Great to have you all back for another session of Wednesday Balms.
This week our thought provoking response comes from SW:
“Can Wisdom be intrinsic?”
An experiment was conducted in which a crowd of random people attempted to guess the exact weight of a cow. Surprisingly, the average of all the guesses was off by only a pound or so. NPR recreated this experiment with around 17k people and the result was within a 5% range, showing that there is some kind of consistency with this phenomenon.
(The link for this article will be in the comments).
SW’s idea is that within a group, there can be a collective wisdom that might not be accessible or observable on an individual level.
Myka: To answer the question, I think wisdom must be intrinsic (within an individual) because it is an individual’s interpretation of something that is objectively real.
In the anecdote, the objective reality is the cow’s weight. For the most part, everyone observing the cow has the same “hardware.” There may be differences in quality of eyesight, but all participants in the experiment had human eyeballs (versus that of a hawk or a mantis shrimp).
What differs from person to person is their familiarity with guessing weights, familiarity with cows, and anything of that sort. Some people’s subjective associations - their own personally earned wisdom, could help the collective average get closer, while others’ could hinder it and move that number further away.
Everyone contributes a small piece to the puzzle, that only when put together fully reveals a true comprehensive view.
Kellen: SW’s idea provides support for why this project is structured the way it is. In a solitary pursuit, the search for understanding was insufficient. Only through a dialogue, a working-with, a discussion, and a collective that promotes understanding did we get closer to truth.
Maybe this is why unilateral teaching methods have continuously found less effectiveness in students’ learning.
Thank you for the response SW – we will have to revisit this when we swing back around for another in depth look at earned wisdom.
Today’s Lineup
Introduction
Side A - What is (not) Peace?
Side B - What is Unearned Peace?
Side C - Earning Peace
Experiments for Earning Peace
Introduction
Myka: An essential part of this material is the distinction between Wisdom, Peace, Love, and Freedom. One way to get a better understanding of something is to dive deep into it. Another way is to learn about other stuff and then sort out the differences.
Rather than learning by adding more details, it is learning by separating them.
Negative space.
That said . . .
SIDE A - What is (not) Peace?
Myka: Peace is . . . not Wisdom.
Whatever comprehension of Wisdom you have, any movement away from that is moving toward Peace. If that makes you feel a little uncomfortable and maybe even a little vulnerable, that means you’re closing in on Peace.
Many times, we treat Wisdom like armor. We aim to know more. We want to have the most information to make the best decisions. We use Wisdom as a means of protection against harm. Many people wear Wisdom proudly as proof that it works.
However, the innate desire to armor up against harm is often rooted in a sinking feeling of fear and the possibility of making a wrong choice. Sometimes, a quest for more Wisdom (and more armor) is actually a desire for Peace. And because Wisdom and Peace are fundamentally different, resolution never comes.
Where Wisdom is about connecting pieces of information to form a useful interpretation of reality, Peace is simply the acceptance of whatever it is in front of you. Acceptance doesn’t necessarily mean something is right or wrong. It simply means that you can acknowledge it, hold it, and move on.
No amount of Wisdom can guarantee the feeling of Peace.
Acquiring and using more Wisdom doesn’t always translate to more acceptance. In fact, sometimes more information creates a rebound effect of making things harder to resolve. Kind of like a never ending pros and cons list that with more time just creates more items on both sides.
SIDE B - What is Unearned Peace?
Kellen: Unearned Peace is akin to disguised avoidance. It holds a hidden bargain that that plays against us rather than in our favor. It is a sense of displacement that provides short term temporary relief in exchange for long term persistent agony.
When it comes to Peace, there are many ways we pursue this state of being. It has become common in the media to profess techniques or hacks that reduce anxiety or stress. Tiktok and Youtube clickbait videos often claim methods of quick shortcuts for increasing relaxation and prolonging Peace.
I have and will likely continue to be drawn to this type of content, however the appeal is diminishing.
I used to take cold showers, go on runs, and practice meditation regularly in attempts to obtain more Peace. I followed a monk online and read books ranging from self-help to religious texts. To those of you that know me, I am in the field of psychology and mental health. I am constantly exposed to material that aims to promote “healthy” emotional and mental patterns and coping.
It is safe to say that I have encountered most hacks and most methods that claim to end suffering and promote peace.
Despite this, it was not until I started discussing the pursuit and digging beyond the quick fix, that the real answers became clearer.
It is the desire for peace that makes us not peaceful.
Myka: This isn’t to say that those activities (like exercise, meditation, etc) aren’t good or useful. What is most important is understanding and being aware of when something is Unearned vs Earned.
Unearned Peace is a temporary generic solution to a long-term specific problem.
For me, listening to music was a comfort that stabilized and pulled me through harder parts of my freshman / sophomore year of college. The long snowy walk to class wasn’t so bad as long as I had my headphones and I could listen to music. One day, I lost my headphones and felt a tremendous avalanche of anxiety. So much so, that within the hour of thinking I lost my headphones, I had to compulsively buy a new pair on Amazon.
The Unearned Peace of music allowed me to be highly ignorant of the true nature of the situation. I had intense environmental distress that I was ignoring. Music was the temporary fix that prevented me from feeling the real problem. Eventually, I found the headphones that I thought I lost, but the immediate resumed comfort made me realize the significance of the stress. Is this reliable? Is this sustainable?
Side C - Earning Peace
Kellen: While working on the book, Myka and I ended up doing an experiment where we went in the opposite direction.
What if instead of attempting to obtain Peace, we attempted to elevate distress?
Basically, we wrote down our fears and challenged the other to exaggerate them and to escalate the fear quotient as much as possible.
What ended up happening was unexpected – much of the fear dissipated rather than increased. It was as if a veil was lifted and the reality of the fear was revealed. Less a monster in the shadows and now a teddy bear in the light.
My partner, *shoutout to Jiayi* is also a therapist, but is cut from a different cloth than I am. She will be the first to say, “obviously” to this realization that Myka and I had. She primarily works with children who suffer from severe anxiety and has lived by the motto that “facing fears is the way to treat anxiety.”
It makes sense on a phobic level.
If you are afraid of spiders, go touch a spider and wait until your body returns to baseline or at least drops below the initial fear marker and then you can remove the stimulus. But how do we address it when the fear is one related to emotion? Or an idea? Or a self belief? We get into muddy water.
Experiment:
Go to someone you trust and ask them for some honest feedback about yourself.
Or better yet, do a bit of soul searching to find what you are afraid of about yourself, and share it with that person.
An example could be,
“I am afraid that if I really speak my mind, you won’t see me the same, and you’ll leave me.”
This could be too much to ask for many, but let’s at least plant a seed that Peace can be earned and not given. By exploring our fears and vulnerability, rather than hacking the nervous system, the quality and value of Peace can be increased and will truly match how we feel.
What if wisdom didnt just encompass aquired information? Perhaps wisdom can be earned through experience as a way to navigate life with discernment, or learning to listen within to earn wisdom through the discipline of silence... in which case, Peace would arise as consequence of earned wisdom, not as a discourse from it. In a lot of situations, the ego/mind chatters away and controls and confuses the consciousness of self, preventing peace from ocurring. But perhaps a sort of wisdom would be discerning these chattering voices from the true seat of consciousness (the witness). And of course, this type of wisdom must be earned through discipline and practice, but peace can be earned as the wisdom of discernment opens the door to it. Loving these Wednesday balms...!!
The Experiment (poll)
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/07/17/422881071/how-much-does-this-cow-weigh
The Results + Article
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/08/07/429720443/17-205-people-guessed-the-weight-of-a-cow-heres-how-they-did