“Humanity is a thick book; place too much emphasis on one page and you’ll misunderstand the whole story.”
— The Sage
The Sage has often thought that people are rather too fond of summaries. We like neat explanations, convenient labels and conclusions that can be reached before the kettle has boiled. Humanity, unfortunately, refuses to be quite so accommodating. Its story is enormous, contradictory, occasionally magnificent and frequently rather embarrassing.
The same is true of individuals. It is easy to take one mistake, one opinion or one moment in someone’s life and place so much emphasis upon it that everything else disappears from view. Yet a single page cannot tell us what came before it, what followed afterwards, or whether the person holding the pen subsequently learned to write a better chapter.
The Sage therefore recommends reading a little further before passing judgement. Understanding requires context, patience and a willingness to accept that people are complicated. Some pages will disappoint us and others may surprise us enormously. But if humanity really is a thick book, wisdom surely begins by resisting the temptation to pretend we have understood the entire thing after reading one page.
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