Just because I feel I’m getting more intelligent as I get older doesn’t mean I’m wise at all. I may just be getting less and less stupid.
By ‘less and less stupid,’ I mean that I am making fewer naive decisions and learning from my past mistakes. I wrote this text on the 26th of December, 2023. It was a day when I was doing street photography in Warsaw, and it was 9 degrees Celsius (48.2 degrees Fahrenheit). Of course, I was walking in summer clothes, including the www.adammazek.com t-shirt. While walking, I asked myself whether I was dumb because I had exposed my body to frigid temperatures on Warsaw’s streets. Did I hear something like that from a passer-by?
No. Only one older lady asked whether I was cold, and when I replied that I was not, she told me I was a hot guy.
Then, I asked myself whether I was dumb for doing what I did: exposing my body to cold and taking pictures of mundane reality. The answer is not straightforward: I believe I am intelligent by doing all these things (I would add doing intermittent fasting). Why? Because these actions are not just about the immediate experience, but about the long-term benefits they bring to my health and well-being. When I add to these activities doing street photography (it helps me to focus and contemplate many issues, from the mundane to cosmic ones), I have no doubts I am on the right path to develop myself.
This journey of self-improvement is not about being the most intelligent human in this world but about being wiser (or less dumb) than my version from yesterday.
I remember my thoughts ten or twenty years ago. I often thought about how to take a party with a beer in my hand. From today’s perspective, I must admit I was not indeed a wise young man. I did not think I would write my thoughts in the English language. Still, I do it and do many more clever things than years ago. That’s why I believe I am wiser than yesterday.
