(This is a follow up to Six Words and Honest.)
The original key phrase to this word was no foolish statements and as I begin this process, I don’t know exactly what I meant, especially considering what I thought about in the Honest discussion and the overall goal of this project to stop complaining and work towards becoming more calm.
There is foolishness in saying things that don’t need to be said; most of my complaining falls into this category. They are factual, but saying them is an act of foolishness.
Then there are simply foolish statements, nonsense like “tax cuts for the wealthy creates jobs”, or the lyrics to The Beatles’ I am the Walrus, or any story told by a four-year-old.
The last two serve as a warning against speaking gobbledygook just to fill the silence. There’s nothing wrong with silence but our modern lives seem to discourage it.
The first example serves as a warning not to talk in theories that simply don’t align to reality, but also about urban legends and pretty much every story we hear from a link on a like on a quote tweet to some anecdote on TikTok.
I am reluctant to agree to those terms. As a fiction writer, I need those stories, and I understand many stories we tell try to point to some truth that fact can’t manage. The Onion thrives by satire. So is it foolish to use satire to communicate? I can’t decide.
The idea of Wise from the original six words started with anti-foolishness and an unclear idea, other than generally not misleading people intentionally or unintentionally. I see this as fundamentally different from Honesty, and a bridge between that at Knowledge. I suspect this is a pretty weak reasoning. It’s part of my desire not to say something unless I know it is true. I will allow myself to hedge my bets with a lot of “I think …” and “I guess …” and load up my conversation with disclaimers that I might be full of shit, but I am responding to a query with a theory.
But how does no foolish statements pair up to Stoicisms’ cardinal virtues?
Courage – sometimes a foolish statement is made do fill an uncomfortable silence. Our society doesn’t like silence. Any clear air needs to be filled. Even our “silent” retreats use water features or bells or piped-in birdsong. It can take an act of courage to just sit in silence and use the time to examine the discomfort we feel so we can eliminate it. It is irrational to fear silence and there is always background noise of the real world. In an age of distraction it takes courage just to sit with our own thoughts in what the modern world would claim is “unproductive”.
Moderation, temperance, or self-control. This seems to be the most applicable. The impulse to fill the void should be resisted, and the reasons for wanting to do so are probably not good for me. I want to say something to sound smart. Unless I am certain that what I have to add is germane and helpful, it is better to keep listening or ask clarifying questions.
Justice. Here I feel like it is a stretch to say that our foolishness in speech hurts others, but there are various “laws” that warn us of the danger. There is Poe’s Law which states that no matter how satirical a statement against some thought, it will be indistinguishable from the real thing by someone.
I also have a habit of snark, and despite my best intentions, I could say something that truly wounds.
Practical wisdom. The more I look at this aspect of virtue the more I associate it with the discipline of assent. It is always a case of watching myself carefully and examining my impulses.
This has been a chore, and I feel this particular entry is a collection of weak sauce. I hope to move forward and maybe give this word some better context.