Wisdom In Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha

As humans, one of our advantages over other mammals is our ability to think. Without thought and philosophy, we would have no morals, nothing to drive us toward knowledge and self-growth; no incentive to teach and be taught. Our concern with wisdom and our own benefit is one of several aspects that set us apart from other mammals, and is a forever driving force in our lives. In Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, we are able to explore these ideas of thought, wisdom, and self-interest, and how these relate to our own existence.
One of humanity’s greatest problems is misinterpretation. Often times, our words become construed differently than we intend, and a thought that sounds wise and meaningful in our mind can sound “different immediately [after it is] expressed” (Hesse 145), and the essence of the thought becomes mistaken. No one person can interpret a thought in the way that the speaker intended for it to be interpreted. While for one person a moral may seem black and white, to another “the opposite of [that] truth is just as true” (Hesse 124). Our words and thoughts can be interpreted and misinterpreted just as easily as any other condition that surrounds us.
But teachings are never ‘this’ or ‘that,’ and their meaning can never be pinpointed as truth, for it is true that what may “[seem] right [and] of value and wisdom to one man [may seem] nonsense to another” (Hesse 145). Just as what we are taught can neither be right nor wrong, so too is “a person [neither] entirely holy nor entirely sinful” (Hesse ). No matter how one person may interpret his text and how another may interpret it, there will always be somebody who sees matters under a different light that offers different meaning to