PROVERBIAL #1 - This Year's Wisdom Is Tomorrow's Folly

Hello great steemians! Many of my readers know me as a philosopher because i write majorly philosophical pieces. Today, i will like to add another dimension to my philosophy by explaining philosophically the meaning of African and the world most popular proverbs. I have actually done some in the past but i did not use the term 'proverbial'. The world 'proverbial' is my own coinage and it is derived from the word proverb.

My recent works that merit the term proverbial are:

 If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them

 Do you believe in this: "To Err Is Human, To Forgive is Divine"?

Proverbs are popular or memorable sayings that express truth or belief about certain things. They could be pithy sayings, advice, or general truth. To the Africans, we believe that when we are lost of words, proverb becomes alternative to help us find our ways through what we are discussing. 

So proverb is a good tool in the hand of many Africans to fully express themselves especially when they cannot find the right word to use.

Every culture have proverbs. Some are popular and some are not but every one of these proverbs have deep meaning. Proverbs are used for different purposes as evident in the definition above. It could be to warn, encourage, advise and some of these proverbs are pure sarcasm.

The above proverb: This Year's Wisdom Is Tomorrow's Folly, is from the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria, Africa. Dynamism is one interesting thing i like about any language and Yoruba language has that. The Africans are full of wisdom and we know that change is a constant thing.

At a time in the history, donkey was a means of transportation (some Africans still use it), arrow was a well respected weapon, black and white television was the deal of the day, black and white white photo was the pride of the people. Then, animal skins were our cloths, walking barefoot was a normal thing, chewing stick was the best way to brush our teeth, malaria was incurable at a particular period, change in weather and cockcrow gave us an idea about time. All these things were the norm for the people. These things were seen as facts at that period. They could probably not be faulted because a deviation from them would make the person 'uncivilized', 'savage' or 'anti-social'.

In the present day society, if we see elders chewing sticks, we just laugh at it! I have asked some elders what they see in the sticks they chew? They will always have answers for you and mostly they will refer you back to the ancient period when this was the norm. But what they do not want to accept is that the idea of chewing sticks is truly ancient and now probably 'barbaric'. 

Yes, it was wisdom then but now we see it folly. Imagine having black on white television in the present day society? Imagine walking barefoot from street to street, imagine dressing in animal skin to attend a formal occasion, imagine carrying arrow everywhere. All these things are things of the past.

The logic here is that knowledge is not static. We are always evolving and we are always coming up with new things. Technology is an instance of such evolution and a proof that human knowledge is always working to produce something new and different. So the Yoruba people believe that nobody can know it all because the knowledge of yesterday would become pure 'ignorance' tomorrow.

Imagine all the concoctions prepared then to cure malaria! While some works then, just imagine someone prepared same for you today to drink or eat to cure yourself of malaria! Wont you just laugh seriously on the sick bed and simply tell them to get you anti-malaria drugs? 

So the proverb also mean that what we call civilization today will be folly in the near future because knowledge is not static. Always remember to improve on your knowledge because what you know now might be 'stupid' to your ears in the nearest future.

Thanks for reading. Your boy @smyle the philosopher

@royalfinest designed the image for me!