In the land of perpetual earthquakes, a stillness is approaching...

[Amos]

I don't think I'll ever get used to the reality that once you reach a certain age or level of maturity other people start to take your opinions seriously. Sometimes they will even act on your advice, even if you make a point of letting on just how little you know about anything at all. If you pretend to know something, or accidentally add a faintly knowledgeable tone to your voice, then the chances that you'll be listened to are increased tenfold which is terrifying when you're as aware of your ignorance as I am. And not just aware of my ignorance, but aware of my non-ignorance, aware of the vast stores of useless and speculative information, the sum total of my absurd experience that influences all that I say and do, so little of which is helpful when it comes to making important decisions and choices that I inevitably feel validated when it all goes murky because of my reluctant advice. Supposedly it's one of the finer points of wisdom that you shouldn't give advice unless asked, but ideally you should never give advice at all but try to bounce the responsibilty of choosing back to the asker, either by stressing how important it is for them to make their own decisions in life (whether or not you believe this is irrelevant), or if they're too smart to fall for such a simplistic device, by counterattacking with questions of your own, questions that will disturb them enough to get them off your back and allow you to make a quick exit. I am not saying that this sort of behaviour is what passes for wisdom in my various roles as a person. I know what wisdom is. I've read her book and seen her works, and yet while I respect her ideas I am not under any circumstances ever going to make peace with her in the confines of such limited mental and physical space as I have conquered right now, simply because she's a huge, hoary old bitch who would agree with me on virtually every subject worth subjecting but on the condition that I allow her unrestricted grazing space in the fields of my imagination. In fact unless I was completely empty I don't think I could ever accomodate the fat cow of wisdom. Hence all these forts. Hence all these attacks, counterattacks, bribes, bluffs, and battalions of lonely spies. I think more people should defer wisdom by simulating kindness in this way (by shutting up), moreso than they should do the opposite anyway, and probably more people will since my authority in all things is plainly absolute. I've noticed that people will always change if you nudge them hard enough. Maybe they will morph into monsters, maybe they will turn into trees, but at least they wont be their usual disgusting selves, replete with mental lice and fostering the little calves of wisdom so that they can serve veal to their insipid guests.

Wisdom.. Enlightenment.. They're just words when you get down to it. Not the bovine avatars of disingenuous allegories relating the nature of being to naval vessels, which is how they've always seemed to me. They are words detached by implication from my personal delusions, blissfully uncouth clouds of meta-knowledge floating above the stratified tigers of what the gentrified peasantry have termed language, which is basically a problematic rubber ball that I have partially swallowed and continually choke up bits of, which is why you can't express concisely the formulaic tour-de-force of tangled vines that might have ensnared the uber-wench if you'd only thought to get her drunk first.

Okaaaay, wait a sec. Wan't this supposed to be a reflection? Just what in Set's name happened here, Conan?