Rumi strips away the pleasant notion that we understand things through simple study, insisting instead that comprehension arrives only through want and suffering. What makes this unusual is the reversal of teacher and student—thirst teaches us about water far better than any description could, because our body becomes the classroom. A person who has never experienced genuine scarcity will read about water conservation differently than someone who has rationed every drop during a drought; the second person doesn't merely know facts, but knows water itself. The quote suggests that wisdom cannot be inherited or passively received, only earned through the specific ache of lacking something.