Though the
English language only has a few vestiges of gender left in its lexicon, most
languages spoken today still use gender as an effective way to communicate the undercurrent
of a word’s meaning. For the last several days, I’ve been thinking about the
word “wisdom” and what it means to be wise. I think I have grown wiser over the
years, especially as I close in on 40, but I know I have so much more to learn
and experience before I would consider myself wise. And if our hero Socrates is
any model for this, we would do ourselves a service by even doubting what
wisdom we claim to have.
The Greek
word for wisdom that is at the root of the word philosophy is Sophia. It’s interesting to me that the
word is feminine because it intimates tenderness, a supple nature that is
yielding when it needs to be and firm only when absolutely necessary (like all
good mothers are). More importantly, this reveals what I think the heart of
wisdom is—our collected experiences being brought to bear on a particular
situation in a particular moment. Wisdom does not have a one-size-fits-all solution
to any challenge; instead, it is a skill that is honed over time if we are
willing to learn from our failures and mistakes as human beings.
Part of
what brought on this reflection during the last few days is due to the book I
am reading, Practical Wisdom: The Right
Way to Do the Right Thing by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe. They make a
clear case for the need for cultivating wisdom in everyday living, especially
in a society that prizes rules and incentives—two forces that essentially erode
that wisdom (or at least its application). What’s most important about this
book, though, is that the authors illustrate time and again how wisdom is not
only necessary but universal. It is a skill that can be developed just like any
other and, most notably, does not require super-human intelligence to be wielded.
What is
wisdom to you? How would you define it? Do you consider yourself a wise person?
Why or why not? If so, how did you become so? Are there better ways of
cultivating it than others? If not, why do you feel that is? Surely you must
have some wisdom about some aspect of life, correct? How can we all encourage
the use of wisdom in our daily living and the lives of others?
P.S. - If you love TED Talks as much as I do, check out Barry Schwartz's lament on the loss of wisdom in our society. It's quite good and full of useful anecdotes that demonstrate that anyone can be a wise person. I'm about halfway through the book, which is chock full of even more of these types of examples.
I would say that wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge, much the same as your definition--this also differentiates the ability from intellect, which is one's skill at accruing knowledge. I would consider myself far from wise, not out of humility but by definition.
ReplyDeleteI feel this way because while I am often able to discern the path most likely to be optimal, I rarely manage to muster the discipline to embark upon it. For this reason, I am sometimes viewed as wiser than I actually am; when acting as an uninvolved party, I am somewhat proficient at giving advice or making reflections for someone my age, but the difficulty is in following through on that wisdom in my own life. Sometimes, I even rebel against my own advice in a way; I can't yet phrase my feelings adequately, but there lies a certain beauty in sacrificing the future for a momentary shimmer of hope, and I have a flare for melodrama, even if it betrays me as childish at (most) times. Still, I slowly grow more disciplined as I age, so I may not be an entirely lost cause.
Perhaps aiding in my capacity to advise others, I suppose I may claim some wisdom in my ability to sympathize with many kinds of people, and the potential for further wisdom in a half-understanding of mortality (not just from the obvious, but also through the constant changes of youth--the past self dies constantly and is replaced, just as the physical form someday collapses; the only difference is the transferral of conscious, which hardly matters to anyone else). But, I feel that the encouragement of wisdom lies in the former point, just as was discussed in the video you provided; wisdom may only blossom in an environment of understanding and encouragement. I won't bother discussing the ideas contained in the TED talk in relation to the formative academic system; teachers try their best, but the standardized process itself is... Well, you know better than I do.
Oh, also, this is inexcusably tangential even by my standards, being psychology rather than philosophy, but while writing this response I thought of something. Are you familiar with the Myers-Briggs Personality Types? I don't put much stock into such things other than as indicators of confirmation bias, but they're fun nonetheless. Personally, I've gotten INFP every time I've taken a test.
Professor,
DeleteMy apologies for taking a while to get back to you. I took the Myers-Briggs Personality Type assessment and must be fairly close to you, as I ended up being INFJ. If you'd like to read the detailed results, they can be found here:
http://www.humanmetrics.com/personality/infj
Beyond that and getting back to wisdom, you are spot on with the application of knowledge (and in some sense, prior experience) to inform our judgments and actions. All we can do to cultivate this wisdom is accrue further experiences and knowledge in the hopes of broadening our wisdom base, as it were. In the same vein, we must also try to be deliberate about our thinking and not take the bigger decisions of life too lightly. Part of being wise is not only knowing the "how" of its application, but its "when," which may be more than we think.
Just keep learning and growing, my young friend. I guarantee you will be much wiser than me by the time you get to be my age.