Reflections on Wisdom: 2

Herein lies the fundamental problem with Wisdom: it is cloaked in the decidedly ragged garb of Advice. Yes, ragged, I say – Advice which has enormous holes, which is held together by a few loose threads, which is easily torn apart under the slightest pressure. It is only after one has donned the filthy rag and wandered around Hades for a spell, fending off men-slugs and three-headed dogs with a flute, that one can determine whether it is indeed mere Advice or actually and in fact mighty Wisdom. Every self-respecting wiseman will be only too pleased to sit at your kitchen table drinking Earl Grey, eating boiled eggs, and praising the virtues of Wisdom. But what of the man who, donning his ragged cloak and descending to the Netherworld, hopes against hope it will prove to be Wisdom, yet discovers, as beastmen rend him to bloody gore and shards of bone, that the blasted thing is, after all, just Advice – and Bad Advice at that? It would be a wise move indeed to place tags on the backs of these cloaks, reading either ‘100% authentic Wisdom’ or ‘Produced from the Best Quality Advice’.