Friends of ours have a plaque hanging above the entrance to their house’s center hallway.  One has to pass it on the way to almost any room in the house.  Every seat in their favorite gathering spot has a clear view of it.  It holds the wisdom of centuries, the hope of generations, and the fear of all who read it.  “What if the hokey pokey is what it’s all about?”

Years ago we took philosophy classes in college to ask the unanswerable, to earn motives, to seek fulfillment, to learn the wisdom of the ages.  Today we just need a good craft show and a vendor with access to the Internet.  All the hard work has been done.  The answers are there.  Along with some questions that we never even thought to ask.

And so we thought of it one day last week.  It came while He of We was standing at the kitchen sink at She of We’s.  There sits a piece of ceramic tile.  Painted on it the thought we all have many times a day but won’t, or can’t verbalize.  “I can only compensate so much for your stupidity.”  Admit it.  You too have wanted to tell your boss just that very thing.  You can’t, or won’t.  You head home knowing something isn’t right.  You can feel it but you aren’t sure what it is that is making you “not right.”  If you were She of We when you get home, you’d know as soon as you stood before your sink what it is that you are feeling.  That one little phrase puts you back on top and sets all right for the rest of the evening.

What are some of the other great wisdoms our walls share with us?  A quick scan at our offices, dens, kitchens, hallways, foyers, even bathrooms provides us with so much enlightenment that we will forever be at inner peace. 

                Half of the people in the world have below average intelligence.

                Behind every great man is an enormous amount of caffeine.

                Don’t believe everything I think.

                If at first you don’t succeed, redefine success.

                Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.

And so it goes.  Maybe they aren’t the world’s greatest pearls of wisdom but they make us smile.  Sometimes they even make us think.  Now wasn’t that the goal of freshman philosophy.  Not to answer questions, or define our motives, or to become fulfilled.  It was to make us think.  Maybe after all the years that have gone by we still need that reminder that not only don’t we have all the answers, we still aren’t sure what the questions are.  Maybe it’s time to slow down and think.  To recognize that success doesn’t equal fulfillment.

We like our walls of wisdom.  So yes, we still need to be reminded that we shouldn’t work so hard at making a living that we forget to make a life.  But we also need to be reminded that nobody gets in to see the wizard, and that somewhere, the hokey pokey really is what it’s all about.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?