Knowledge empowers people. It gives those who know an advantage over those who don’t. And when that knowledge is put to use and turned into skill, the life of the knowledgeable becomes easier. This wisdom adds comfort to life. Wisdom embellishes people’s dreams. That’s all well and good, but are we aware that if “knowledge” is not real, then neither is “wisdom”? This idea, contrary to what we are accustomed to, confused me. Isn’t it necessary to become wise as we learn, and to become superior as we become wise?

To understand this, I thought of a man. One of the wisest men of the most ignorant era… He was one of only 17 people in that city who could read and write. His family was noble, and he was religious. He served pilgrims and distributed water. So, how did such a wise man become a denier when he encountered the truest form of knowledge? He was known for his wisdom but remembered for his ignorance. Though he had enough knowledge to be considered the wise man of his time, he could not become the wise man of truth. Because he could not absorb true knowledge, he succumbed to his desires and remained the wise man of ignorance. What mattered was what he knew and what he did with that knowledge. As I thought about it, my dreams were turned upside down. Like in an old song, “I thought and was separated from my dream.” Because a wrongly constructed dream is also a fall…

Then another thought came to me. He was also one of the wisest of his kind. He trusted his knowledge so much that he saw people as inferior to himself. “Am I supposed to bow down to this?” he said. He even despised the very essence of humanity. He too distanced me from my dream. For it was clear that knowledge alone was insufficient.

Then I immersed myself in another’s thoughts. One who could not read or write, yet knew the truest form of knowledge. An orphan, yet always protecting the oppressed… Without a noble lineage, yet more courteous than anyone else. He was poor, but he never looked askance at what was entrusted to him. He carried the power of knowledge, but he never abandoned his mercy… When one’s thoughts are like this, one does not stray from one’s dreams. The more one thinks, the more one wants to think. It never leaves one’s mind for a lifetime. Where does true knowledge come from? The most ignorant can come from the most powerful, and the wisest can come from the most oppressed.

People wait for great places for great words, yet sometimes a great word is spoken under a tree. People wait for good opportunities to feel rich, but the greatest wealth comes in a cave. Even if they wait for victory to set out on the road, sometimes they set out the day after defeat, covered in wounds.

In this age where one can become wise with a small phone or tablet, “wise ignorance” threatens us all.