What is 'Wisdom', anyway?

[lost_wanderer]

I see you've been reading amerika.org

Yes but not recently. I should restart to do it because the texts that I read were great. 

[WAAAAAAGH!]

I must appropriate that last statement for sig material.

Wisdom? For most people, even the pursuit of literacy is a complete waste of time. They don't need to be literate to function in service or other labor jobs. A small set of large cartoony icons associated with simple tasks and meanings would do just fine.

We should privatize those several years of public education by having a given company issue internationally standardized icon training courses to its employees. It is time to get real about the average working class human being.

And bingo was his name o. We have more people pushed through higher education than ever in recorded history. These same people have access to a vast wealth of information literally in their pockets. Yet, the condition of human affairs has hardly changed. Anyone who believes otherwise is fooled by appearances.

In my line of work I have the pleasure of witnessing the failure of rationalism and generalized abstraction in education. In colorful terms, I work among graduates who hold, what ought to be, powerful pedigrees that do not know their dicks from their assholes. In less colorful terms, they are simply to dumb to adequately perform the task at hand.

The artificial propping up of the underclassmen through education has done squat. Time to throw in the towel and accept the state of life as it is.

[NHA]

What I realized about all of this was that people were not seeing what I was offering for what it was. They seemed to always turn it into what it was not, instead, before even considering what was on offer.

Sounds like an issue with how its being delivered. If you come across as Moses coming down from the mountain you're going to get a polarized response. The delivery of a joke often matters more than its actual content. Social manipulation is vital if you want to do anything other than masturbate over your own ideas.

[crow]

Do you masturbate often?
There seems to be a certain type who uses this word, passive-aggressively.
Are you one of them?
Perhaps its something to do with your delivery.
Am I Moses coming down from the mountain?
Perhaps there is an issue of projection, here.

When somebody offers something, he is offering something.
It can be accepted, or rejected.
Either is fine with me.
It is only the abusive ridicule and gratuitous insults I take issue with.
In order to interact with anybody, do you think it is reasonable to insist that everybody else should be as you expect them to be, before any interaction can take place?

This, indeed, seems often to be the way it often is, and it stops interaction dead in its tracks.

[NHA]

Translation: No! U!

When somebody offers something, he is offering something.
It can be accepted, or rejected.

Same can be said for the above.

You assume things are personal when they aren't and you project passive aggression into the case to make it so. Or maybe you aren't. Doesn't really matter much either way.

[crow]

There was a certain amount of irony there.
Sure, I masturbate sometimes, but rarely, being an old fart.
I certainly don't do it when I write.
It is the reader who inserts such concepts into the act of simple communication.

[Cargést]

I like the accurate statement that Tradition has been the vehicle of Wisdom throughout human history.

The story of the flood is one of two things: a historical description of a past event (glacial flooding raised sea levels and sank megalithic "civilisations" roughly 12,000 years ago), and a metaphorical account of the survival of Tradition.  When Men have become evil, and wind their way towards self-destruction, there are those who secure the fruits of that civilisation and protect themselves from the coming cataclysm, that they might come into the new world bearing the gifts of the past.

[Phoenix]

In response to the original post (I may read all the replies and comment on them after):

In my view knowledge and understanding can be possessed in isolation from the flow of life, but if you possess wisdom then by definition you know how to use it because wisdom pertains to the active process of being, not a passive concept of knowing about being.

Your recounts of your stuttering and realizing people are really just assholes are amusing, I'm sure many of us can relate in terms of how we each discovered the shitty truth about people in different ways. It's pretty crazy!

But then you go on about how a person with wisdom such as yourself proceeds in life in their thoughts and interactions about themselves and others, always putting yourself on that pedestal. I've made many similar statements in the past, and I recognize you're just desperately trying to find a way of conveying that which is so difficult to convey! The fact that you *are* so different in your thoughts and deeds, and that this point of divergence *is* most critical to understand.

If you want to recount your life's journey that's fine, it's an interesting life and can be an interesting read. But if you want to persuade others, may I suggest that with your words you focus not on the external--it's bound to only offend and dissuade--but on the internal. Delve into the inner world of your being, explain how your thinking or lack thereof works, explain how your awareness works, explain how one can be present in the now.

Admittedly such is almost as daunting a task as calling someone a fool and in the same breath teaching them how not to be, but it is possible with the right words and, indeed, with true understanding of what it means to be self-realized and enlightened.

So, where do you stand, concerning the unexpected appearance of what could be wisdom?
Are you open to consider something you maybe don't yet know?
Or compelled to ridicule it, out of hand?

You're trying to hook those who already have a glimmer of Sight, but at the same time you're slapping them down. It makes a skeptic wonder if you really have that much to offer, after all.

To take a page out of my book(-in-progress), try not to be so standoff-ish and try to explore a little more the inner equations rather than the outward appearances:

The problem is not that the standard person almost always has more pressing concerns than the great mysteries of life, but that questioning them about their prioritization in this regard will almost always reveal their prioritization is based on premature conclusions. The problem is that while on one hand the standard person justifies their priorities in life with admittedly speculative logic, on the other hand the refinement of said logic almost always fails to rank highly on their list of priorities. Questions in life deemed to have slim likelihood of ever being successfully answered, such as the great mysteries of life, these questions typically do not get pursued, for realistically there is only so much time in a day and nobody can possibly give their attention to every single potential learning opportunity that comes along. And this would be just fine, except that the question of determining what exactly is the degree of likelihood a given question could ever be successfully answered, this question, having to do with the great mystery of the human mind's capacity, is itself typically viewed as a question that has a slim likelihood of ever being successfully answered! So the average person has settled into a compromise position that appears logical with a bent towards practicality, but that is actually founded on excuses, covering up contradiction and circular logic, for the sake of remaining in safety and comfort rather than confronting the overwhelming dilemma of existential uncertainty head-on.

Don't try to break them emotionally, rather twist their reason and their tunnel realities into such a ball that their little heads explode! Ever towards the breaking point, at least then they have a chance (or go crazy). Oh and if they can't get through a thick block of text, then, um, don't bother hahaha.

[crow]

You're really very poor at reading people.
Again, you are describing your own problems as if they are somebody else's.
You drone on about my wanting/needing to persuade.
I guess you don't have any concept of offering.
Etc etc etc etc etc...

Think whatever you like. Persuade yourself that you are right.
From our past interactions, as well as this one, I have no respect or patience for you.
I imagine you feel the same about me.

[BillHopkins]

There is something to be said about face to face interaction, community and groups of human beings getting together and talking to each other.

The limitations of a group of people using the internet to discuss wieghty topics shows it's limitations in situations like these. Communication goes down the drain.

[Phoenix]

You drone on about my wanting/needing to persuade.

Are you trying to be persuasive or unpersuasive?

It's like if I say conversation needs solid argument you assume I mean it needs hostility. Read a dictionary.

[crow]

Piss off you little halfwit.
I don't persuade, or argue.
Because I am not like you.
Your patronizing puerility is really sickening. 

There. All done.
Thank you everyone else for an interesting discussion.
I think that probably concludes it.

[Phoenix]

I think there's also the connotation that wisdom is not a full-stop that can be 'attained', but 'accrued' until death stops the worldly 'accrual'. Maybe that's just me thinking about the meaning of words too carefully.

I love it when you look at words carefully.

There comes a point where all non-wisdom, all unwise thoughts, actions and desires, have been purged from your being; unwise thoughts, actions and desires can still arise, conventionally and in accordance with your own intent, but they can't touch your core, they can no longer pull you back down out of enlightenment. Beyond this plateau of realizing how to be fully present and aware, you can certainly continue to accrue wisdom but it's more a matter of quantity than quality, you can accrue different types for different situations. Also enlightenment isn't the end it's only the beginning and in the long run there are other levels to attain..

So, what I'm always interested in when people talk about wisdom, is: how does one recognize the wise? Many claim to have gained wisdom, and usually when they are relatively young, we can safely ignore them. However, for the more likely candidates, what exactly are the hallmarks of the wise? This is important: if those who have it want to share wisdom, for the rest to receive it, we must be able to distinguish between charlatan and sage.

Seeking wisdom in others leads to delusion, seeking it in yourself leads to realization; in either case it's far more efficient to focus on recognizing non-wisdom and dismantling that, then you'll be far more receptive to wisdom.

[Mithrandir]

I think we live in times scarred by smitten ideologies, feigned values, fake prophets and endorsed idiocy where music carved out of passion and purpose today is very relevant and needed.