Knowledge vs. Wisdom

Knowledge pertains to knowing and to intelligence while wisdom has to do with the soundness of judgment.

Intellectual transformation is 'the' realization of 'know'ledge to wisdom: Wisdom is not knowledge; one cannot have wisdom without knowledge, but one cannot substitute wisdom for knowledge as well. Wisdom is knowing the truth of it well enough as to be able to discern that - from the choices - as to make the one choice that is seen as a wise choice. Then knowledge is the result of lessons we learned by exploitation of our wisdom! As wisdom encourages to keep on gathering facts (knowledge). Wisdom + Knowledge = life, a never-ending fact-discovery mission.

Wisdom is willingness to accept that, there is unknown in life journey: Putting aside all the trained thoughts, systems and boxes, let the open possibility come connect, naturally, the way to attain wisdom is to have an open mind (but not so open your brains fall out), be aware you could be wrong, learn from your experiences and those of others, be aware yours is not the only valid worldview, learn to see the world from different angles.

Knowing what you do not know is at the very least a large part of wisdom, and far too often sorely lacking in people. Wise are those who accept their lack of knowledge and are ready to drop their self-created beliefs systems, preconceived notions. Wisdom is learning what you don't know and then sharing what you have learned. This is acquired over a period of time as you gain experience. Because more often, our own knowledge (or knowing) is a barrier to knowing more. Wisdom= f(Applying what we think we know, Experience, Learning, unlearning and relearning, Sharing Knowledge and Experience).

Knowledge pertains to knowing and to intelligence while wisdom has to do with the soundness of judgment: Many people do wrong things, not because of ignorance, but because of poor judgment, due to the lack of comprehensive knowledge, bias, or preconceived notions. It is imperative to identify what causes manifestly intelligent people so frequently make such poor decisions. Do they lack independent thinking or critical reasoning? Do they thinking "too fast" without necessary "thinking slowly"? Do they focus too many trivial details, with ignorance of the big picture? Wisdom is to be understood within this context.

Wisdom is about harmonizing the thinking, saying and doing. Wisdom would necessarily be concerned with knowing what to say, when to say, how to say, whom to say, where to say, as well as knowing what not to say, when not to say, how not to say, whom not to say, where not to say... any lapse in any of these would show lack of wisdom because their instincts erode a huge portion of their intelligence. Mastering what instincts are, how they function and how they interact with human intellect and jointly command everything we do would enable one to consciously manage this subconscious mental trend, defuse this constant and subtle inner conflict to free their intelligence from the tight grip of their instincts and allow their intelligence to become fully functional.

The ultimate aim of knowledge is wisdom. Every bit of knowledge we acquire either increases our confidence, or betters our judgment, or then does both. We have a limited bandwidth and hence choose to pursue knowledge that will benefit us in some way - an eminently logical choice. We become wise when we are humble enough to be aware of and admit what we don't know and share what we know. Wisdom and humility go hand in hand. So we can not only get older but also grow wiser.

Posted in: Connecting Dots,Food for Thought,Future of Leadership,Learning,Profundity,Systems Wisdom