Wisdom is found on the lips of him who has understanding,
But a rod is for the back of him who is devoid of understanding.
Proverbs 10:13 (NKJV).
Perhaps it's just the timing, but of late it's been on my mind that our lives have an inertia to them when we are intentional about how we live. When we take the time to think about what we do, why we do it, even down to what we say, not leaving anything entirely to chance. We experience no fewer struggles or setbacks, but because we've practiced intent, when circumstances really do demand our attention and our focused application of skill, even when things are going terribly for us we can keep moving forward.
In this passage, it's easy to desire understanding, if for no other reason than to avoid the contrast with the rod to our backs. Images of old childhood disciplinary methods bubble up, and that's not accidental given that wisdom and discipline are connected.
This seems rather obvious, right? Who would want to lack understanding if that meant "the rod"?
Thus the nature of the first deceit in Genesis, and the root of the most frequent pattern that has continued to this day. The deceit is that the rod doesn't exist, that consequences don't matter. You can choose whatever you want, do whatever you want, there is no "wrong".
And in turn, there is then no value in the sacrifices, the discipline, that is associated with wisdom.
Even in modern manufacturing we see this philosophy make an appearance, designing gadgets and widgets which can be assembled and subsequently operated with less and less skill required. The superficial claim is that this means that production is more efficient, less time wasted on steps for "quality", which are by nature not "value-added" activities. The end-users also don't have to waste time learning or validating anything, but can instead spend time just "doing".
Yet in practice the results are that because the people assembling and operating the gadgets and widgets don't need to be as skilled, they'll simply adapt and yesterday's "easy" becomes today's "normal", and folks start complaining all over again about the difficulties being faced. Instead of using that extra time more effectively, we fill it with wasteful activities, because whenever we've got a surplus of a resource, we never naturally try to make the most of it.
It's abundant, so why should we pinch pennies if we're "rich"?
We instinctively relegate our learning to only to that which are absolutely mandatory, what we're forced to learn, in the name of "efficiency". While we do then spend more time "doing", when anything goes wrong we have to stop, call on the services of someone who knows what to do next, and after the problem has been resolved we can then continue. Hopefully we also learn from the event so that we can avoid requiring assistance in the future, but if assistance is readily available, there's no pressure to take that understanding upon yourself.
We become like children, entirely incapable of acting beyond our current understanding, and constantly in need of "adults" to look after us, to direct us from moment-to-moment, to issue correction so that we can understand, and yet never really needing to grow up or go beyond what we know at the same time.
None of us knows everything, we all need help and assistance from time to time, we all have a lot that we could learn and have to select only so much to try and take on at a time, but that process is not prevented by anything but our own lack of motivation. There's nothing stopping us, we just don't want to do it.
And so we invite the rod to motivate us instead.
Wisdom without the welts would be so much better, no?
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