“I know that I know nuthin/nothing.” the old adage goes. A paradoxical statement. This is actually paraphrased from “For I was conscious that I knew practically nothing…” Socrates said this in Plato’s dialogues (Plato, Apology 22d, translated by Harold North Fowler, 1966) referring to the common laborers, who he found were much wiser than him. Sounds insincere maybe if spoken by anyone without a long grey beard. If you in fact have a long grey beard, you might see folks nodding their head mumbling, “How wise, how wise.” The Oracle of Delphi said, as written by Plato, “Socrates is the wisest person in Athens.” You think ole Plato might have been pulling our leg and making fun of Socrates or was he revealing something profound about true wisdom? If he knows nuthin, how could he be wise? He was wise to look for wisdom beyond himself perhaps.

A golden clue!

This statement might perplex the average muppet. Not me though, I’m way above average, **prentious smirk**. Don’t most of us think that about ourselves? Actually IQs are dropping and I’m past middle age, so my IQ is probably really below average by now. Truthfully, it perplexed me when I first read the quote in a meme. I’m often perplexed these days. I wasn’t smart enough to be reading Plato’s dialogues at the time, I did read some later though. Actually, that quote led me to Plato and Socrates like a beacon shining blue across time and space. Plato’s seeds fell on fertile soil in my case.

So what did Socrates’ paradox, relayed to us via Plato, mean? When you delve deeper into the nature of reality, beyond initial perceptions, you find endless logical paradoxes. Socrates knew that he did not have true wisdom – only the love for it. He was not up there in the world of eternal ideas with Plato, but down here in the world of impermanence and change, together with his pupils, ignorant of the truth, but filled with desire to find it. Ultimately, I took a seat next to him, just another human being ignorant of the truth, searching for clarity. I follow his example and look in the low places first, under every rock. I do not place myself above anyone or go around proclaiming the Truth and expecting others to just accept it or raise themselves up to a superior level.

True wisdom is found in true humility then? Wisdom begins with the realization you are full of shit mostly and likely engaging in mental masturbation most of the time. Perhaps true wisdom is taking nothing as final. How could you in a world of change? Best to stay loose then? Go with the flow? I’ve practiced this and have found it better to let the world be and to let others be as they are instead of trying to change them.

Hey, maybe I’m wise now? But if I think that, I couldn’t really be wise. But I wrote this blog post about the nature of real wisdom, so I must be wise! I did have a grey beard for awhile too. I was wiser then for sure. Maybe I am just a clever ape realizing my limits or maybe it’s that I was too tired to fight life anymore and when I finally sat down under a tree near the river Styx and watched the water flow, I accidentally became wise.

Well, maybe it isn’t what we say that makes us wise, but how we live, what we do. Socrates spent his time with the common folk and misleading Athen’s youth. He connected with people it seems. Maybe they got rid of him because he was asking too many questions and never answering any. And maybe that’s the real wise move, never stop seeking to do better. The act of living isn’t done until it is, so I guess I’ll never know if I was a clever or dumb ape. I’ll end where I started…

I don’t know nuthin.