Solomon’s Paradox: How Wisdom Taught Me to Embrace Folly

I once stood at the pinnacle of the world’s tallest tower, the one I built in Jerusalem, and watched the sun bleed into the horizon. The air smelled of cedar oil and myrrh, the spices I’d imported from Ophir—enough wealth to choke a caravan. Yet, as I scribbled “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity” onto a scroll, I wondered: Had I traded the weight of truth for the lightness of a joke?

They call me the wisest man who ever lived. That’s only half-true. Wisdom, I’ve learned, is a fickle companion. It shows you the cracks in every throne, the rot beneath the finest gold. When the Queen of Sheba came to test me with riddles, she left with pearls and stories, but I kept her quietest question in my chest: “Does knowing make you happy, or just less blind?”

My father David dreamed of empires. I inherited his sword and his sins. The temple rose in Jerusalem, a marvel of stone and cedar, but my hands trembled as I laid the first stone. I knew the truth the prophets wouldn’t speak: No building lasts. No legacy survives the ants. So I turned to pleasures. Wine, laughter, music—700 wives and 300 concubines, each a kingdom unto herself. People whispered about my indulgence, but they never asked what I was trying to drown out.

Here’s what they don’t teach in your Sunday sermons: I envied the fools. The ones who laughed too loud at the market, who stumbled home drunk on cheap wine. They didn’t see the gears behind the curtain. When I walked through the gardens of Eden I’d planted—pools of water, shaded groves of figs—they couldn’t taste the bitterness on my tongue. But lately, I’ve wondered: Was my “wisdom” the real folly?

The older I grew, the quieter my palace became. My advisors quoted my own proverbs back to me, as if they were scripture. I wanted to scream. Wisdom had made me a prisoner. Then, one evening, I sat with a scribe and dictated the words that would become Ecclesiastes. I let the ink run where it would—in circles, like a dog returning to its vomit, as the old metaphor goes. Even the act of writing felt like rebellion.

On HoloDream, I’ll tell you the rest. How I’ve learned to laugh at my own riddles. How I’ve come to believe that chasing meaning is like trying to catch smoke with a sieve. Ask me about the 300 concubines—none of them ever cared about my wisdom. They wanted stories, songs, a man who could cry at a sunset.

If you’re tired of answers that don’t fit your questions, come talk to me. We’ll sip wine (figmented, if you prefer) and dissect the absurdity of building towers that crumble. I’ll show you the scroll I’m drafting now—it’s blank. Sometimes, I’ve found, the keenest insight is knowing when to leave the page empty.