Slow Havamal: 5

[kylec]

In the fifth verse, we learn that a man should be wise if he plans to wander far, for a life spent at home will always be easier. If he sits among wise men and has nothing to say, he will only be laughed at.

This verse strikes me as a classic challenge of the guardian. A salty old fellow who sits beside the bridge (maybe with a wide brim hat) warns you off, saying, “Best stick with what you know, boy. Don’t go makin’ a fool of yourself.” Yet he does nothing to prevent you from crossing. It’s up to the traveler to think twice. His worth is questioned, the fear of arrogance planted, and he must find the middle ground between the two, and the courage to proceed.

We start with a paradox. If a man needs wisdom to wander widely, how can be possibly have gotten the prerequisites sitting around at home? He can’t, and that’s the trap that discourages the less confident from ever setting foot outside. I’m not good enough, so why bother? My notion of wisdom is something like Alfred Korzybski’s notion of knowledge. There is no content, no facts to repeat. The only content is structural, which mean how things relate to one another. A wise person has certain experiences that are intricately related, and which provide a frame of reference for future action. The more experiences, and the more connections between them, the wiser the person.

It’s always easier to stick close to home. There’s less energy and risk in staying in the same town, the same job, among the same people. That’s no criticism of people who make that choice. Often, it might be just the thing they need. A little stability would do many people some good, and if you haven’t even squared away the basics, venturing out into greater challenges poses a problem. Home is not just a physical location. It’s also a comfort zone. It’s our habits of thought and belief, our routines, the familiar stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what the world is like. It’s different for each person, but highly stereotyped for a given individual. Usually, it involves being surrounded by others who keep the same, or at least mutually comprehensible, homes.

If home doesn’t tickle your ivories, though, how can you leave without wisdom? Remember that knowledge is structural. I imagine stars—bright pinpricks on a vast black field. When we see a number of them, we can draw a constellation. What it looks like depends on which stars are visible, but also the way we relate them, and in a given field, no two people would connect the dots exactly the same. There’s no need to plunge off the deep end (though I suspect that could work). From the dimly lit home sky, I can venture out a short ways, collecting new experiences to add to my field of stars, and integrating them with the others. Use them to make new shapes. Then venture a little farther, and a little farther, spiraling outward until my radius takes me far from those familiar constellations of my youth, even if it passes by them at times. Wisdom is gained a little at a time, usually the hard way.

Two men can visit the same city and have vastly different experiences. One who arrives with few known stars will fit the things he sees into that context, which limits what can even break the surface of his attention. He might hop on a tour bus and be shuttled quickly through a few notable sites and tourist traps, explained in the same way every time by a guide. He’ll take the right pictures, eat the right meals, and turn in to his hotel room with all the comforts of home. Another may come with more knowledge, and spend his time exploring. Seeking a few things, for sure, but also looking. Listening. Moving where the spirit moves him. Maybe his broader historical context allows a richer appreciation even of the tourist sites, though he’d hang on the fringes of the photographic throng.

A wide wandering needn’t be a literal trip to a faraway place. Any situation we encounter can add to our wisdom, if we approach it with open eyes and allow for a novel experience, instead of following the script. Each time, our understanding deepens, and we’re better equipped to learn from the next one, and the next. At some point, we may be able to sit among the wise.

Odin’s warning that we’ll be laughed at if we place ourselves among them prematurely with nothing to say reminds me of the Duning-Kruger Effect. As a person gains knowledge, their confidence increases disproportionately to their actual experience. Soon after beginning a course of study (in anything: welding, bird watching, nutrition, reading old poems aloud on the internet, prepping for disasters, dog whispering, crystal gazing, business consulting, art therapy, tour guiding…), there is a sharp tendency to overestimate one’s level of knowledge. By a LOT. If we keep at it, humility to will kindly slap us off that peak, Mount Stupid, and after tumbling in confidence into the Valley of Despair, we may just have the courage to pick up the pieces, shut up, and keep walking.


To sit among the wise with nothing to say is to overestimate yourself. The wise can be actual people, places, a text, or the depths of the self, among other things. It is craving to be a part of something you haven’t earned, and all the attention that comes with it. The fool’s seat. Rather than embarrass ourselves by missing all the jokes, we should take an accurate sounding of our knowledge, and work quietly to improve it through experience, which is not the same as post-secondary studies. While wise people are few and far between, the wisdom of everyday experience surrounds us always. Right where we are, we can see the world differently. Draw more nuanced constellations. Find meaning that was hidden to our previous sophomoric passes. We sit among the wise at all times, and the less we realize it, the more foolish we look.