The first thing you have to understand, and it is not easy, is that you do not have to be human to be wise. Some people, of course, find that perverse and strange but the reason it is important is because we often say ‘nature is wise’, and many other times we say ‘it happened for the best’, and whilst both phrases are explanations meant to allay fears and placate, they do point to one of those most difficult ideas to grasp: the thoughts of thoughts.
Think of the human race, in fact think of the entire planet, not as an entity but purely as an idea. View it all from the point of view of theory and certain rather stark facts emerge. Human beings have grown around themselves not the opportunities of life but the chains of living. Propounding the long march to freedom they have not seen freedom as anything but the freedom ‘to do’ something. And those somethings are always linked to our nature not to our intellects: we congregate into countries when the whole world is one country; we congregate into tribes when DNA teaches us we are all cousins; we kill for flags when ethics repeatedly tells us killing is wrong. We lust for each other and money because one brings pleasure and the other brings power. We work tirelessly for the poor and homeless without changing the economics that creates them in the first place.
Sometimes being human is a hindrance to ever being wise.