Where is wisdom?

Image Credit: superhv.com

Bruce Lee is famous not only for his martial art skill. He is also renowned for his ability to infuse traditional Confucius wisdom into contemporary modern living. One of his quotations goes as follows ‘A learned man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer’! Shakespeare too mentioned something to that effect. ‘A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool!’

 We are always under the impression that wisdom can learn from the books and scriptures and that one can wise just by sitting down and burying himself in the company of books. I disagree.

First, let us define ‘wisdom’. Wisdom can be described as the soundness of one’s action based on his application of experience, knowledge and good judgement. Somewhere along the way, there would also be empathy. 

True, academic knowledge is necessary for one to gain wisdom. From the books, we can acquire a wealth of knowledge in such a short time at the comforts of our chairs and homes. But is this wisdom? Are we able to put in practice? We can sit around all day learning about the intricacies and minute details of cycling, but, unless we go out and learn to coordinate our balancing with our pedalling, we would not go far, literally.

Just because a person may not be looking scholarly and may not be speaking the same language as us, we cannot assume the other person is unwise. The Native Indians and the Australian aborigines were always looked down upon as uncultured and lacking in common knowledge by the invaders from the West. Fast forward to the future, now, everyone appreciates the subtleties of their language and advanced nature of their civilisation to live in a symbiotic relationship with Nature and all its occupants. The human race cannot be considered wise until and unless he realises that they have only one Earth. This is our home, and we are not going anywhere in the near future. What is the use of all the high-tech pieces of machinery which able to reap the treasures of Mother Earth and leaving a barren wasteland for our generations to come?

Take a person off the street from any of these densely populated towns of a third world country - Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro or Cairo. The streets in those cities are reeling with vagabonds and members of the public who lost out in the gruelling rat race of urban living. And yet, these people still lead fulfilling lives in their own ways. It is called street smartness. It is a very tangible skill that one can learn living amongst the dwellers of the street. If you and I were left to fend ourselves in these environments, we would not last a third day. The dexterity to outmanoeuvre challenges in such climate is something being in the field. These people have the wisdom to survive however hard ‘the tough gets going’!

An Indian poet once said that Man saw the birds and he made planes; He saw the Moon and he built a rocket; He heard echoes and he made radio. Basically what the poet is saying is that there are a lot of wisdom that we can learn if we keep over senses open. We can learn empathy from seeing sick, handicapped and the old people who are suffering around us. Look at the members of the avian population and we can understand how is it is to fly mammoth distances if we do it groups and car-pooling. Even things as minute as bacteria and viruses may teach us a thing or two. Their ability to withstand the constant insult from pharmaceutical agents via genetic mutation can spur new approaches to combat various diseases that plague mankind, like cancers and other lethal viral illnesses.

(Thanks DKLA for input)