The Beginning

I have been writing about wisdom for decades, and the only audience was myself. I attribute all of blessings I enjoy to wisdom instead of following my natural inclination, whim, and desire. I write each piece rigorously and try hard to live by it - I never want to forget the lessons I find from all people and events around me. I respect the body of wisdom, and the highest form of respect is letting it govern my behavior over my inclination. I acknowledge that I have been a stubborn rebel to wisdom, and the only remedy I found was convincing myself both emotionally and rationally why I need to do what is wise. I document my best attempt to persuade myself in writing, which has kept me in checks for decades and grown sizable enough to be a book.

I feel content with my own life, but I found two reasons for going public with my writings. One, I will have my son soon, and I want him to grow into a wise man. Though my own writing convinces myself, I want to test if an unspecified audience would find it persuasive and valuable. It will be meaningful if I can pass it down to my son, knowing it is somewhat persuasive from others' perspective.

Two, the world is chaotic and there are enough natural and man-made disturbances that only wisdom may help us face them. I want to at least help people react wisely to some of those disturbances. For anyone living in this modern world, it is absolutely costly to not seek shelter in wisdom, and maybe that’s why you are reading this blog. I believe wisdom is the antidote against all suffering and wisdom never fails across time and settings. I wish this project can help readers to be wiser, and make our world a little bit better with each piece of wisdom.

I believe this project is meaningful that it my first systematic attempt to describe the body of wisdom publicly. I believe it will be useful for anyone facing both critical times and daily lives.

Principles

I pay respect to wisdom, and these principles will govern how this blog will be written. I will do my best to write each piece in following manners:

• General. It does its best to remove personal opinion, stance, and bias as much as possible. Almost all posts are tough to digest myself. No post targets a specific settings as the target audience is humanity unless noted otherwise.

• Concise. No post is intended to be more difficult or longer than necessary, though some posts may have depth to fully understand.

• Consistent. All posts are supposed to be internally consistent, and all posts support each other and make up a coherent big picture of wisdom.

• Relevant. All posts are relevant to the body of wisdom. There is no other target subject.

• Effective. All posts are intended to help readers to actually act according to wisdom by methods of rational and emotional persuasion.

About the author

I am a financial economist and I truly love what I do. I consider myself an ordinary person with a slightly abnormal passion in economics and wisdom.

Why does an economist want to write about wisdom? Economics is the social science about making wise decisions with finite resources. Wisdom is the body of knowledge that helps us make better decisions, and economics and wisdom share much in common. Economics is a systematic tool for wiser decisions because it helps us convert our preferences and feelings into numbers and facts, back and forth. I think my training and career helped me sharpen my writing and theory on wisdom. I hold degrees in economics, mathematics, statistics and finance.

Organization.

This blog is a one-person project started in March 2024. I target to write one-piece of wisdom every week, and there are 4 main topics.

1. Foundation puzzle collects pieces of foundational wisdom, including definition, and useful characteristics of wisdom. We discuss what it means to be wise, why we want to be wise, and the consequences of being wise. I suggest readers to read these pieces first before attempting to read other pieces.

2. Growth puzzle collects pieces of wisdom about growing mature, independent, responsible with wisdom. It shares what it means to grow wisely, why we want to grow and how to grow optimally.

3. Application puzzles collect pieces of wisdom that helps us to think, act, behave and live wisely. Knowledge of deepest wisdom is dead when we do not use. We focus on the wisdom of doing things wisely.

4. Reflection puzzle collects famous quotes and traditional writings of wisdom and try to rigorously extract wisdom and make sense in the modern context.