have to have lived long enough spending less than you earned, and investing wisely, to reach a point where you can maintain an abundant life with a moderate income.

Faith Is Not Blind, It Is Fundamental

Faith is a part of our system of perception. It does not stand alone, but serves as an extension of the other two parts of our system of perception – empiricism and rationalism. Faith is what we use to bridge the gap between what is provable and improvable by empirical evidence and rational thought alone.

Faith is fundamental. It is the cornerstone of the foundation of our minds. Without it, we do not develop the capacity for rational thought. Rational thought is contingent upon language – the ability to build vocabulary, conceptualize the world in which we live, and to communicate among ourselves. As infants, we learn language by faith. As our capacity for language develops, we accept – by faith – the system of sounds and symbols that are our languages. It is not proven to us empirically or rationally that that’s mommy, that’s daddy, that’s a cat, dog, chair, table, or house. As our facility for language increases, our potential for rational thought increases.

We are born empirical beings. We develop our capacity for rational thought by accepting – through faith – the meanings of the symbols of our language. We are finite beings. Our senses are limited; our capacity for thought is limited. Empiricism and rationalism can not be divorced from faith; scientific methodology can not be divorced from faith. Evolutionary theory begins with faith in the axiom – the presupposition, the assumption – that the origin of life can be explained by purely natural causes.

Harvard Professor of Genetics, Richard Lewontin, a world leader in Evolutionary Biology, acknowledges the nature of evolutionism’s foundation.

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, [. . .] because we have a prior commitment, [. . .] (W)e are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, [. . .]. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a divine Foot in the door.”1

The theory of evolution does not end with naturalism; that is, “the view that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes.”2 It begins with an assumption of naturalism.

Faith is fundamental to those who believe we have been created; faith is fundamental to those who believe we have evolved. The billions of dollars spent and the billions of person-hours invested in the devout pursuit of a “scientific” explanation of the origin of life is the simple seeking of justification for believing what the evolutionists accepted – by faith – in the beginning. The pretentious ridicule of faith by evolutionists is a foolish denial of the fundamental role of faith in the functioning of human perception. The self-righteous disdain in which some of the religious look upon many scientists is an ignorant denial of the nature of the human mind – whether created or evolved.

“I am not a person of faith, I am a person of science.” Humbug. “I am not a person of science, I am a person of faith.” Equally humbug. At the core of science is faith in our ability to gather sufficient evidence, measure it with satisfactory accuracy, and to interpret it correctly. And the most faith-based persons among us use rudimentary scientific reasoning in the course of our daily lives – our vocations, our decisions.

Maybe it is better to be uncertain of a truth which we can not prove, than to be certain of a falsehood which is assumed to be proven.

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[1] Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons.” The New York Review.

(9 Jan. 1997) 31.

[2] The American Heritage Dictionary. (New York: Dell, 2001)