It’s easier to believe things. Belief saves you from uncertainty.

You believe you can take shelter in your position, in your money… or in your knowledge.

It’s easier to accumulate many honors, a lot of money, or a lot of knowledge.

What is not so easy, is to be continuously intelligent.

 

I am not saying the former are not useful.

They are so long useful as the system they pertain to is relevant.

It’s not hard to imagine a reversal of fortune – a war breaks out and your honors are your burden now, your material possessions taken away from you… and you’d rather trade your professional knowledge for the ability to shot a gun.

The war example is not extreme.

The reliance on the outside objects is extreme. It is extremely unreliable. But you think it is extremely reliable. You are extremely wrong.

If you look closely at the world, you will quickly see how rapidly everything changes… your job was well-payed once but now a computer took your place. You used to know a lot in the fields, but now you know nothing. You used to be someone… now you’re just an old man.

 

You can’t rely on nothing but intelligence.

You can’t rely on knowledge. You can use it intelligently… but intelligence is always first. Without intelligence, knowledge is like a book in an unknown language.

Really, you can only ever rely on intelligence.

You can only approach things freshly, youthfully…

In such approach, unskewed, unpremeditated, creative, true intelligence can flourish.

Such insight is countlessly more valuable then any dead-fixed response. It is based on the moment and relevant in the moment. Knowledge-based decisions can only be based on the dead-past. Hence, they are irrelevant.

Approach things anew, with an unspoiled clarity of an empty, intelligent mind.