Having someone lecture you on New Year`s Day is not any way to start the year. I am looking in the mirror as I write these thoughts, so you can relax and note that these words are for me, and I had to say them out loud. So……..
How much discussion do I find these days about wisdom, as distinguished from knowledge? So many attempts at community and communication turn into volleys of ‘verbiage and data’ directed toward each other, even as we wish each other the best for the new year. Wait a minute…..did I hear it right? Were those wishes really for more ‘prosperity’ in the New Year?
Is prosperity the correct response towards softening those restrictive boundaries we`ve imposed in our communities? Have we collapsed wisdom and knowledge into one concept, as we shift the solution to our problems towards profit and economics? Perhaps.
I know it’s difficult to ‘try on’ wisdom when those ever-mounting bills need to be paid, over and over and over. Am I looking at one more year of the ‘same old?’
While we humans once had extreme wisdom, and it still does exist here and there, it appears that we have traded it, or were forced to trade it, for knowledge. Why? While there are many reasons, maybe we are trapped in the immediacy of survival. Read the papers and notice that knowledge seems to have a more visible payoff. It can be represented by formal educational results and test scores. Oh, and don’t forget those higher paying jobs. Who can argue with that if it appears as the necessary option?
Wisdom can only be put to the test of…….life? Hard to measure that, at first glance. Wisdom occurs over a longer time frame and who has that much time? Why not go for the quick decisions when you have convincing data?
Who ‘decides’ what is the required wisdom for my life, at any time? What do I do if I am unsure of how to apply wisdom, or even find it? Who has it, that I may borrow some of it?
Is that why we end up frustrated and unsatisfied, desperately trying to squeeze some small joy out of ‘the knowing of stuff,’ accompanied by those high report card scores? How often do we hear, “Well, I’m doing pretty good?” When we ask our friends about their life, they point to the house and car.
I have spent considerable time and money, searching for the education that might provide me with the ‘missing knowledge’ that would give my life a deeper meaning. Sort of looking for answers to questions I wasn’t sure I was asking myself. I definitely had a thirst to explore something, wherever that urge was coming from. Not knowing for sure what that ‘pull’ was, my library grew, the bookshelves sagging in their efforts to hold the latest ‘re-discoveries’ of all the world’s lost wisdom.
But in actuality, all I was doing was accumulating more and more data! Most seminars out there do the same, except that I add volumes of notes to my collection of ‘tips and techniques.’
I’m not suggesting that the information was not valuable. Much of it came in handy in my day to day living, and I have won many arguments with it! Winning arguments and being right, we all do it. The more info we possess, the more ‘armed’ we are in verbal conflict, and it seems so important to always win! This no longer maintains the same luster and my quest must deepen for the missing wisdom of my soul. That sounds a bit ‘text-booky’ like I’ve heard it many times before. Well, I have! You too? Okay, but have I listened sufficiently to have it matter?
So, the missing wisdom…..I would be more accurate if I called it the ‘lost’ wisdom, since I believe I had it at one time or other. I probably allowed myself to displace it for something else, something that appeared more urgent (or do-able) at some point in my life.
Having written the above, now what? Hmm. The quest for true wisdom…….does that sound like a New Year’s resolution? That would matter for me in 2011! How about you?
Rich