Doing our own inner work

"Figure of Wisdom"

Creative Commons

This can provoke a lot of thought for those who will let it:

We do not receive wisdom,
we must discover it for ourselves,
after a journey through the wilderness
which no one else can make for us,
which no one can spare us,
for our wisdom is the point of view
from which we come at last to regard the world.

-- Marcel Proust

Actually, I don't think this means that wisdom cannot be taught or shared. It does mean, however, that each person has to integrate it and apply it according to his or her own context. We can't just scoop up someone else's wisdom wholesale and run with it.