Fiftieth Episode Special: Wisdom - What Is It And What Do We Do To Get More?
Do you consider yourself a wise person? If so, how did you build your wisdom? If not, where are the areas of lack and what could you do to build it? Wisdom is one of our most valuable attributes. The good news is we can always build more. Doing so leads to better life experiences for us and those around us. In this, our 50th episode of the Eye of Power Podcast, well examine the topic of wisdom and identify ways to strengthen it.
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Fiftieth Episode Special: Wisdom - What Is It And What Do We Do To Get More?
We spend our time and energy working to increase our agency and personal power. An underlying assumption or assertion is that it's wise to do so. In this episode, we will take the opportunity to examine this central assumption. Is increased personal power something we should all seek? Is that what wisdom requires?
What is wisdom anyway? In its most evolved form, is it something available only to the smartest of us? No matter the answer, is there anything we might do to systematically maximize our wisdom? If so, what actions might we take? In celebration of this milestone, this episode is a little more deluxe and thus, a little longer than normal. I hope you find commensurate value in it. Let's dive in.
As a person, I have been raised in the culture of the modern Western world, one built upon the values of the dignity of the individual and the American dream, and exposed to such advertising nuggets of wisdom like, “Be all you can be. Go for it. Just do it.” I've been taught the world is what we make it. As I've expanded my worldview, I still see a lot of truth there.
It supported such anecdotes and messages as “Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.” “Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It's the courage to continue that counts.” “Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your actions.” “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” “Your time is limited. Don't waste it living someone else's life.” “The greatest glory and living lies not in never failing but in rising every time we fall." Finally, “You can't go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending.”
The common thread between these observations is the assumption of individual agency. We are in some measure the authors of our fates. Our self-images, our justice system, and even the dynamics in our relationships emerge from the same assumption. We act as though we have free will and are responsible for our actions. We aspire to build lives that more closely match the things we need, desire, and believe are worthwhile. We compare and judge ourselves and others.
As we do, we're moved in the direction of constant striving. While that mentality may result in valuable payoffs, is it without cost? Of course, not. Nothing is without cost. People in many cultures such as a Buddhist monk, a Zen master, or a villager, anywhere on the globe raised in a non-Western traditional culture all view the busy work-a-day lifestyle with bemusement, if not outright confusion.
They wonder what the hurry is all about. They smile as they see people in the modern hustle and bustle work to exhaustion to keep up or even get ahead. To them, it looks more like a hamster's wheel. They wonder how the value of the present moment where life transpires is lost on so many souls. Eastern approaches such as Wu Wei and Zen philosophies stress the idea of acceptance, which means perceiving things as they are and not exerting energy to directly oppose reality.
These views consider attempts to control or manipulate the world around us as a major source of suffering and pain but this does not mean they preach impotence or the non-existence of our agency. Rather, they point out a way friendlier to a life characterized as wise. Here's a sample of the approach. When your body is not aligned, the inner power will not come. When you are not tranquil within, your mind will not be well-ordered. Align your body, assist the inner power, and then it will gradually come on its own.
There is wisdom in the attitude of acceptance and of being sanguine with the reality of the moment. In this approach, we seek alignment, peace of mind, and order. Under these conditions, our power grows. These concepts apply to what's going on around us but mostly, what's going on within us. That's where what power we have comes from. We're told about respecting our unique individuality too.
There is wisdom in the attitude of acceptance and in being sanguine about the reality of the moment.
Different doesn't mean wrong. It just means unique. Be yourself. Everyone else is taken. Happiness is accepting yourself and others for who they are. Peace begins with acceptance, yet so few of us experience life in a peaceful accepting way. In the world of commerce and public administration, the Western ideal of striving that emphasizes goal achievement and high performance is predominant.
These require determination and hard work. Those are valuable traits. However, how does all that effort comport with an attitude of acceptance of what is? Is there not an inner conflict between them? We're supposed to accept and love ourselves as we are as we simultaneously remain committed to continual growth and development. It seems like a tricky bit of business. How are we supposed to pull it off? It’s with wisdom.
The juxtaposition of striving versus accepting is a classic diametric. It is one among many that each of us must navigate to grow in the ways we describe with the word wisdom. Let's take a closer look at this concept. What exactly is wisdom? How does it relate to intelligence? Wisdom and intelligence are often used interchangeably but that language is imprecise because though related, they are distinct.
I learned to appreciate this difference in my younger days when we would often partake in the role-playing game of Dungeons and Dragons. If you're not familiar, it included a system to quantify the attributes of characters as they relate to their powers and what they're able to do in the imaginary world of the game. We'd use a dice to roll up our characters according to established guidelines. There were six primary attributes for each character of which wisdom and intelligence were two.
Intelligence was important for magic users. They needed to learn and remember complex spells and wield unseen hard to comprehend forces. Wisdom was useful for clerics. Characters whose clarity of vision about that which they worship and how divine or otherworldly forces are used to proper effect determined the extent of their powers.
In the years since my D&D days, I've often noted how the distinction between wisdom and intelligence plays out in the reality of our world. Intelligence is about our ability to learn and solve problems. It's often measured by IQ tests or our grades in school but there are plenty of people who score high in these areas who would describe as anything but wise. Wisdom is an appreciation for the contexts in life and the application of knowledge to our everyday decision-making.
Wisdom: Wisdom is an appreciation for the contexts in life and the application of knowledge to our everyday decision-making.
When our judgment is sound, our emotional intelligence is high, and we can consider multiple perspectives, we exhibit wisdom. What's more our relationships with these two attributes are very different. Intelligence is perceptive. Wisdom is intricate. It involves maturity. While we are largely born with a given level of what we call intelligence, our wisdom grows over the course of our lives. How?
As social creatures, we learn from others. We gain or lose wisdom by witnessing the behaviors of those around us like our peers, siblings, parents, teachers, mentors, or role models. Our deepest most profound lessons tend to come from the school of hard knocks. These are lessons paid for with the price of pain.
I'd like to add one more to this list. The level of our wisdom is directly related to our willingness to take a real honest look in the mirror. This echoes back to what we talked about with Zen or Wu Wei approaches. Our wisdom grows in proportion to how grounded we are and what is real and true. This should seem obvious. The opposite of the wise are the foolish and the wise are not easily fooled.
Another way to think of this is our wisdom is a function of how sophisticated, developed, detailed, and robust our models and mental representations of everything. The age we live in is largely untethered to this principle. Postmodern philosophy has proffered and instituted a disempowering notion that there is nothing that in the final analysis is true and real. This belief has given rise to relativism, reductionism, and materialism.
Much of our political discourse and the acrimony in it is the inevitable result. Confusion, injustice, and their accompanying sufferings are unavoidable consequences of a disconnection to the real. This brings us to another important dichotomy. In much the same vein as striving versus accepting, we must also parse and sort between the objective and the subjective. Our ability to ascribe observations and concepts properly between these polls is an important determining factor in the development of our wisdom.
What are the other qualities of the wise among us? Wise people are grounded. They are difficult to throw off balance. Why? It’s because they know themselves. They know others too because they know human nature. They can put the experiences of life in a context that leads to the greatest range of appropriate and useful responses. These are required ingredients as we seek to increase our power.
Wisdom: Wise people are grounded. They are difficult to throw off balance.
It may come as no surprise that I land on the question of our agency and the wisdom of directing our attention and energy to the task of increasing it. That leaves one more question for us. What can we do to build wisdom? We talked about learning from others and experience. There are four more basic categories I want to leave you with.
First, there's intention and willpower. We can decide to work on it. Maybe this isn't the most Zen way to move forward but we can grow faster with an intentional plan. At a minimum, we can use discipline to avoid things we know are unwise. We could avoid SAD or the Standard American Diet full of trans-fat, sugar, and other ingredients that not only don't contribute to our physical health but actively degrade it. As someone in the process of doing this, I can attest this is not an easy goal but if we wish to live our healthiest, it is unwise to do anything but.
For our mental health, there are a few things better than living with purpose. We can identify our unique set of gifts. Those attributes we possess in a combination only we have and place them in service to others. Doing so is wise because it feeds our highest needs and leads to a better society. Second, we can make it a point to study and learn about wisdom. Where would you begin such a course?
One could argue that any learning will do and I'd have to agree. The classic Liberal Arts education was designed to provide such a basis. That ideal has fallen from favor but it's not gone. In many ways, we're in better shape because of the resources available for free to everyone online. However, how do we sort the wheat from the chaff? Where is the biggest depository of wisdom?
Regardless of persuasion, it would be hard to argue against the oldest and most durable stories, the ones that describe the basic conditions of humans in our world. Classic books and the all-time greats, among these, the greatest are found in Genesis and Exodus in the Bible. Third, we can actively work on strengthening our skills. The ones I would point out that will most contribute to growing wisdom are critical thinking, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence.
Critical thinking is not properly emphasized in our schools. To build it, we must work on it on our own. There are plenty of resources available. One of the best ways to develop this is writing. Writing is thinking. Good writing is clear thinking. Great writing is clear thinking tethered to the universal lasting truth. If you don't already, consider beginning the habit and discipline of journaling. Make it your intention to clarify your daily experiences. Think about the lessons learned. Consider alternative courses of action and their potential effects. Also, experiment with new approaches at your next opportunity.
Mindfulness is an important discipline to avoid the hamster wheel effect. It's what brings us into the present. It expands our enjoyment of life, things like the soul-to-soul connection, relationships, savoring our meals, appreciating the beauty of the natural world, and the creative force of consciousness within it. A meditation practice is quite useful.
Mindfulness is an important discipline to avoid the hamster wheel effect. It's what brings us into the present.
I found much value in the daily practice of yoga. It includes a focus on the breath and a quieting of the mind. It's as important, if not more so than the physical strength and flexibility yoga promotes. Emotional intelligence is something we discuss a lot in the Eye of Power community. One of the best ways to build our EQ or level of development of emotional intelligence is the practice of active listening. I did an entire episode on that topic so I won't repeat the details here.
Finally, as perhaps the most powerful way to build our wisdom, we’ll end where we began. Much of it is a function of our environment, which we happen to hang around. When we are the wrong crowd, our wisdom suffers. When we're in the right crowd, one characterized by insight, openness, humility, and a spirit of supporting the growth of others, we're supported in our wisdom journey. We’ll thrive. That's one of the points of the show. It’s to create and build such a community. My hope is that you'll join us. Keep reading. Sign up for our mailing list. When the time is right, join in the fun. At the very least, it will be a valuable way to build wisdom. Let's go.