wisdom

Whether we know it or not, wisdom– applied understanding, meaningful perspective, self-knowledge that is not self-absorption, the examined life– is what reflective humans really want most, for ourselves and for posterity. Some of us are geeky enough to dream of a long and prosperous future for our kind, and that won’t happen without a lot more wisdom than has been on public display lately.

If we continue to accumulate only power and not wisdom, we will surely destroy ourselves… If we become even slightly more violent, shortsighted, ignorant, and selfish than we are now, almost certainly we will have no future. Pale Blue Dot

That was true when Dr. Carl wrote it a decade and a half ago. We’re on borrowed time here.

And so it was with quickened concern that I picked up Stephen Hall’s new book yesterday, Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience. It’s a thoughtful journalist’s survey of the history of wisdom as a concept and cultural ideal, re-framed in terms of what we are beginning to understand of its biological basis. The most pleasing passage I’ve yet come across cites Montaigne:

“The most manifest sign of wisdom is continual cheerfulness.” If by that he meant optimism about the future, he is backed up by neuroscientists, who have begun to find support for that notion.

Great. “It don’t come easy” (as the septuagenerian  Starkey, wiser than reputed, sang) to be an optimist in this hot and oily summer of our discontent,  but I’m definitely up for trying. Just like Charles Schulz‘s crew, cheerfully “working out the interior problems of their daily lives without ever actually solving them.” Yet.

Tags: Charles Schulz, Montaigne, Ringo Starr, Stephen Hall