Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage – Not Supposed To Be Wise lyrics

I guess we’re not supposed to be wise
If everything that learns also dies
It's a planet that just stumbles and cries
But I guess we're not supposed to be wise

Everything smart has gotta wash out to sea
To make new room for inexperience and stupidity
Everything alive had to vacate the path
For some new nitwits like me who can barely do math
There's a billion sweet elders that the Earth will reject
To greet a billion new jerks who don't know cause from effect
So everything is infinitely incompetent
And everything that's so confident is false confidence

But I guess we’re not supposed to be wise
If everything that learns also dies
It's a planet that just stumbles and cries
But I guess we're not supposed to be wise

A veil of illusion and silk
Sleeping thru a cold volcano of milk
It's a frustration when you enter or leave
A screaming nursery without a reprieve
Where no one turns to someone when it just doesn’t wanna be
And then someone turns to no one, such a stupid economy
Where everything is disparate to crawl out of the slime
And everything that happening is for the first time

But I guess we’re not supposed to be wise
If everything that learns also dies
It's a planet that just stumbles and cries
But I guess we're not supposed to be wise

Why do they show up with that look on their face?
Why do they leave just when they can't be replaced?
Why throw in the garbage well-trained artists and teachers?
And what's so important about some new stupid creatures?
There's a layer of biomass always churning and sifting
And in deference to ignorance, it's endless shifting
So why attempt to get experience when time and sense hates you?
Why attempt to get smarter when that's a crime against nature?

Guess we’re not supposed to be wise
If everything that learns also dies
It's a planet that just stumbles and cries
But I guess we're not supposed to be wise