- So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. -
We’ve been talking a lot through this chapter how Solomon hit the bottle and started to explore folly to see where meaning resided.
In verse 12, we see him returning to see the benefits of wisdom as compared to wisdom and folly.
Now, there’s a lot here to discuss, though some of you may have already guessed the punchline.
Why is Solomon returning to this question? Well, he lived the good life, and now he’s getting serious, thinking about what his kids are going to do after he’s gone.
What will the next king need to be like?
Solving this problem became more urgent, and the wisdom he had been walking with, even throughout his pursuit of folly, woke him up.
To really address this verse, we need to address one of the greatest dangers of our time.
Kids.
Yes, folks. There driving too fast through your neighborhood, playing music orchestrated by Satan, and worse than all that – they think they know everything.
But, they are the future, which is a little important. Plus, there’s the dirty little secret we were them once.
It seems to me many of us once we hit our teenager years have a pretty good idea of what’s wrong with society. Some of us are even so clever that given a day and enough power, we could fix it for good.
There’s a reason for that. Maybe the best way to explain it is something called working and long-term memory.
Every wonder why those darn kids can figure out how to use their phones and social medias so quickly? Well, it’s because the information they experience is new.
What do I mean? They haven’t learned what everything is, so they bring imagination to mundane objects.
The sticks in your backyard that need to be picked up? Yeah, they’re actually a collection of swords, wands, and possibly a future fort.
As adults, that working memory is more filled in. We know sticks don’t cut, but they do burn.
The lack of a developed working memory allows children to see the world in a new way. They can revive that what we see as still.
Adults bring the benefit of long-term memory. Shocker, but the longer you live, the more stuff you know.
This long term memory is practically limitless. Sure, you may have forgotten where you put your car keys, but you know what it’s like to go on a first date, apply for a job, and buy a house.
You have the lived experience that can only be purchased with time.
So, for a child who sees everything with new eyes walking into the world of an adult who sees everything “as it is,” well it can feel stifling or dead.
They want to reawaken what it could mean to exist in this world. Why? Well, they have little idea of what works and what doesn’t and just how dire things can be.
That naivety does a lot of work.
Solomon’s point here? The next king is going to find himself struggling to do anything different than I’ve already done.
In a significant sense, he’s right. What the child will add will be what children have always been providing.
New eyes with which to see the world. A chance to revitalize the dead structures inhabited by their fathers before them.
Love the point about childhood imagination! I want more of that!