Wisdom - in a cup of Teh-Peng

Had a sudden realisation the other day while having lunch.

We all start somewhere, somehow. An analogy, for a start, life is like our favourite drink. Something that we like, choose, embrace, hold oh so close and dearly. So I choose Tea.

Tea is so full of character and individuality, can be full bodied, medium bodied, fermented or not, infused, blend etc. Price wise from cents per cup to tens of dollars or even more as you ages (for instance pu-er tea)

Alright. Assume we lead our life as tea, and the daily lessons we learn is equivalent to the '3 minute infusion' which brings out our full flavour of tea leaves in hot water. I can say we are just constantly preparing for greater heights in life, like the peak flavour.

I love my cup of tea cold. So I would have to steep my tea leaves for longer. Say, 4 minutes. Stronger tea needs longer steeping time. Like life, you have to work longer and harder to prepare for greater things. Oh yes, the reason why cold tea needs to be stronger is because the ice added will dilute it in time.

So, after the 4 minute infusion, I am steeped and ready for the ice. The enhancement is wisdom. I prepared a lifetime to receive wisdom. The first realisation is this. You have to be prepared to receive wisdom. You have to fulfill the pre-requisite in order to not waste what is to come. If you add ice to a cup of tea that had been steeped for less than a minute, it will be rather tasteless like a cup of plain, ice water instead.

And then, ice is added. A cupful of ice.

Self and wisdom, tastefully blended in a cup. But then.. Time is needed for the ice to cool down the tea, as in wisdom to sink in the individual.

However, many a time the twist sets in here. We are too eager to receive this new wisdom that we gulp down our not-yet-cooled tea too quickly. What has changed then? Nothing has changed in the properties of the tea. The tea remained too strong from the 4 minute infusion, the temperature unchanged, the ice was wasted. The wisdom had not been received, it had been wasted, with ourselves remained unchanged. Preparations wasted, wisdom too. Worse still, the overly strong character and individuality had not benefited from the change.

The main realisation, however, is this. Since there is nothing that can be undone, instead of dwelling in the process, we should move on. Oh no. What is left? Nothing has left in the cup, except for ice cubes. Which is, essentially just water. You might argue that it is still wisdom left in there but do you realise that when you take the tea out of the cup, there is no way ice can enhance anything. Wisdom cannot act on its own.

End of day if we do not savour the process, we are reduced. Not even left with the original us which were at least, flavourful tea.