Practice is stupidity prevention

Practices which cultivate wisdom often have a solemn air about them.

They focus on the ascent towards what’s right and true. This feels good! Finally, some solid ground for me to stand on. Some answers.

But it also creates a pomposity as you strain towards the right answer.

Instead, think of practice as a way to reduce stupidity.

Starting with stupidity means being honest about where we are—the multitude of situations in which we already know what’s right, but do something else anyway.

Instead of straining for a different outcome, practice allows us to develop an intimacy with the many ways we go astray.

Writing regularly helps you to stop vomiting cliches. Meditating regularly reveals how you tie yourself up in the most fleeting of thoughts. Listening deeply helps you see how quickly you gloss over what someone is saying. Walking in nature helps you see how often you crave stimulation.

This is an important shift. Instead of fixating on the Good, practice keeps us turned towards the fallible in ourselves. It trusts that when we see our folly, we’ll naturally appreciate more truthful ways of being. Like democracy itself, it expects the obvious—idiocy—and instead of trying to suppress mistakes, it creates run-offs and spaces for better solutions to arise.

This approach to practice is much more resilient over the long run. Instead of depending on knowing the Right Things, stupidity prevention makes you harder to fool in any situation. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

But it’s not always an easy shift, because it means admitting that you don’t have the answers up front. It requires more humility to start with what’s wrong instead of asserting what’s right.

And yet in attuning to the many ways we get it wrong, we’re already on the path to what’s right. A clear-eyed appreciation of what’s false naturally leads us to what’s true.

As Peter Brown used to say, the truth is easy enough to recognise; it’s letting go of untruth that’s tricky.

Practice is letting go of the many flavours of untruth so that what is already the case can shine through.