About 4 years ago,

when I was having my last few public conversations,

I was asked -

"So what do you really mean when you say 'cleverness'?"

I understood immediately where the questioner was coming from.

I also appreciated that he was one of the rare few

who was interested in conversing deeply with me.

Or else he would not have sought to understand my usage of a word.

And instead, would have gone home with his understanding of my statements.

I made sure he was ready for what I was about to say. I double checked -

"Why do you ask?"

He said -

"Well, humans are clever. But the way you use it,

you almost make it sound like it is bad to be clever.

In fact, sometimes you make it sound like it is almost evil to be clever.

As if all these great and famous people in the world today are evil."

I thanked him for his open and honest question,

and proceeded to answer it without a break.

I said -

You have hit the nail on the head.

From where I see things, it does look like I am shaming cleverness.

In a way, I am. In many ways, I am not.

Let me tell you of another word first.

I promise that I will not digress that much and come back to your question.

That word is - Genuineness.

But because words are only a mirage, let me dig a little deeper.

You know, I have discovered a way of living.

I have been living like this for about 4 years now.

In the way I live, I do certain things. And then I do not do certain things.

The things I do, I do them wholeheartedly.

With the utmost quantity of that which most call "attention to detail."

With copious stake and a oneness that I have come to accept deeply as something that I am .

I have come to state and understand this manner as Genuineness.

Genuineness allows me to be the things that I do.

The things I do not avoid.

The things that flow through me and become me.

Then the things that I do not do,

I avoid not for some reflexive, imaginary reason.

Or because I do not understand them.

Or because they are bad or infamous things.

You see, I do not do the things I avoid simply because

I am unable to be Genuine with them.

After being Genuine with the things I do,

it is immediately obvious for me to know -

if there is a way, I will never act (when doing the things I do)

as well as

if there is something that I will never do.

Genuineness, to me, is also a filter to know

what and how I am here to do

and what I am not.

Now back to your interest in my usage of cleverness.

You see, when I see the world today, I feel disappointed.

I feel so because almost all things,

be it the good, great, and best

or the normal, benign, and trivial, are done in another way.

All the most celebrated things

and the things that the young and the old generations

are understandably flocking to,

are not done Genuinely

This hurts me.

From that place of hurt ("Oh but it could be so much more")

From that place of hurt ("You ought not to have")

From that place of hurt ("But why”)

I am forced to call almost ALL attempts at all these things . . .

clever.

The "badness" or the "evilness" that you sense in my usage of cleverness,

is because to me it might very well be an antithesis of Genuineness.

But in reality, cleverness is incomparable to Genuineness.

No, to me, they are not bad or evil.

But the night and day between what they are and what they ought to be

is expressed through me as a disdain for things that they actually are.

To me, they are clever.

To me, they are a clever attempt to avoid doing the thing

Genuinely.

The only way known to me.