Choose Wisdom

Anonymous Wisdom is a common theme in all disciplines of human thought. Wisdom as an understanding and realization of both the world around us and the metaphysical can be seen in philosophy, religion, and even modern psychology. So, as class that is focused on religious texts that provide understanding of the Jewish tradition during a period of great conflict, wisdom naturally plays a large part in reading and understanding these writings. Wisdom is also present in the mundane, in the everyday, in normal life. Outside of our hotel, there is a diving platform erected several hundred yards offshore. This platform is bright white, eliminated at night, and far to tempting for me. So this afternoon, I threw on a pair of shorts and swam out to it. The swim wasn't too difficult, but it was much longer then I thought. The water, for it being January and cloudy outside, was surprisingly warm, making the swim actually pretty nice. The tide was low, not neap but still low enough that I would have to use the sketchy looking ladder attached to the base. I got to the platform, pulled myself up, and climbed to the top. It was nearing sunset on a cloudy day, but even in the wanning light, I could see all the way to the bottom. The water was beautiful and transparent, and covered a bead of very mean looking coral. Wisdom kicked in and I decided not to dive off of the 20 ft platform. In religious interpretation, there are two types of wisdom, experiential wisdom and mantic wisdom. Experiential wisdom is pretty self explanatory. It is wisdom you gain from you experiences, perceptions, and knowledge. Mantic wisdom is metaphysical wisdom and must be revealed to you by the divine. Out of the two, it was experiential wisdom that influenced my decision not to swan dive. Nothing divine spoke to me, the clouds did not open up, I had no vision of myself impacting the reef below, no angle landed on the platform and asked "Dude, really?". Instead I drew from my experiences (most of which resulting in negative outcomes) with diving, jumping, falling, and flopping off of objects that I probably should have had nothing to do with. I instead walked down a couple levels and jumped in. During high tide, I'm sure there is more than enough water between the surface and the coral, but I did not want to find out how deep the high platform would take me in the shallower waters.