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A Wise Person Learns

From fool to wisdom, ending on Socrates.

No. 1833 haiga4:50
From the curator

From fool to wisdom, ending on Socrates. It begins with a parade of collective nouns — a folly of fools, a confusion of morons — before the title poem sets the terms: the wise learn more from fools than fools will ever learn from the wise. The first verses are folly in action: the mark at the poker table, the head in the sand. Then learning itself — asking questions, being proven wrong, forgetting the old to make room for the new. The later haiga weigh words (their value, their truth, the ones you can’t swallow back) and the advice of elders and books. It closes on the oldest paradox: Socrates was wise because he knew he wasn’t.

The haiga, in order

33 haiga · as they appear in the video
  1. a folly of fools / a confusion of morons / an alley of clowns
  2. a wise person learns / more from the foolish, than fools / will learn from the wise
  3. one boy has a brain / two boys share a brain, while three / boys have shit for brains
  4. if you look around / a poker table and can’t / spot the mark, it’s you
  5. a spoon does not know / the taste of soup, nor a fool / the taste of wisdom
  6. burying your head / in the sand does not prevent / a kick in your ass
  7. it is easier / to judge something than it is / to understand it
  8. asking a question / only makes you a fool if / you miss the answer
  9. if you know all the / answers, then you have not been / asked the right questions
  10. when you hear one word / you should always take the time / to understand two
  11. tell me, I'll forget / show me, I may remember / involve me, I'll know
  12. if you are never / bored you will never learn how / you can get unbored
  13. you only learn when / things go wrong, rarely when things / turn out to be right
  14. being proven wrong / means that your understanding / of the world improved
  15. Learning something new / is impossible unless / you forget the old
  16. making a mistake / and not correcting it is / also a mistake
  17. is it harder to / set a good example or / follow a bad one
  18. the value of words / is in their quality not / in their quantity
  19. once words leave your mouth / there is nothing you can do / to swallow them back
  20. pleasant words often / are not true, while true words are / often unpleasant
  21. the more you insist / you are telling us the truth / the less we believe
  22. even when you tell / the truth, some people will not / ever believe you
  23. it is harder to / say nothing than it is to / say I told you so
  24. if you want to learn / how to succeed, consult with / three older people
  25. having gray hair means / you might be wiser, but are / certainly older
  26. you are in the wrong / place if you think you are the / smartest person there
  27. minds like parachutes / are only useful when they / are open, not closed
  28. a library full / of unread books is knowledge / that will be forgot
  29. reading a good book / is the easiest way to / live another life
  30. the start of wisdom / begins with a feeling of / what is right or wrong
  31. while good advice is / often annoying, most bad / advice rarely is
  32. advice to myself / usually falls upon / the deafest of ears
  33. socrates was not / wise and knew it, which is why / we say he was wise
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