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# Stick Whittling
- URL: https://www.humanacre.com/stick-whittling/
- Published: 2026-09-22T19:40:58.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T19:45:45.000Z
- Author: Niall Maxwell

***On borrowed wisdom and the deadness of knowing***

He sits lofty on an empty cloud,  
whittling sticks,  
spouting others’ utterances,  
working his afflictions through  
borrowed shafts of wood  
and wisdom.

His meagre hands,  
not without art,  
momentarily,  
sated.

So he reaches  
endlessly  
for more sticks,  
more words to whittle  
down to size  
to suit his limitation

---

When did we stop allowing ourselves curiosity and begin insisting on certainty? When did our love of learning harden into the deadness of knowing? A genuine encounter with the world requires something else: patience, a willingness to explore, and the honesty to say, without embarrassment, I don’t know. I don’t know enough.

Heart and mind may be more closely related in their capacity than we imagine. Perhaps when the heart grows, the mind becomes more spacious. Perhaps when the mind expands, the heart finds room to grow.

I wonder what the world would be like if we offered it more patience, if we allowed ourselves to wait without knowing, and if we could hold two opposing things, or even three, without forcing them into an immediate conclusion. What might reveal itself if we stayed with the tension a little longer, rather than falling back into the ridiculous regurgitation of rhetoric?

When will we become mature enough to allow ourselves to be children again?