How much more wisdom is there than that gained from baking bread and tending flowers?
Just throwing that out there....
Of course, there is probably a little more involved. Wisdom, after all, often seems a little more targeted at how to navigate things — what to do, dealing with people, meaning of life...to name a few.
But, what is needed even for those things might likely be addressed by the hands-on learning we gain from rather simple things...like learning how to bake bread and fostering beauty.
After all, at a most basic level, what beyond daily sustenance and enjoyment really is there (besides tragedy, suffering, existential threat, etc.)?
The baking of bread is a simple and mysterious example of such things. Comprised of the most basic elements of life (water, flour, heat), it is a rather smirking example of non-complexity, at least terms of ingredients. And, yet, something else is involved that is often nothing short of confounding, until you've understand the dynamics (beyond the ingredients) involved. In a rather fascinating way, they even require a kind of submission to effectively cooperate them.
Which then leads to a kind of enjoyment that seems to nearly touch the most basic elements of our existence — our need for daily sustenance and our ability to relish something like flavor and texture so deeply that groans are about the only means of adequately expressing our enjoyment of it. Fresh baked bread is pretty close to the top of nearly everyone's best-thing-ever list.
And, then, there's flowers.
Even though there are some pretty basic scientific explanations involved for their effective contribution to a variety of eco-systems, there is also something about flowers that seems extravagant — bordering on wastefully so. Whether it be color, shape, aroma (though some actually can be pretty stinky...or so it seems to us), the way they collect themselves, the seasonality of their unveiling...their list of wonders is also breathtakingly endless. They are a marvel, not only individually, but also collectively. They co-exist with many things almost as if they don't care. They are delicate, vulnerable, and resilient all at the same time. And, yet, they seem to respond to care, either from that of their environment or from the gentleness of human touch. Few can withstand blunt-force trauma (at least in the moment) and they also can merely cease to exist in an environment that no longer supports them.
And, yet, they seem at times larger than life itself. We can almost worship them (or use them to worship something — or someone — else). We have much to learn from the combination of forces surrounding the beauty of flowers — both from a how-to-cultivate perspective to a how-to-let-them-be perspective. They, too, require something from us...for us to truly enjoy them for what they are. In other words, it takes a wisdom to work with and relate to them. And their reciprocity is, at times, more than we could ever have imagined.
And, so, the dynamics involved with both bread and flowers that enable our tangible participation and understanding once again give us opportunity to learn much about the whats, hows, and whys of much of life itself.
Sure we can just hastily grab a loaf at the store or mow them down with our lawn mowers. Or, they can be our very teachers about the range of the goodness that surrounds our lives, should we choose to truly engage them.
