Exploration Earns Wisdom
or EEW for short.
Welcome back to Wednesday Balms.
We are right around the mid-point for the season of Wisdom and we’d like to give a bit of orientation for the progression of idea-balms so far.
The season opened with the theme of “perception” and examined how depending on what one chooses to focus on, perception can shift. Reality is unchanging and too immense to truly understand all at one time. As such, one’s perception of reality is what changes in order to sift through the chaos - kind of like a telescope focusing on different things at a time.
After “perception,” we looked at “identity (and essence).” In some ways, that is just perception of oneself. Looking inward. And occasionally, imagining what we look like outwardly to other people.
This week we are building off of “perception” and “identity” and looking outward.
The theme of this week is exploration.
“To reach new places, you must do new things.”
“All paths lead to your destination, some just take longer than others.”
“There is always more than one way to do something.”
(helpful quotes paraphrased from a variety of sources)
Today’s Lineup:
Experiment
Side A - Perception as a Precursor to Exploration
Side B - The “Earned” is in the Unknown
Side C - Exploration Requires Sacrifice
Experiment
Pick only one.
Listen to a different radio station for an entire day.
Take a different (but similarly timed) path.
Order a new menu item from your fave restaurant.
Based on your choice, write out what was lost by not doing the others.
Side A - Perception as a Precursor to Exploration
Myka: “Perception” belongs in the domain of wisdom because it is thing that is unlocked and strengthened as one earns more and more wisdom.
One random and completely arbitrary example could be observing the difference between a cat-expert and me.
If I see a cat . . . it’s just a cat. I truly wouldn’t be able to figure out the breed or the gender or anything about it. A cat is a cat.
In contrast, a cat-expert would be able to differentiate between siamese, persian, sphynx, etc.
We could both be looking at the same cat, but our perceptions of it could differ significantly. I could probably tell differences in shapes, colors, fur length, or whatever - but the actual distinction between this cat to another?
That’s wisdom I don’t have.
Hypothetically, if I had help from a Cat-encyclopedia, then maybe I would be able to tell the differences. However, that would constitute Unearned Wisdom as I wasn’t the one who initially went out and differentiated all the cats.
It will facilitate a means to an end, but without the book, the ability to distinguish cats falls apart.
Earned Wisdom, on the other hand, truly grants the ability to perceive things that, to others, may initially be imperceptible.
Where I see a "cat,” the expert can see exactly what kind of cat.
But what differentiates the cat-expert and me?
A simple would answer would be that they encountered/interacted/seen enough variety of cats such that their perception is better. Of course, they could be more studied with the aforementioned cat-encyclopedia, but even then - at some point there was someone who had to initially compose the book. That is, they had to identify, catalog, and differentiate the unknown into the known.
Exploration is the action and the process that allows one to earn wisdom through their own perception. Only by exploring, does one really earn the knowledge required to build wisdom.
Side B - The “Earned” is in the Unknown
Kellen: The earned only exists in the realm of the unknowable.
Myka: *splooooooosh* I like that one.
Kellen: It is on the boundaries of what we know and where we can potentially earn wisdom.
In earning wisdom, the choice is separate from the learning. If the choice is difficult, it means you are no longer in the realm of what you know. You must enter the realm of potentials.
Myka: This is a really cool idea that I want to sit with and remember.
As I understand it - basically, the further you go into the unknown the harder it will be to make choices, because there is less and less reference for the consequences of those choices.
Based on that - the action of “choosing” is related to, but actually parallel to the action of “learning.” No matter what the outcome is, there is something to be learned from it - either the choice worked as planned or it doesn’t.
However, without actually doing it yourself, the consequence is impossible to know.
(for the people that watch Netflix out there, it’s kind of like the glass floor challenge from Squid Games. Prior to jumping, there is no knowledge of the future, therefore the choice is separate from whether or not anything is learned).
The unknown, in that way, is only accessible with exploration. If exploration isn’t necessary, then it may not actually be “unknown.”
Side C - Exploration Requires Sacrifice
Kellen: There are two paths, one leading to the mountains and one to the sea.
You have walked on neither of them before. How do you choose?
In this realm, the void or the abyss, the expansion of multiplicity is infinite. As soon as you take a step on a path, this multiplicity has a downward slope. With every step toward the path to the mountains, the path to the sea becomes less knowable.
On this path of choice, from the initial eruption of multiplicity, to the reduction of simplicity, we must confront an essential aspect of earning wisdom: loss.
Myka: It is a sentiment that echoes the phrase, “you can’t have your cake and eat it too.” In order to know what the cake tastes like, you have to sacrifice the full cake. In order to buy things, you have to use money (and therefore not have as much). If all things are right in the world, hopefully the sacrifice is worthy, but it is undeniable - on a physical level, that you can’t really get something from nothing.
Something must be converted and lost in one way or another.
Kellen: With every path we take, we often defend against the loss by attempting to maintain all options. We try our best to keep all realities available, and in that, we no longer gain wisdom, but maintain disorder.
Acknowledging that with every choice, there is a loss, lends to the tragedy of reality. Is there an antidote to this other than grief?
One attempt at reconciling this is through a gauge of multiplicity and finitude. This relates to the previous concept of needing to push boundaries and exist in the realm of what is unknown to earn wisdom.
If you want to earn wisdom, you must make a choice towards multiplicity rather than the finite.
What we already know exists in the realm of finiteness.
What we could know exists in the realm of infiniteness.
The next time you must make a choice, it might be worth asking, which will bring me the most unknowable experience? In the unknowable, we experience a broader range of emotions and affects. Our thoughts and feelings become evoked in new and remarkable ways. In the finite, we experience a limited range, and end up learning less and less, pruning away more and more.
Earning wisdom takes a leap into the void and there is no guarantee of return.
Is it worth taking chances?