The Great Reduction. Jay Trott

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СКАЧАТЬ pyramids. The Egyptians, thinking their kings were divine and lived on after death, filled the pyramids with things the kings would need in the afterlife. Those things remained untouched until the tomb raiders came along.

      Our works, no matter how great they may be, become vexing when we see that they cannot fill the sea of our desire. They cannot make us happy. We must look somewhere else.

      That which is crooked cannot be made straight.

      Through our great works and search for wisdom we are trying to redress a certain perceived crookedness. We want to present an upright image to the world—we want to be straight—but we cannot deceive ourselves. In old age it becomes very plain that what is crooked cannot be made straight.

      Solomon has had his own crookedness revealed to him. For one thing, he debased marriage with his multiple wives and concubines. He had a personal warning about taking foreign wives and turning away to their gods, and yet he did it anyway.

      There was also a warning in the law. While the Israelites were still wandering in the desert, they were told that if they appoint a king, “neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.”

      Solomon did both of those things to glorious excess, as he himself tells us. The purpose of Proverbs was to make the crooked straight, but in his old age Solomon has seen that what is crooked cannot be made straight, not by human hands anyway. The crookedness is part of who we are.

      Augustine had a term for this, but we will not use it here. Suffice it to say that old men know their crookedness better than anyone, lying awake on their beds under the cold, full moon. But to someone like Solomon, this is a crushing revelation. What good is his wisdom if he cannot make the crooked straight?

      In fact, it is no good. The only way we can ever be truly happy is to have an identity that is straight, that reflects our heroic concept of ourselves, our desire to be thought of as good. This is the identity the philosophers tried to obtain through their endless discussions about “the good.”

      But if we are crooked by nature, then wisdom is powerless to give us what we want. We can be the wisest man in the world, like Solomon, but our wisdom cannot make us straight. This is the reason for Solomon’s reevaluation of wisdom, the thing he loved the most.

      That which is wanting cannot be numbered.

      Another take on the same idea. It is literally impossible to number that which is wanting.

      We have theories or accountings of government laid down over the ages by the wisest sages, but no one has ever counted up the perfect government. Much of the time it is not even clear to us what is holding the world together, other than sheer inertia.

      We have seen many marvelous medical advances, but we cannot take away crippling arthritis; we cannot cure cancer; if someone has “essential hypertension” we cannot make it unessential; if someone has tinnitus, we cannot make his ears stop ringing.

      The more minute our measurements become, the more we see that no amount of labor will ever amount to a full accounting. The human body alone is so complex with its complementary systems and redundancies that literally hundreds of peer-reviewed journals are dedicated to trying to understand it.

      The stars in the sky—who has counted them? Or the molecules in a fingernail? Who has counted up weather systems and fully understands them? We can see the effects, but the causes remain hidden from our eyes. The best we can do is to jump in at some vantage point and try to defend our hypothesis.

      And alas, our own behavior cannot be counted. We think and say one thing but do another. Paul has a brilliant description of this in Romans. We can love what is good, and will to do what is good, but we still wind up doing the very thing we resolved not to do.

      Most of all, what is lacking in us is life. This difference cannot be counted. The philosopher cannot overcome the difference between life and mortal life through the full accounting of his wisdom. But then his wisdom cannot give him the thing he desires most.

      Just how wise is the wisest man in the world if what is lacking cannot be counted? If he lacks happiness, how can he count himself happy? Solomon is beginning to see that wisdom has its limits. And this is personal for him, because he sought his identity in wisdom.

      Solomon made it his life’s ambition to become wise by counting what is lacking. Now he is beginning to entertain the possibility that what is lacking cannot be counted.

      Behold, I have come to greatness,

      and have more wisdom than all who went before me in Jerusalem.

      No, this is not a boast. It is a lament. He became the wisest man in the world, and one of its greatest, but now he finds that neither his wisdom nor his greatness can give him peace.

      He thought he was filling up a hole with wisdom and greatness, but he was creating a bigger one. Why? Because “all men are like the grass.” If it is life we want, which is our own built-in standard of greatness, then wisdom cannot give us what we are looking for.

      All wisdom can do is show us that we have fallen short of the mark.

      I gave myself to know wisdom and madness and folly,

      and I perceived that this too is vexation of spirit.

      “Madness and folly” mean, we think, that which is contrary to reason. If someone knows that provoking his neighbor leads to great grief, and yet continues to do it, then this is “madness” in the sense that he is not listening to his own rational faculties.

      Solomon wanted to know madness and folly as contrarieties to wisdom. He wanted to know what wisdom is through its difference from that which is madness and folly. But as we know, there was a bit of a glitch in this plan. Solomon himself was no stranger to folly.

      For example, he was not wise enough to avoid worshiping his wives’ foreign gods. What could be more foolish than worshiping things we make with our own hands, as the prophets said? What could be more mad than to ignore what God has done for us and turn away from his everlasting love?

      And yet this is just what Solomon did. It is a vexing thing to learn, as we grow older, that the madness and folly we decry in others are also seen in ourselves. In old age, wisdom and madness and folly fall into a foolish embrace.

      For in much wisdom is much grief,

      and he that increases knowledge increases sorrow.

      This is the exact opposite of what the philosophers tell us, by the way. They want us to believe that wisdom and knowledge are the key to obtaining the good of happiness. Solomon believed this himself at one time. He does not believe it anymore.

      When you are twenty-five, it is easy to convince yourself that you can obtain happiness through the pursuit of wisdom at, say, twenty-six. It becomes much harder to believe this when you are sixty-five. Wisdom and knowledge become vexatious when they cannot give you what you long for.

      You have obtained a reputation as the wisest man in the world, and still you are not at peace. How then has your love of wisdom helped you? The Queen of Sheba loves you for your wisdom. This is flattering, but if you are unhappy then how much have you really gained?

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