In my youth
when I was in school
I thought like everybody else
learning was done
by reading textbooks,
and I would have a successful life
if I read
lots of books;
but after many years of book-learning
‘knowledge’
I discovered that book-knowledge
did not enable me
to be joyful and happy;

I discovered that
to be joyful and happy
what I needed was
not knowledge
but wisdom
about how to be
joyful and happy;
and to achieve wisdom
I had to do philosophy:
thinking originally,
learning from my own experiences,
asking questions about
how to achieve my
unique joy and
unique happiness
in my unique situation
using my unique self.