Arrogant Jared Learns His Lesson // Variant Perception #42

When I was nine, I attended High Holy Day services at our local temple, squirming in an uncomfortable chair and begrudgingly dressed in formal clothes. Usually only half paying attention, I was struck by the reciting of the “Unetaneh Tokef” prayer. The prayer's haunting refrain, deciding who will live and who will die the following year, carved a deep impression in my young mind.

"who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning.

As the prayer echoed around the temple, I recoiled from the words, unable to fathom why any divine entity would ordain such terrible fates. At that moment, I closed my prayer book, a nine-year-old atheist in the making.

Fast forward to my young adult years, brimming with arrogance and armed with facts to support my arguments, I challenged anyone who disagreed with me. I loved arguing how God did not exist. I knew with complete conviction my answer and my conclusion were correct.

Today, 32-year-old Jared recoils at the arrogance of my younger self. How unwise was I? So convicted in a belief that I shut out the possibility of anything greater even being possible.

This is interesting because humans repeat the same unwise behavior patterns despite thousands of years of existence. History books are brimming with stories about unrequited love, intense greed, overzealous passion, and speculative exuberance —lessons we must relearn with every generation.

Human behavior seems stuck in a loop, unlike our technological progress, which follows a linear or exponential growth curve. After inventing the wheel, we did not return to carrying everything on our backs.

So, why does humanity keep running in circles? Why do we still fall headfirst into financial booms, unrequited love, or the illusions of youthful arrogance?

The answer is simple to know and harder to practice. Knowledge, like the number of bones in our body or the blueprint of a combustion engine, doesn't lose its value when it spreads—it's tangible, shared, and borrowed.

But wisdom? Wisdom is a different beast altogether. It can't be transferred as effortlessly as knowledge—it has to be lived, experienced, earned. Our repetitive human patterns represent our collective struggle to acquire wisdom.

This concept is beautifully captured in a quote from Herman Hesse's Siddhartha:

"Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught."

We might find this truth in our own lives. I certainly did. It took a period of youthful arrogance and a rejection of traditional beliefs for me to recognize their unique wisdom.

In Sanskrit, there's a word for this cyclical, experiential learning: Sansara. It roughly translates to "wandering; cyclic change" or "running around in circles." Ironically, our need to experience and learn on our own, to run in these circles, is the engine that drives wisdom.

Perhaps, then, wisdom isn't just earned—it's lived, it's battled for, it's our uniquely human journey. And maybe, just maybe, that's exactly how it should be.

-Jared

P.S. This gets me thinking about what unwise conclusions and decisions I’ll be able to see when I reflect on my early 30s in another ten years. I’m sure there will be plenty that’s obvious then that I cannot see today.