Someone once told me that the difference between my perspective and that of other people was that mine was self-centered. Self-centered or not, I have original and useful thought on many subjects; and most people who claim such a thing do not.

We have some people claiming that they speak for “everyone else” or “other people” or “the world.” This is absolutely ridiculous. The world consists of 8 billion people, most of them nothing like these people. For them to be claiming to speak for such things is absurd.

What they are right about is that things stand to be learned from them. Well sure. Things stand to be learned from just about anyone. I have found wisdom in all sorts of places where I didn’t expect it, such as American inner city and rural Australia. I have even found wisdom in children. As is said, “A wise man will learn more from a fool than a fool from a wise man.”

For adequate acquisition of wisdom, a necessity is an open mind. And an open mind is not a mind that is shaped by people who wrongly claim to speak for “everyone else,” “other people” or “the world.” What we have in such situations is authoritarian imposition of formative falsehood; and that is an enemy of wisdom.

It is valid to stand by what you know. What is not valid is claiming authority that you do not have. Nobody speaks for “the world.” Nobody speaks for “everyone else.” Nobody speaks for “other people.” And in many cases it takes a radical break with people who claim such things to actually achieve wisdom.

A frequent claim about people who take that path is that they are not living in the real world. There is a lot more to the real world than what such people like to claim. Sun is the real world. Nature is the real world. Other civilizations and other societies are the real world. Inattention to such things in the name of reality has actualized in all sorts of major problems.. The adaptation is real, but it is not reality. It is an adaptation.

In many cases, in order to actually achieve wisdom one needs to make a break with how he has been brought up. This will always be experienced as disruptive; however the outcome is worth it. The result is wisdom that can be applied in all sorts of ways. Societies grow that way; civilizations grow that way. And what is experienced as disruptive becomes beneficial and formative to a more advanced wisdom that then benefits the world.