Wisdom And Knowledge

 With the news of COVID 19 vaccines doing the rounds, the print media these days is flooded with updates about stages of development / evaluation various vaccines are currently at. Newspapers and magazines are full of articles informing us of the successes and failures of vaccine trials being done by various pharma companies. And amidst all these writings, the one that caught my eye was like a low blow in this season of hope. Published in The Indian Express, this article states about the probable challenges in administering a vaccine in a country as diverse as ours and how, in this hour where sufficient knowledge about COVID 19 and its vaccine is not available, the only way to tread through is with wisdom because only knowledge will not be enough in making the right decision and coping effectively with the current challenges. There is also one mention that the countries which applied wisdom and not knowledge only faced the challenge of pandemic more effectively than others.

Wisdom, better understood as ‘bodhi’ in Hindi is a word used very commonly, but is the virtue as popularly found or understood as holistically and deeply as its significance? The answer most certainly is not a clear cut ‘yes’. We live in an age dominated by science and technology, by specialization and compartmentalization, where ‘wisdom’ is too loose, too grand, and too mysterious a concept. With our heads in smartphones and tablets, we simply do not have the time or mental space for it. Moreover, with the current focus of our education system on measurable achievements in clearly defined areas and with the availability of ample knowledge just a click away, all our attention seems to have shifted towards accumulation of as much knowledge as possible.

So does being knowledgeable equal to being wise? Often mistaken as the same, the two concepts are much more far apart than we realize. Knowledge may be understood as simply the collection of information and facts, whereas wisdom is an ability, the ability to make right use of knowledge. Knowledge is to understand something and wisdom is being able to put that understanding to practical use, being able to make decisions and judgements based on that understanding. Knowledge is knowing what to say and wisdom is knowing when and how to say it. Knowledge is obtainable, wisdom on the other hand can only be developed by experience. And most importantly, knowledge might be short term but wisdom is permanent, it stays forever.

To explain the difference better, I would like to refer from the book “Small is Beautiful”, written by famous economist E F Schumacher. In one chapter, the author talks about one of the biggest problems we have faced for centuries i.e., world peace. The chapter opens with the mention of peace and moves on to question our basic modern belief – ‘universal prosperity is the foundation of peace’. The last five decades have seen the world prospering manifolds, in terms of wealth, education, knowledge and technology that we use, but have we become more peaceful? We today take pride in being more enriched (in terms of knowledge and wealth) and consider ourselves better off, because what were luxuries for our forefathers have become basic necessities for us. We have certainly become cleverer and capable of achieving astonishing things, but haven’t we also become incapable of solving the most elementary problems of everyday existence? Haven’t our lives become more ‘complicated’ over these years of ‘progress’? Where is it that we have gone wrong then?

The problem as subtly stated by E F Schumacher is, “The neglect, indeed the rejection, of wisdom has gone so far that most of our intellectuals do not even have the faintest idea what the term could mean. The disease is having allowed cleverness to displace wisdom.”  To sum up, today we think that knowledge gives us the solution to all our problems, but actually that isn’t true. Any amount of knowledge minus wisdom will make the solution temporary and non - sustainable. The exclusion of wisdom is something we can get away with for a little while, but eventually its dearth will move into the central position.

Parents today want their children to be intelligent and ‘gyani’, to know as many things and in as much detail as humanly possible. What we don’t realize is, possessing bountiful knowledge and not knowing how, when and where to use it defies the entire purpose of education. Today we relate the possession of knowledge with the possibility of unlimited economic growth, until one is saturated with wealth. But is that ever possible? No one ever says ‘We have enough’. Schumacher in the book calls ‘the cultivation and expansion of needs as an antithesis of wisdom’ and rightly so because an expansion of needs only brings about greed and envy, not wisdom.

As educated people, we bear the responsibility of adding value to our society, of becoming role models for other people by being able to guide them the right way or when they want to take a decision. Why do we still look up to our parents and grandparents? Why even after probably being more educated, we run to them for their advice? If observed carefully, we will realize it is because they are wiser. The elderly women in our families might not be formally educated, they might not know that tomatoes are fruits, but they surely know not to put tomatoes in a fruit salad. Also take for example the ‘nadi - vaidhyas’. Though unequipped with formal degrees, specializations and super specialisations, they have the ability to cure people. I do not know how knowledgeable they are, but what leaves me awestruck is how wisely they use their knowledge to gauge the ailment even with bare minimum external aids (like modern x - rays, CT scans or blood test reports).   

Wisdom is a quality generally associated with aging. When thinking about a wise person, we often imagine someone elderly, as we believe that it is our life experiences that make us wise. Yet the relationship between age and wisdom is actually much more complex. It has been proven that old age is neither sufficient nor necessary for the development of wisdom. The question to ask is not how much experience one has had, but how much one has chosen to utilize and learn from that experience. And this process of learning from experiences starts from, when we are born. It is a habit, to be inculcated, right from the very beginning. Wisdom is not a biological trait that gets passed from one generation to the other. It is something that gets developed on how our brain discerns the environment. And although each individual will have different life experiences, which will eventually define their convictions, habits, values and character, we as parents and teachers can try to provide our children with an environment healthy enough to induce the trait.

I’d like to mention a conversation between a contestant, his older brother and Mr Amitabh Bachchan in an episode of KBC. The contestant hailed from an underprivileged farmer family and had a financially difficult childhood. In a much better position now, the contestant gave the credit of his success to his elder brother, who he said made a meagre living himself yet provided the financial support for his (the contestant’s) education all throughout. When asked about what lead him to do so, the elder brother’s response was heart touching. He said “Garibi aek aisa teacher hai jo kuch na kuch aacha karne ke liye protsahit karte rehta hai insaan ko. Aur sahi samay par sahi marg darshan mil jaye, toh insaan woh sab kuch hasil kar sakta hai jo uske dil ki iccha hai.” The elder brother (Mr Shrikant Jha) seemed like a very simple and humble man. Probably not enough ‘qualified’ he still had enough wisdom to turn the challenges in his life into opportunities. And while most people hold their problems responsible for all the wrong doings, it is people like Mr Shrikant Jha who give us inspiration and learning.      

Wisdom cannot be taught, not certainly via books. But inspiring the young impressionable minds by one’s actions, by sharing one’s experiences, by leading with example might help. And the journey will start by developing wisdom in ourselves. To begin, let us try to understand human behaviour by recapping a little biology of what goes inside our brain. 

The human brain is said to be the most complicated material object known. Weighing only 1300 – 1400 gms, it is composed of at least 100 billion nerve cells or neurons. Neurons are connected to other neurons and interact with each other via chemical substances (hormones) called neurotransmitters. Our moods and feelings depend on the kind of neurotransmitter released in our brain. Although our genes control the chemistry in the brain, it needs to be activated by the environment. An environmental event switches the neurons on, or modifies their level of activity, before they can start making proteins that influence neural connections. Thus our genes might determine if we inherit a particular characteristic but it is the environment that causes to produce proteins that lead to certain "response tendencies." So our behavior emerges from the mutually dependent activity of genetic and environmental factors.

Reactions to environmental experiences are the reason that all individuals are unique. There are no individuals with exactly the same upbringing, nutrition, education, social stamping, physical, social and cultural setting. People behave differently because differences in their environment cause different life experiences. And people evolve (in terms of behavior) as the brain is continuously rewired with life experiences. To learn what works and does not and what is good or bad for us means we have to explore our environment. Remembering places, facts and events is important. But sometimes, the brain seems particularly attracted to novel experiences. The unknown is potentially rewarding, thereby motivating us to explore our environment and learn for the future. This brings me to the behavioral component, probably the one that contributes the most in learning, something we are all born with, ‘curiosity’.  

Humans are born curious. As children we all liked to perform experiments and understand and discover things. But as we grew older, the way our parents and teachers responded to our curiosity shaped our ability and comfort of asking questions and thus learning new things. Now that we are grown ups, we should introspect and think about things that our parents and teachers did right and things that they did wrong; follow the techniques that worked and correct the faulty ones. 

To quote Thomas Alva Edison, “The brain can be developed just the same way as the muscles can be developed, if one will only take the pains to train the mind to think.” I would sincerely appeal to all my readers, to keep their curious self, alive, to be inquirers. The world is multidisciplinary. Physics doesn't explain everything; neither does biology or economics. Since no single discipline has all the answers, we need to understand the relationships and combine ideas from all the important disciplines. All knowledge is subject to change as new evidence arrives. This means we have to continuously learn and re-Iearn, imagine and reimagine, redefine and redesign our thinking and add perspectives to support our actions.

Words, definitions, propositions, statements, don't tell kids anything. Kids need to understand what those mean, in simple terms. And to be able to explain to kids, we need to know the meanings ourselves. Albert Einstein had said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” And God forbid, if a teacher doesn’t understand his/ her subject well enough to simplify it for the students, how do we expect the kids to be ever interested in something complicated? Parents and teachers should try to break down a problem into small and simple chunks, making it easier for the kids to understand and solve. Learning this technique will not only help them be better in academics, but also help them to look into solving life’s practical problems in the same manner. 

And amidst all this, what we should also adhere to, is being patient. Patience, patience and more patience, an ingredient fundamental to creating a fearless environment for kids to learn and flourish, should become a routine. And how does being patient help us adults become wiser? It has been proven that the best thinking is often done when there is no stress, time limit, threats, or judging. We are more likely to solve a specific problem or gain new insight if we leave the problem alone for a while and let our subconscious mind work.         

Another important attitudinal attribute that will make a huge difference is honesty. Being honest about what we know and what we do not. The journey to being wise starts with accepting what we do not know. It is okay to make mistakes but it’s not okay to not learn from them. We as adults should not be ashamed of admitting to our flaws for that is the only way we can get rid of them. And that is certainly the only way our kids will learn to do the same. 

To sum up, being wise is being able to apply knowledge to make good judgments and the right decisions. More information does not ensure more wisdom, although it will add to wisdom if processed in the right way. And in today’s digital age, with easy access to abundant information, finding time and mental space for exploring and reflecting on the pursuit of wisdom, may seem difficult but is extremely essential. Schumacher asks “What is wisdom? Where can it be found?”. He himself answers that though it can be read about in numerous publications but it can be found only within self.