Theme: Wisdom
Quote:
"The mirrour of wisdom showeth not the past alone but guideth the steps of the future." — The Mirrour Which Flatters Not
At the heart of wisdom is not certainty, but reflection. This month marks both the midpoint of the calendar year and the turning of another year in my own life. As I turn 43, I find myself looking back not with nostalgia, but with a kind of measured curiosity. The mirror I have held up over these past six months has shown me much—not only the surface flaws I once tried to conceal, but the deeper patterns that have shaped how I live, respond, and believe.
This is not merely the passage of time, but a turning point. In past years, I may have marked a birthday with celebration or distraction—an evening out, a small ritual, or stealing myself away to a monastery. But this year, it feels different. The rhythm of this project, the commitment to self-examination, and the weight of what has come before have made this moment feel less like a milestone and more like a mirror. I do not simply ask, "What have I done?" I ask instead, "Who have I become?" and more importantly, "Who am I becoming still?"
July invites me to pause. Not to conclude anything, but to consider what I’ve seen so far and what it might mean for the road ahead. The entries I’ve written have taken me through self-awareness, humility, truth, virtue, transience, and moderation. Each one peeled back a layer. Each one left a mark. I have emerged from them not only more aware, but more willing to confront myself without retreat.
Now, with the guidance of ancient voices—Cicero, Seneca, Confucius—I turn toward wisdom. Not as a destination, but as a discipline. Wisdom, in its truest form, is not contentment nor detachment, but clarity wedded to compassion. It requires that I take what I have seen and use it; not to punish or congratulate myself, but to navigate life with more care, more intention, and less illusion.
This entry is a meditation on that shift. On learning from my mistakes rather than simply cataloguing them. On cultivating a wiser life, not just an examined one. On recognizing that the mirror is not a punishment, but a guide. That each reflection, no matter how difficult, can become a turning point; not just for understanding, but for transformation.
This is July. This is the turning. This is the work of wisdom beginning to take root.
Reflections on Truth
Quote:
"The mirrour, untainted by flattery, doth humble the proud by showing them not what they wish, but what they are." — The Mirrour Which Flatters Not
Six months ago, I set out to see myself more clearly. Not as I wished to be seen, but as I truly am. Each month, the mirror offered something different—sometimes harsh, sometimes quiet, but never false. I did not always like what I saw. And yet, I kept looking.
The first half of this project has been defined by confession. I have written about pride and control, about avoidance and fear, about the parts of me that choose comfort over growth, silence over courage. These have not been easy truths to admit. But they were necessary.
I began the year with self-awareness in January, naming the fractured image I had long tried to ignore. In February, I faced humility, not as a virtue I possessed, but as a virtue I lacked. March brought truth into sharper relief—how often I have chosen what is easy over what is right. April turned to virtue, and I had to admit how often I perform goodness rather than live it. May reminded me of the transience of life, of how little control I have and how often I grasp at what cannot stay. And June asked for moderation, and there I saw how excess has cost me more than I realized.
There’s a line from Seneca I keep returning to:
"To make mistakes is human; to persist in error is diabolical."
That is the pivot I feel myself standing on now. Not the making of mistakes, that is inevitable. But the question of whether I will keep repeating them, justifying them, circling them like some strange orbit that always drags me back into myself. Or whether I will step out of that gravity and begin to walk forward, toward something steadier. Something truer.
Truth, in the mirror of these past six months, has not been about punishment. It has been about possibility. To see myself clearly is not to despair, but to be given the rare gift of direction. Without it, I am lost in illusion, either self-loathing or self-justification. But with it, I can begin to build something real.
There are truths that are bitter, and there are truths that are liberating. Some truths show me what must be released—relationships, habits, beliefs that once kept me safe but now keep me stagnant. Others reveal the strength I overlooked, the resilience I have quietly carried, the capacity to change. The mirror offers both, and I am learning to accept both without turning away.
What I’ve learned is this: the mirror will never flatter me. But it will teach me, if I am brave enough to keep looking. And it is in the act of looking, again and again, that truth becomes transformation.
Reflections on Wisdom
Quote:
"The wise man is one who constantly corrects himself." — Confucius
Wisdom, unlike knowledge, cannot be hoarded. It is not a possession, but a process—a way of relating to the world and to oneself with humility, clarity, and care. In the past, I believed wisdom would come with time, as if it were a natural consequence of aging. But time alone is no teacher. Mistakes, examined; pain, reflected upon; choices, revisited—these are the true curriculum of wisdom.
In the ancient world, wisdom was not about cleverness or superiority. It was the art of living well. Socrates claimed to be wise only in knowing what he did not know. Confucius taught that to correct oneself constantly was the highest mark of the sage. Cicero reminded his readers that wisdom manifests not in grand gestures, but in the quiet dignity of a life lived with restraint and purpose.
Looking back at my past missteps I begin to see how slowly wisdom forms. I’ve had to learn that boldness without reflection is not bravery, that kindness without boundaries is not virtue, and that certainty without examination is not truth. I’ve begun to understand that wisdom does not arrive fully formed. It accumulates in layers, often through shame, often through loss.
What is different now is not that I am free of error, but that I am less quick to excuse it. I notice more. I pause more. I ask, more often than before, what a wiser person would do—and sometimes, I even listen for the answer.
Wisdom, I suspect, does not shout. It whispers. It offers a way forward that feels quieter, but more enduring. It resists the impulse to defend or justify, and instead invites me to change. And if I continue to change—if I continue to let myself be shaped by what I’ve seen in the mirror—then maybe wisdom is not so far off. Maybe it is already here, growing quietly in the space where illusion once stood.
It is humbling to admit that I am not as wise as I believed myself to be. But it is also freeing. Because now, I am finally beginning to pursue wisdom not as a label, but as a way of being. And that pursuit—unhurried, uncertain, and unfinished—feels like the truest path I have walked yet.
A Yearlong Journey
Quote:
"Each stage of life has its own appropriate qualities… these are fruits that must be harvested in due season." — Cicero, How to Grow Old
This entry marks the midpoint, not just of the year, but of the project. I began The Mirrour Which Flatters Not in January with a sense of unease and a hope for change. Six months later, I sit at the edge of July, facing my birthday, and I am no longer the same.
I turn 43 today. There’s nothing magical in the number itself, and yet it holds a weight. I am no longer becoming in the way I once was. I am now tending. Sorting. Discerning. If my twenties were about declaring who I was, and my thirties about building what I thought mattered, my forties have begun with a quieter question: what is still true? What is worth keeping?
This project has become a kind of companion to that question. Month by month, I’ve walked through each moral landscape—self-awareness, humility, truth, virtue, transience, moderation—and found myself confronting who I am beneath my intentions. It has been uncomfortable. But it has also been strangely hopeful.
There is something holy about the halfway point. It is neither beginning nor end, but it carries the clarity of both. I can see where I started. I can glimpse what remains. I do not yet know what the remaining months will reveal, but I know what kind of posture I want to bring: openness, honesty, and the willingness to be changed again.
Cicero tells us that each season has its fruit, and I believe him. I am not who I was at twenty, and I will not be who I am now when I turn sixty. But if I gather carefully, if I harvest the lessons offered in due season, I may grow into something honest. Something useful. Something whole.
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Looking Ahead
Quote:
"Do not be ashamed of your past—without it, you would have no direction forward." — Marcus Aurelius (paraphrased)
The next six months stretch ahead like a road not yet traveled. And for the first time in a long time, I feel no need to predict what they will bring. Instead, I want to shape them by the intentions I carry.
In the months ahead, I hope to write not only about what has gone wrong, but about what I am building. I want to reflect on generosity, on courage, on compassion. I want to see where discipline and tenderness intersect. I want to learn how to be gentle with others without abandoning myself, and how to hold myself accountable without cruelty.
If the first half of this project was about stripping away illusion, the second half may be about cultivating substance. The mirror is still here, still clear, still unflattering. But I no longer fear it. I greet it like a mentor; one who will never lie to me, but who wants me to grow.
There is still time. Not endless time, but enough. Enough to change. Enough to heal. Enough to keep moving.
And so I begin again, not with a resolution, but with a willingness: to see, to learn, and to live more wisely than before.
If I can do that—if I can remain open, faithful, and courageous—then whatever I write in December will not be a conclusion, but a culmination. The fruit of a year’s reflection. A mirror no longer feared.
That is my hope. That is my intention. That is the way forward.