Wisdom is none else than intelligence scented by compassion.
Human beings are the only living creatures that are aware of their own awareness.
We are aware of our own existence and are the only living beings empowered by the power to decide.
Being capable of choosing our own thoughts is tantamount and immanent to our essence. We have been gifted with the ability to respond to stimuli which life poses upon us all along the years.
We can and must make use of this arcane and magic tool which we have piled with dust in the attic of our conscience and which some are keen on calling “Freedom of Choice”.
The day we make use of this gratuitous legacy, we are fulfilling our “raison d’être”—our reason to exist.
As men and women evolve, we realize that every chaos is organized just as water is organized, the moment that the mind finds an altruistic course, an approach that transcends personal interests.
The talent of a swamp is the same talent which the river holds, it is called water.
Human beings—just as swamps and rivers—have talents.
Talent is simply energy.
Energy is neither good nor bad. It can be good or it can be bad.
It all depends on how we use it.
Our being intelligent does not turn us into better human beings; intelligence is not a choice, it is merely a tool.
Intelligence in the hands of a cruel man is equivalent to a knife in the hands of an ape; it is an extremely dangerous tool.
Intelligence + Compassion = Wisdom
Intelligence + Cruelty = Stupidity
Compassion and Cruelty constitute a choice.
We can use our talents either to build or to destroy; to become stagnant and isolate ourselves like the swamp; or to flow, contribute and irrigate fields like a river.
If we fail to tap our talents and place them at the service of humanity, they become stagnant, our life becomes flooded terrain, a swamp with plenty of water, plenty of talent but lacking a course, a path; it isn’t focused, it does not move, it’s paralyzed and what is paralyzed is dead because it dies with every passing day.
Curiously, when the river is born, it has less water than the swamp; however, since it has a focus, a mission, a purpose, it flows toward its goal: the ocean.
The swamp dries up one day at the time; it complains for the lack of rain and begs the skies for water.
The swamp is rough, obscure, it is an accomplished misanthrope. Its water does not move, smells bad; it is stagnant and sad.
The river is an exemplary philanthropist. Its water flows unendingly, joyful, alive, clean and clear.
The river does not complain because it lacks the time to do so; it is busy leaping, playing, freely enjoying its path toward the sea and also irrigates land on the way, giving life and food to all and everything that meets its course.
The swamp’s paradox is that the lesser it gives, the more it dries up.
The river’s paradox is that the more water it feeds to the fields, the more water it receives; the most it contributes, the most it serves, the more it grows.
The life of a person that has resembled a swamp becomes diaphanous when a cause, a purpose, a focus and Mission are found.
From times immemorial, man has intellectually fought to find his raison d’être.
Cervantes, the genius delved into the concept using the chimeric deliriums of the Quixote.
Shakespeare used to concoct a masterly description of how Hamlet agonized to discover his “reason to be”.
Maslow described it as the need to attain “Self-achievement”.
This apparently trivial and anodyne concept in our lives is in effect the most important and transcendent one in our existence.
To the degree that our “reason to be” is clear to us and our peers, our potential will grow geometrically and we shall be able to become alchemists, we could be able to transmute at will our inherent egoism into generosity.
Let us make use of our power, of the power to choose how to use our talents, because we would, in fact, be choosing our destiny at the time we elect to choose what we think.
let us be a river and not a swamp!!!
