Thursday, December 10, 2009

To be wise or sweet

Wisdom and sweetness to you probably do not correlate to anyone in the world but me. They are both positive qualities to posses. They can both make you a better person. but for me and my opinion one is a top quality and the other the bottom. Rather than rate every quality I can think of( maybe i will if I run out of ideas for my blog) I will take the first and last. The first is wisdom and the last is of course being sweet. Before you judge to harshly remember this is my opinion and as my friend Jonny would say "Don't take away my opinion" . I don't believe there is anything wrong with sweetness. It's still a great thing to posses and the world could use more sweet people, but that doesn't mean people like to be around you. Pay attention next time when you are about to say something bad about a friend, most times you'll start off with "don't get me wrong he's really sweet,But ..." or "she sure annoys the hell out of me, but hey she is sweet" Show signs of wisdom however, and people still don't care that much. Rare is a time that you'll hear anyone under 60 say "wow, is he wise". This is because we tend to believe we are the smartest people in the room no matter where we are.
Wisdom to me is not just intelligence, it's what we can discern from people. This is why we love those quotes so much like ol Abe Lincoln or Bill Shakespeare. Number one it makes you sound smarter if you can rattle off the Gettysburg address from memory. two, it gives you validation. But when you think about it, who is Pablo Neruda to tell me that laughter is the language of the soul. He actually does have some great poems and went through some real crap, but my point is why can't Mike down the street tell me the same thing and I believe him? Well maybe Mike did and I just wasn't listening because he's Mike, not some eloquent commie or a playwright from a million years ago. The truth is a wise person can gain insight and truth from almost any conversation or experience. A sweet person can be sweet. Both can change the lives of those around them. A sweet person can bring a lot of joy and sweetness. A wise person can help resolve questions in your life, or maybe they understand that advise that goes wrong can make your best of friends worse than your most hated enemies, so they will choose to be sweet and just say "i don't know, but I sure like you"
Both qualities have their fall backs. If you are sweet you can find yourself doing thing you might just hate, but you can't say no because "that would make them feel bad". So before you know it you're sitting at an Uncle Cracker concert, wishing for a natural catastrophe to take the building out and put you all out of your misery. Being wise can seem you don't get to do a damn thing. For instance it never seems wise to go gambling in the middle of the night when you have work in a couple of hours. Or if you ever have used a credit card period. But a wise person knows that not all knowledge comes from books. sometimes you have to experience some life on you're own. Sometimes you need to go with the choice that everyone around you will say "ooh, I don't think that's wise". Was it wise for the founding fathers to attack the strongest army in the world with some toothless General, some bottle rockets, with a touch of angry Frenchmen on the side? Most would say probably not. And that's where the key to wisdom comes in, that is discerning what's crazy and what could work. Often our modern-day crazies are our latter-day geniuses. (now you can quote me) Sometimes they stay mostly, just crazy. A lot of times you luck into to wisdom. however if you're able to luck into it more times than you don't then congratulations, you are considered wise.
If you can find any point to this post(big if) I think it would be to consider everything a learning experience. Even if you are smarter than everyone. Even from that person that "is sweet, but sure isn't a thinker" Well you can learn from them not to be a jerk ass, and in that is wisdom.
Stay sweet

5 comments:

  1. Not to mention that if you call a man sweet, you are basically accusing him of being a raging homosexual, something I have seen you accomplish on a number of occasions.

    Just to criticize your sweet little ass, I don't think you see sweetness as your bottom quality. In fact, several times you point out that it is good to be sweet.

    I think much lower is the quality of being an asshole like me. Bye.

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  2. I never said being sweet is a bad thing to be. I just said out of the people's qualities, and i was obilously refuring to positive qualities. It's my least favorate. Next time I'll take the time to dumb it down for you. Although I don't know how because it was pretty straight forward

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  3. First I just want to start off by saying, I think you're sweet. ;)
    Secondly, I actually want to agree and say that I think some sweet people do sometimes do things they hate, just so they won't hurt someone's feelings.. BUT does still mean they're sweet?
    Or, are they just a pushover? Or are they just worried their reputation of "sweetness" will be destroyed if they do something that may be the right thing AND happen to hurt someone's feelings in the process? (and if so, are they still sweet?)

    You pose a great question -it's got me thinking... What is sweet?
    Am I THAT sweet person, the one you describe? Or am I the conniving sweet person, who'll say one thing, mean another, and do something else depending on who's presence I'm in? Or, am I the one who is just actually sweet because I care about the people I associate with and for their well-being because I genuinely think they are a good-natured person or friend?
    Am I the one who cares so much about someone's feelings that I would do just about anything to AVOID hurting them.. even if it meant sitting through the same sob story I've heard 101 times, offered my un-expert advice to(which has been repeatedly ignored) and have 27 more important things I should be doing... I'll still - somewhere between their sobs and the daily to-do list I've compiled in my head, yearn to the point it can hurt and wish with all I have.. there was something I could do or say differently to make their hurt a little less stingy simply because I care, I'm sweet. I like to think that's the sweet I am. But others may beg to differ.

    As far as wise goes... I don't think most people would consider me ..*cough cough* wise... so I don't know that I have an opinion on that matter.

    I love the thought provoking blog.I'm pretty sure I didn't work for an entire hour while I contemplated the pros and cons of sweet and not sweet... oops.

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  4. I am the wisest and sweetest person I know.

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