On wise men..........................................

The Epicurean Dealmaker is re-running some of his favorite essays.  You should read all of this one.  Knowing however, that you won't, here are some excerpts:

"For one thing, age is no guarantee of wisdom. If there is one thing we should have learned from witnessing the maturation of an entire generation of Baby Boomers into full-fledged, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, materialistic emotional and intellectual teenagers with age spots and dentures, it is that.² For another, the common association of age and experience with wisdom and good judgment is and always has been weak at best, if not downright misleading. I know plenty of old people whose judgment I would not trust to order an ice cream cone. (And I’m not talking about dementia.)"

"The size of a man’s bank account, and the number of hits of his name on Google, are no measure of his intelligence, much less an indication of the quality of his wisdom."

"It is an old saying, but true nonetheless, that the wise person is certain of little but his or her ignorance. A wise man is wise enough to know what he does not know. He believes the world is too multifarious, changeable, and miraculous a place to put much trust in feeble humanity’s ability to comprehend and control it as we would wish. Therefore, a wise man counsels caution, and encourages us to pay attention to our ignorance—what we do not and cannot know—as we make our way through life."

"Never forget: every wise man started out a simple fool like you or me. He learned wisdom by questioning, by learning, and by doing. There is no secret stash of wise men waiting at Wal-Mart for us to purchase."

"It is time we manned up and learned to become our own wise men."