There was once three neighbors, their names were Fear, Wisdom and Deception. Every day, each would wake up, and have a conversation with someone walking by, trying to get them to come inside, but each would say something different. Fear would come first, and call out, “come in here, and be safe, you have no idea what is coming ahead, you could trip and die, or break a leg.” Next came out wisdom who would say, “Come in, and eat something, and sit down for a second, that you may be prepared for the journey ahead.” Finally came out Deception, who would declare, “Enter into my house, and have riches for the rest of your life, and rule over the land, never having to return to work, and never falling ill.” Almost every body would stop, at one house or another, but only the ones who came to the house of Wisdom left truly happy.

...and yet...happiness comes at a price. If everyone dropped dead from Fear and Deception's lies, what happened to the victims of Wisdom?

Was he truly lying as the others? Well, I'll tell you: the people who went into house were stunned. it was everything he said it would be, However, when they returned home, they began to age rapidly. the deterioration, sudden. The collapse, THUD. Some reached for their treasures; some reached for the door. They needed to tell some, anyone, help please! They screamed inside.

No one came, they were all afflicted; all desperate, and Wisdom took their land, one by one. Pushing the incapacitated dregs out onto the street to fend for themselves. Seeing their neighbors in the same condition was too much. How do they survive if they could barely move? They thought and thought, what to do. They all had plenty of time…

For the phrase 'too much of a good thing' is one with a grain of truth in it, and an overdose of such wise demeanour can only result in egoism. When one thinks of themself as the only one who may help themself, the only one on which they can rely, the wisest and sole proprietor of worldy knowledge, a certain thing begins to rot within them. This, coincidentally, was a thought that came to one of wisdom's victims deep in an existential stupor. His name was Karthik, and as he lay on the wooden floor of his house, a house he had named a good investment, and not allowed himself to decorate beyond a pale beige layer of paint and tasteful grey furnishings, a thought began to swim about his pain-addled head.

He had always wanted to fill his house with trinkets.

But trinkets, he had told himself, were silly and childish, not good investments. Carpentry was not a profitable hobby. Befriending a master of such skill would bring him no return: and he was wise, successful, a high climber, who appreciated the arts without once thinking they were worthwhile. His grandfather had a small wooden bird in his office, in a pendulum so that it would appear to dip his head down into a bucket of water then up again. When he was a boy, Karthik had loved it, spending hours transfixed on that little read head, bobbing up and down and up again. His grandfather had gotten his friend to do it, who had gotten his wood from a neighbour, who sold firewood, and painted by an old teacher, who loved art in the meanwhile between teaching calculus and algebra.

The antidote to egotistical individualism, was community. This was a thought that arrived to Karthik in the wee hours of the morning, or at least he thought as much, because he could not lift his head for frailty. But no light shone through the curtains, and he could not bear to crawl to his neighbour's house. How badly he yearned for company, a cup of coffee, and a badly made slice of homemade cake that still tasted delicious because Sharon next door had always wanted to take up cake decoration, but it wasn't worth monetizing at her skill level. He wanted many things: to swim in a lake, to plant flowers, and paint his house in all the colours of the rainbow.

But the world had deemed these things unwise.

And folly was the greatest sin.