Intelligence or Wisdom
If you had the chance to be reknowned for either your intelligence or your wisdom, which would you pick? Wait, not sure of the difference between the two? Here:
in·tel·li·gence
n.
1. The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge, especially toward a purposeful goal.
wis·dom
n.
1. The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight.
Now, clearly, everyone realizes that deep down inside they are both intelligent and wise... but humor me. Where would one spend this ficticious capital given above? Would you purchase the intelligence booster or the wisdom generator?
For me the answer would have been intelligence. But, today, I'm not so sure. Certainly while in school the answer would have been intelligence. I imagine it would be the choice of anyone getting a BS instead of a BA! 8)
Even since college, intelligence has certainly held the public spotlight. I mean, given how easy it is to communicate these days (like reading blogs and such) it is much easier to exchange knowledge than insight. If I want to know a piece of trivia I go to www.google.com. My friend had an Indian wedding. I learned everything I wanted to learn about Indian weddings in 2 hours with the help of google.
If I want insight and the ability to discern what is true or meaningful, that's a different can of worms. Wisdom is much fuzzier than intelligence.
And that is what led me to favor intellect in the first place. Facts is facts. Math is math. There is a constant security when living amongst axioms. In fact I would know some who'd say wisdom is an illusion brought about by the mind's inability to accurately book-keep it's collection and application of knowledge. Or, at best, wisdom is a subset of knowledge and collecting knowledge then implies collecting wisdom. You simply cannot be wise and dumb as a post at the same time.
So, what brings up this thought process? In my short-but-ever-lengthening life, I've known and worked with several people who were very, very intelligent but had the wisdom of a small grapefuit. Over time, I have somehow come to respect these people less and it probably has something to do with my internal shifting values:
I know some very smart but very unhappy people and I get concerned, sometimes, that I would become like them. So I self-deprecate, and sometimes give the wrong answers so as not to mind-compete, and try and figure out what differentiates the happy from the unhappy.
I think the answer, the differentiator, is wisdom. I used to call it perspective. I think it must be, for without an ability to discern what is true and right (at least for yourself) how can any other skill be brought to bear in the correct way, at the correct time, and in the correct amount?
I'm wise enough to think that I would like to be wiser.
I'm reminded of a time, several years ago, when I started buying drums from the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I had no rhythm. I couldn't hold a beat to save my life, and yet I kept buying drums and going to the festival. I called it "my grand search for rhythm". I would stop other people with drums and ask them to teach me rhythm. I would bang out my beats at the festival (once having a shopkeeper shoo me from playing so horribly near her shop). After about three years, I could bang the drum fairly well. I held my own at the end-of-day drum fests, and people didn't give me hate-stares when I played. I knew I found rhythm when, playing one day at the festival a group of belly-dancers who had been walking by stopped and danced to my drum beats for a while. But that, most certainly, is a different story.
I imagine wisdom isn't all that different from rhythm. It's all about timing and degree, and in its pursuit you will certainly be shooed away from your fair share of doorsteps. I don't know that a group of wandering belly-dancers is the olive branch hearalding the arrival of wisdom, but then again, I don't know that it isn't either. If I find out, I'll let you know.
-Ed
in·tel·li·gence
n.
1. The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge, especially toward a purposeful goal.
wis·dom
n.
1. The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight.
Now, clearly, everyone realizes that deep down inside they are both intelligent and wise... but humor me. Where would one spend this ficticious capital given above? Would you purchase the intelligence booster or the wisdom generator?
For me the answer would have been intelligence. But, today, I'm not so sure. Certainly while in school the answer would have been intelligence. I imagine it would be the choice of anyone getting a BS instead of a BA! 8)
Even since college, intelligence has certainly held the public spotlight. I mean, given how easy it is to communicate these days (like reading blogs and such) it is much easier to exchange knowledge than insight. If I want to know a piece of trivia I go to www.google.com. My friend had an Indian wedding. I learned everything I wanted to learn about Indian weddings in 2 hours with the help of google.
If I want insight and the ability to discern what is true or meaningful, that's a different can of worms. Wisdom is much fuzzier than intelligence.
And that is what led me to favor intellect in the first place. Facts is facts. Math is math. There is a constant security when living amongst axioms. In fact I would know some who'd say wisdom is an illusion brought about by the mind's inability to accurately book-keep it's collection and application of knowledge. Or, at best, wisdom is a subset of knowledge and collecting knowledge then implies collecting wisdom. You simply cannot be wise and dumb as a post at the same time.
So, what brings up this thought process? In my short-but-ever-lengthening life, I've known and worked with several people who were very, very intelligent but had the wisdom of a small grapefuit. Over time, I have somehow come to respect these people less and it probably has something to do with my internal shifting values:
I know some very smart but very unhappy people and I get concerned, sometimes, that I would become like them. So I self-deprecate, and sometimes give the wrong answers so as not to mind-compete, and try and figure out what differentiates the happy from the unhappy.
I think the answer, the differentiator, is wisdom. I used to call it perspective. I think it must be, for without an ability to discern what is true and right (at least for yourself) how can any other skill be brought to bear in the correct way, at the correct time, and in the correct amount?
I'm wise enough to think that I would like to be wiser.
I'm reminded of a time, several years ago, when I started buying drums from the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I had no rhythm. I couldn't hold a beat to save my life, and yet I kept buying drums and going to the festival. I called it "my grand search for rhythm". I would stop other people with drums and ask them to teach me rhythm. I would bang out my beats at the festival (once having a shopkeeper shoo me from playing so horribly near her shop). After about three years, I could bang the drum fairly well. I held my own at the end-of-day drum fests, and people didn't give me hate-stares when I played. I knew I found rhythm when, playing one day at the festival a group of belly-dancers who had been walking by stopped and danced to my drum beats for a while. But that, most certainly, is a different story.
I imagine wisdom isn't all that different from rhythm. It's all about timing and degree, and in its pursuit you will certainly be shooed away from your fair share of doorsteps. I don't know that a group of wandering belly-dancers is the olive branch hearalding the arrival of wisdom, but then again, I don't know that it isn't either. If I find out, I'll let you know.
-Ed
posted by Ed at 12:31 PM
1 Comments:
My somewhat easy answer is this:
(Feeling somewhat philosophical about this comment)
To be wise is the ability (willingness to admit) to know you don't know.
To be intelligent is either to know or not. (Cut and dry, facts is facts, yes or no, binary)
I ain't the sharpest tool in the barn and I fully admit it at times. Other times I shut up and hide my ignorance... but there is wisdom in knowing you don't know.
How often do you find people who don't know and just make stuff up? Or have to go research the heck out of it to make themselves feel better about not knowing?
Wisdom is not something that you have to memorize or to be able to add two VERY large numbers together in a split second. It is a combination of personal experience, to be able to take an event and realize the importance, and be able to take something away from it.
After all, I wound up with both BA and MS degrees… so my brain seems to be split with how to handle these types of issues.
I know what I know, and for the rest I usually shut up or ask questions
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