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Wisdom is to be found in the Wooden Books series Trivium, Quadrivium, Sciencia and Designa. I am seeking the wisdom found in the Classic education started by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras in about 500 BCE. These books are a modern attempt at bringing those foundational ideas of Western culture to the Modern world. I try to understand each idea on a page before moving on and am astonished by every page at the things those ancient people discovered and the perfections they created. Their ideas have opened my eyes and mind to the ubiquity of wonderful things with which the world surrounds us.

The mail delivered Trivium last week, but I had only finished Designa, and dipped well into Quadrivium when it arrived. Therefore I opened the package but didn’t make any attempt to begin, until an hour ago, when it happened to fall open to page 322. There was WISDOM, and that is where last night’s post ended; so I read those two facing pages, and as always with the Wooden Books series got to the essence of the ideas I have been sort of struggling with all my life. Sad to say these were things I sought for  but missed. That was sad because I was specifically seeking these exact things for decades. Way back in the 1960s I was reading H. L. Mencken’s books, especially his massive book on Quotations, where I spent months, possibly years, reading and rereading, looking for “common sense to an uncommon degree” (Coleridge). I spent years in that pursuit. I even wrote a book on the subject, “Tao and War”. But I never encountered such a simple statement as follows from Trivium:

“Phronesis bestows both an understanding of first principles of general knowledge and good judgment, and a shrewd ability to apply what’s appropriate to each situation. It involves being good at reasoning, evaluating evidence, and comparing alternatives. Cicero translated the term as providentia, meaning foresight. The medieval Latin Schoolmen later contracted this into prudentia, referring to the ability to appreciate the uniqueness and complexity of any given situation, with appropriate awareness of the long-term risks and implications of each possible action.” p.322

When reading the links I made in the above paragraph it became apparent that even in those links the ideas discussed were so generalized that little wisdom could be gained by reading them. They spoke of practical experience as being necessary but gave no pointers as to how it could be obtained. Even Machiavelli gave helpful instructions; for example, get into close contact with the kinds of people you seek to become like. That advice is specific and actionable.

Yesterday’s post Do It Right, about the symbiotic relationships between happy, healthy, wise and wealthy did provide a path to follow. It was a prudent path and reasonable. I have posted about Jesus’ path, a staircase, as described in his Beatitudes, but that was a spiritual path and not a practical path such as Seneca was promoting at the same time, and now I have this path which makes more sense and is easy to do. For example …

Join groups of people who are trying to create good things and participate in their activities and avoid joining the opposite kinds of groups.