Spreading wisdom
Unironically
In a few weeks, I will go to a big burn!1 I’m planning on doing something crazy there: Announce that I will be giving out wise advice.
And what’s more; I will do so earnestly.
There will be no gimmick, satire or humour.
I’ll simply give the wisest advice I can.
Claiming to give out wise advice is very close to claiming to be wise. I am aware that claiming to be wise is… not very wise. This is partly because of prestige. Wisdom is reverential in a sense, something you attribute to people you respect.
If I put on my “prestige glasses”, claiming to be wise is a status claim. If people accept the claim they implicitly “transfer social status” to you. Most people aren’t up for that, and will instead try to criticise the claim.
And it’s a highly criticizable claim. Claiming to be wise is even contradictory in a sense. Wisdom involves seeing through illusion and finding perspectives that are both novel and useful.2 One such illusion is reification, where you treat contextual things as intrinsic properties.
Note the difference between saying “I‘m trying to act wisely” vs saying “I am wise”. The first sentence is about something you do while the other sentence describes the same thing, restated as an intrinsic property of yourself.
Treating things as intrinsic properties of yourself makes them harder to reason about. Some skills require constant practice. Treating them as intrinsic can result in taking them for granted, and stopping the practice.
People saying “I am wise” is falling prey to reification, failing to see through an illusion. Which isn’t very wise, hence contradiction.
So why am I planning on doing this? I want to do it because it’s scary! And I think it’s funny on a meta-level. There will be plenty of people “picking up” different roles, in a satirical and gimmicky manner. Contrast that with someone earnestly trying to give wise advice and you get a beautiful juxtaposition.
And maybe I’ll even succeed at bringing some value to someone else’s life. But I’ll hold onto that hope lightly. Getting too attached wouldn’t be wise, would it? 😉
Burn= event inspired by Burning Man