"Does wisdom have a future?"

Stephen Hall poses that question in Wisdom, and (of all places) in the gift shop of the New York Public Library. There, he found

a refrigerator magnet for sale that read, "Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness-- Confucius." Is this a way of preserving pearls of wisdom in our contemporary, mass-produced form of amber, or have economies of scale managed to turn the hard-earned coin of aphoristic wisdom into one more kind of widget?

Hmmm. We do indeed "embrace bits of wisdom, as long as they are short and compact enough" to fit on a magnet. Or in a tweet.

But isn't that better than nothing? People will always return to the refrigerator. Libraries of mere books, alas, are not so galvanizing these days.

wisdom

I love the way Stephen Hall begins his Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience, evoking the vulnerability of childhood and the desperation that can make vulnerable children of us all. It's been that kind of decade.