[yamazakiwi]

Wisdom tends to resemble shallow aphorisms despite being framed as universal. Rather than interrogating wisdom's relevance or depth, many people simply repeat it uncritically as a shortcut to insight. This reflects more about how people use wisdom than the content itself, but I believe that behavior contributes to our perception of the importance of wisdom.

It frequently reduces complex problems into comfortable oversimplifications.

Maybe you don't think that is real wisdom, and maybe that's sort of your point, but then what does real wisdom look like? Should wisdom make you considerate of the multiple contexts it does and doesn't affect? Maybe the issue is we need to better understand how to evaluate and use wisdom. People who truly understand a piece of wisdom should communicate deeply rather than parroting platitudes.

Also to be frank, wisdom is a way of controlling how others perceive a problem, and is a great way to manipulate others by propping up ultimatums or forcing scope. Much of past wisdom is unhelpful or highly irrelevant to modern life.

e.g. "Good things come to those who wait."

Passive waiting rarely produces results. Initiative, timing, and strategic action tend to matter more than patience.

[aspenmayer]

I have enjoyed learning the context and original meaning behind many of these aphorisms and words of wisdom, and that is the true utility of learning them, so that you can subvert them and invert them. Cultural touchstones have value because of shared context. The specific utility and applicability of wisdom varies because conversation is context specific and outcome dependent based on the adversarial vs collaborative nature of the dialogue.

[yamazakiwi]

Rarely is it collaborative and the onus is on the learner to understand the benefit with no context into the importance or relevance of the information. My point is that the value is lost frequently because of human behavior.