On Bears

proverbs.
solomon wrote a lot of them.
He seems to talk a lot about fools and wisdom... and money.
I just read proverbs 17:12, and was surprised to see that my study bible didn't have an entry on the verse:
"Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly."[niv]

think about that.
What do we associate with a mother bear, who has just realized that her cubs are missing?
rage... destruction... panic... insanity... mutilation... that bear goes nuts until she finds her bearlings.
so why is solomon saying that it's better to experience that first hand, than to see a guy who's being dumb?

I guess it says a lot about the need for wisdom.
He'd rather risk getting mauled by a bear than meet a foolish person.
In Ecclesiastes 7:12, he says, "Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: that wisdom preserves the life of its possessor."

everyone dies... a lot of freakishly wealthy people use their money like a security blanket. But in reality, they die just like the rest of us, and they're better off becoming crazy eccentric philanthropists than hanging on to it... because its wisdom that ends up saving you in the end.