Wisdom Cheat Sheet
As We Head for Peace
Welcome back to Wednesday Balms.
This week, we are tying all the concepts together and then doing a quick overview of the ideas and dimensions of Wisdom.
Tight summaries, bulleted ideas, and overall a more pulled back POV on Wisdom.
After that, I’ll leave some ideas on the Problems, Solutions, and Limits of Wisdom and then we’ll close it all up until we come back here again (approx. 21-27 weeks).
Thank you,
MYKAAAAA
Today’s Lineup:
One Line Summaries + Navigation
Problems of Unearned Wisdom
Solutions of Earned Wisdom
The Limits of Wisdom
One Line Summaries + Navigation
This section is features one line summaries of each of the themes from the past five weeks.
(each underlined concept is a hyperlink into the article)
PERCEPTION → the ability to experience.
IDENTITY → the experience of one’s self.
EXPLORATION → the experience of things beyond one’s self.
STORY → the ability to share one’s experiences with others.
TRANSFERABILITY → A measure of how ‘earned’ something is.
When Kellen and I first started this season, we mostly were brainstorming and experimenting with different themes and angles that could be used to quantify or look at “Wisdom.”
As the Season progressed and as we explored the ideas more and more, it became apparent to me these ideas were building off of each other. There was a loose plan for what to write, but it was truly a generative and emergent process. Writing to discover as opposed to writing toward a predetermined conclusion.
As such, the “surprise” only revealed itself at the end.
This season conceptually expanded on the question of “How to Earn Wisdom?”
This isn’t the only way.
This is just one way.
You do so by honing your perception. Then you use that perception on yourself, to identify your biases, your complexities, strengths, weaknesses, etc. Then you go out into the world and get some feedback on your assessment of yourself - as well as you go and input new information and new skills and actually change yourself. After that, there’s this fundamental aspect of the human condition that, once we do something cool, we have to share it with others.
And then at the end of it all, if others can learn from what we’ve done - that, in and of itself, is a mark that we’ve earned and contributed Wisdom. The seal of approval.
Problems of Unearned Wisdom
But why earn wisdom at all? Why go through the process, the pain, and the sacrifice it takes in order to gain something that you might already have access to in an unearned form?
In short, it comes down to two problems.
Reliability
Danger
Unearned Wisdom isn’t reliable.
The life hack for “how to do this” may have worked for one person, but based on your internal and highly specific identity, it just might not work for you. This view of Unearned Wisdom is not-positive. In most cases, it’s just the thing doesn’t work for you and life goes on.
However, in addition to issues of reliability . . .
Unearned Wisdom is Dangerous.
If someone gives you advice or insight that isn’t correct and you NEED it to work, that has serious repercussions. If you made an assumption without actually learning something and because of that, you avoid resources, rewards, or even necessities, that is potentially dangerous and truly negative.
Where issues of reliability hold you back from the positive, issues of danger can throw you into the negative.
For those that remember, when we first talked about Wisdom, Kellen mentioned “Ramen-Bob,” a snobby yelper that poorly reviewed one of his favorite restaurants.
That sort of thing may have harmed the business. That Unearned Wisdom may have prevented someone from trying something they would’ve liked otherwise - it just overall collapses the entire notion of what Wisdom is supposed to be for.
Hypothetically, it is like if someone told you “don’t go over there, there’s a monster in that cave” and that assessment is wrong. Whatever is in that cave is lost to you forever. And maybe that cave had a treasure you needed most.
Solutions of Earned Wisdom
Of course, we often reach for wisdom when we’re trying to mitigate risk and damage - to be so suspicious of everything would be ignorant of the legacy and wealth of knowledge of those that came before us.
This isn’t an argument for having everyone try everything for themselves.
Instead, it is an invitation to deepen one’s relationship with the Wisdom they choose to use - both Earned and Unearned.
Earning Wisdom simply allows an individual to figure it out for themselves, the truth of that topic.
Results are important, but in many ways, how one attains those results becomes more important and more valuable.
The Journey vs the Destination sort of thing.
The process of Earning Wisdom is just that much more beautiful.
You see the world, you learn about yourself, you explore, there’s some stake at play - maybe you lose a little something along the way - but the story, the wisdom, the value you attained.
That’s yours.
Forever.
The Limits of Wisdom
And this is the most important part.
Wisdom in all its glory can help turn the “impossible” into “possible.”
Look all around you. All the innovations that flood your physical domain.
Electricity, the dry-cell battery, smart phones, the internet.
All these wonderful things are just the manifestations of centuries of innovation created through and by Wisdom. (In varying degrees).
However, there’s only so much each of those things can do.
Where Wisdom, by nature, is expansive, at some point there’s a wall or an end.
There’s a limit of Wisdom.
Things like:
Grief
Anxiety
Fear
Doubt
Death
Existentialism
Those are all dense topics that exist in the realm of the unknown. And for anyone that has come in contact with those topics, Wisdom is something that often doesn’t help at all. And as such, that is where the next domain emerges.
Where Wisdom falls short, Peace is what needs to be found.