Dreaming astride an abyss
then sailing away
anteceded sudden loss —
as though stars fade out
while slumber eludes my grasp

Wisdom is a funny kind of thing. It feels like one of those things that, it would seem, the more of it one has, the less of anything else they have. In spite of this, some people relentlessly seek it out and perhaps for the same reason some people avoid it like it’s a disease.

Not to be confused with common sense, which surely works the other way around, wisdom comprises a set of indissoluble truths that can only be truly gleaned through honest observation of, and interaction with, the Universe. Like Pokemon, some believe you gotta catch ’em all, and yet it seems like each one is as wriggly and slippery as an eel. Each truth is hard to hold, harder to keep, and one can’t possibly internalize the entire set in a single lifetime.

Maybe it’s an undesirable side-effect of middle age, but it feels like the more time wears on, the less wisdom is in evidence in the way affairs are carried out in the world; common sense, too, seems to be falling by the wayside. The news is full of examples of this seeming decay.

Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before we are all plunging into that infinite abyss I saw in my dream — each of us just one in a crush of lemmings driving recklessly toward the edge precipice.

Is that too negative? I don’t know . . . I can’t pretend to have an infinite well of optimism. Perhaps there’s little wisdom in saving my writing for just the sunny days. There are other days — darker days — and those need to be aired out just as much, if not more.