# Smart people shine in the light, wise people glow in the dark

- Link: https://www.andreidraganescu.info/2016/09/27/smart-people-shine-in-the-light-wise-people-glow-in-the-dark/
- Published: 2016-09-27T09:02:35+03:00
- Author: Andrei Draganescu

![](https://draganescu.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/d063a-1ldw_xbi9pqa0o0dvvetmea.
jpeg)

#### find out why this is important

We like trinkets, since forever. We love shiny new toys and sparks and glitter and
just about anything bright that beautifully distorts the light it reflects.

#### So do crows.

Because we’re all crows who hoard crap, because its shiny and pretty, we inadvertently
have expanded this behavior on how we evaluate people. We seek the bright and shiny
in everyone around.

Smart people are bright and they come up with ideas! They always create an adventure,
they always say things in a smart way, in a way that makes us feel either warm and
fuzzy, either energized, either like something finally fell in its right place inside
our brains, or maybe they give us the strong but gentle nudge we need, to make a
decision that’s been pulling us down for years. Smart people throw glitter on things
we already knew for ages, and suddenly and inexplicably we start to appreciate dusty,
old things like they’re new again.

However, what is important to notice is that smart people shine in the light. The
light of good fortune, of peace, of abundance, of privilege, of luck and health,
of financial stability. They are in a place where the universe placed a spotlight
and all that light makes them shine so bright that we’re mesmerized. That is great,
we don’t shine like them, not everyone is smart even if intelligent, even if cultured.
Smart people make you laugh in awe.

Yet most of the universe is a dense blackout. Look up, few spotlights, the rest:
dark night. In our lives few of us are blessed with pulling a [grand jeté](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHivyA_fwpA)
from spotlight to spotlight. No ballet for me, I **walk **from A to B. And as I 
walk, I pass through valleys of shadows, dark corridors, cold basements and wet 
dungeons. All these places are poorly lit, most of the times I don’t shine and neither
does any smart companion I have in my heart or mind.

**That is why wisdom is the biggest blessing.**

Wise people are dull. Their colors sometimes don’t work with each other and they
are a lot of times Kitsch. Wise people don’t feature starry sparks, they are weirdly
assorted and mostly opaque. Many times they will embarrass you with their simplicity
and calm. When wise people are in the spotlight of good fortunes and happy coincidences,
they don’t shine, they don’t tire your eyes like snow in sunny winters, no, instead
they charge.

But when the light goes out, then the light inside them comes out. They glow. They
absorb the good circumstance, the praise and good weather, store the light in themselves,
only for pushing it out like beacons of truth when the sun sets and the storm blocks
the moonlight. Wise people make you laugh at yourself, that sucks while you’re on
the stage of the world, but it is a great comfort when sunken in the basement of
your soul.

#### Smartness is intuition and clarity, wisdom is synthesis and expression.

We’re better than crows.

We know ahead of time that to get through this random thing that happened to us,
by which I mean being alive, there is plenty of darkness to embrace you. Therefore
let’s use our superior intelligence and start hoarding the things we really need
in times of need.

Think of your leaders and spiritual gurus, think of your self improvement coaches
and movie stars turned philosophers, think of your financiers morphed to minimalist
ascetic Spartans, think of your financially accomplished mini celebrities hosing
advice as secrets to success, think of all those exposing the obvious, all those
in feuds in which they can’t loose, all the stuff you read and which could turn 
into energizing PowerPoint slides, each and every sentence (did you know: that “
inspirational” energy you feel is coming out of you not going into you?), go on,
think of all these you can think of, and then picture them all in on a theater stage,
all crowded together like sardines in a jar, all with their smarts shining at you,
along with their perfect smiles. Now cut off the power. Zap. The theater is dark
and the stage looks like the void of space. Who glows?

If metaphors aren’t your forte, I mean, looking closely I noticed all these smart
people standing on real or imaginary tribunes, they’re all happy accidents. Sure,
excuse my generalizations, it is just that they’re everywhere.

When wars happen, when cataclysms happen, when our stupid games called “world”, “
country”, “economy” or “work” fail because we’re not paying attention to conflicting
rules, to scenarios where you loose no matter what you do, and to the fact that 
all of them are based on rolling dice, when the darkness creeps up upon us, suddenly
our smart leaders aren’t to be seen. No smart ideas and one sentence inspiration
ever solved real world problems.

#### We then need the wise. But the wise need us too.

You see, we are led by smart people and that is our doom. We trust people because
they’re rich and successful. We trust people because they always have smart replies.
We vote demagogues exactly because demagogues are smart people who shine in the 
light. We flock to smart people as leaders in just about anything we do, but nevertheless,
yesterday, today and tomorrow, when the light goes out we remain blind, aimless 
and violently scared of each other’s darkened silhouette.

That is why we need to find the wise, the ones who are right now in the dark and
glow. They probably are not having branded domain names online, probably not on 
TV … probably, some are, I don’t know. We need to discern and think: will this person’s
brilliance hold the weight of dust and ashes? We need to shine the light on these
wise people, because they are the people who internalize experience and make light
from it, the light that will help us see each other’s smiles even if the Sun itself
turns off tomorrow.

Do you know any wise people? Tell everybody, sponsor them, amplify their quietness
and humble existence in any way you can, promote them to people so that they in 
turn will be our glowing help ripping through the dusk of the future’s uncertainty
which lies ahead for all of us.

No smart line will be ending this story or embarrassment would suffocate me, thank
you, yours,

A