You can’t prepare people to live someday; we’re living now. When we assume that we have the luxury of preparing now and living later, something happens. The form of the lesson ends up being more influential than the content–we learn waiting and feeling the need to prepare more than we learn anything about living; whatever else we may be practicing, then, we’re always practicing putting off feeling like we’re living. If we were practicing beings rather than living beings, this would be a good enough way to go about things I suppose. But since we’re living beings, this assumption that we can prepare and wait should be expunged from the unofficial canon. Life is happening as we speak, so it doesn’t make any sense to feel like kids grow up before you know it or that life passed you by while you were waiting. If you choose to wait, it will feel like you’ve been waiting (that’s one way to live); if you don’t pay attention, it will probably seem like that is the case at some point.
In his book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman, a parent, wrote, “The challenge for the next generation of parents, educationists and thinkers will, therefore, not be the dissemination of information but to change the way people differentiate between information and wisdom. Indeed the lines that divide the two have been blurred so much that information is often confused as wisdom (312).” Notice he doesn’t say that they will need to change the way children or students differentiate. Adults are included in this. Friedman goes on to say that children will need to be supported in learning how to navigate this sea of information that we all swim in. We’ve got an emphasis on waiting and putting off living and collecting information versus wisdom, attention, living, and navigation.
Attention is basic to wisdom, and balance is crucial to intentional movement (jellyfish go a different way on this one) while knowledge is only valuable to navigation and arriving somewhere. These are important points because we have tried to skip the first steps (attention and balance) and start somewhere down the road (wisdom and navigation), but that doesn’t work. First things first. As important as knowledge is, we’re born into a living stream of time, not on an island outside of time or outside of life. So with change through time (when we’re in it [which is almost always]), the primary question is not about navigation, it’s not, “Where will I go?”. In time, that where doesn’t exist yet–you can’t be there before it is. How is primary and current, relevant. Businesses can’t wait until next year to make purchasing decisions they need to make today, for example, and while educators may be trying to get kids to practice, the kids are actually immersed in living. It’s epidemic.
Wisdom is important, knowledge is important, practice, information, etc. But first things first. If we can’t balance, movement towards any goal is tough to manage. (Although, if your thing is spasms or falling all over yourself, you may not need balance.) Learning how to navigate when one can’t balance is irrelevant, but if you can balance without navigating, you’ve got a fighting chance of getting somewhere. Trying to develop wisdom without being able to pay attention how you choose will be like putting a dress on a pig and taking shots in the dark. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a pretty dress or not–I don’t want to dance with a spastic pig when people are shooting in the dark.
If we don’t actually know about attention (first), can we speak intelligently about wisdom? If we don’t know about attention, is it wise to speak about wisdom or are we just oinking at the shooters? In the way I was educated, I was taught to wait (brilliantly and full of words). I don’t know that waiting has helped me much when living is unavoidable anyway. There are better ways to live in my opinion. What have your parents, culture, or beliefs taught you about attention? The ideas and information are important, but secondarily. Are you ready?
You can only know ahead of time what to say to someone if you already know them. (It does no good to speak louder or more clearly if the other person does not even speak the same language. Even if you have a message to get a cross, you have to know something about the other person to communicate it; if you want to communicate convincingly, you have to know even more about them.) If you don’t already know the people you’re dealing with, what you can say is not of primary importance–how able you are to receive and respond is. You might be the world’s greatest expert on some topic, but if you only speak a dead language and can’t learn, you’ll have trouble communicating.
Besides many people trying to be wise without being attentive or trying to navigate without balance, I question how good I am at paying attention compared to what is possible for myself. How much have I not figured out about paying attention? What have my parents, culture, and beliefs taught me about attention? Am I ready? When people wonder, “Ready for what?” that’s reasonable enough. But there are other people who have trained themselves so that even the question re-minds them. They answer with the feeling of, “Yes!” and curiosity. Are you attentive? Yes-alertness comes prior to, “Attentive to what?” Ha, ha, ha! Are you waiting?
It fascinates me just how many people talk as if they have already done the living, the figuring out. They talk like they are speaking of things that are already known, as if the moment they are living right now is not alive, as if knowledge doesn’t change and grow. I pay attention to stuff like that. Will the sun rise tomorrow? Probably, but are you ready now?
If we’re to differentiate information and wisdom, what are the differences? I would say that wisdom is alive while information can be archived. Attentiveness is part of wisdom–truisms of some dead past are not wisdom even if the words of those truisms once represented wisdom. Attentiveness can grow into wisdom, but “wisdom” without that alert energy is really only a show of wisdom, a facade. While knowledgeable/informed people in the past may have been able to pose as wise, the next generation will simply not pay attention if attentiveness is not included. If we cannot receive attentiveness creatively, we cannot respond adequately, let alone expertly or wisely or creatively. While this can seem like a great challenge to those of us raised to prepare, wait, and work in fixed settings, it looks more like an interesting freedom to anyone without those fears, without that sort of institutionalization. It feels alive.
I would say, then, that wisdom is intelligent liveliness. Wisdom is not just about knowing, but sometimes it helps to know stuff. There is nothing wrong with practicing or waiting, but are you practicing and waiting like you are alive right at the moment? Because wisdom is not a dead thing, it may look different when we get a little farther down the road, it may have to be experienced differently by everyone in every moment.
In terms of identity politics, this seems impossible. If it’s hard enough to speak to people of all these different ethnicities, gender preferences, classes, languages, etc., does it just become impossible then if every person and every moment is different too?! As the kids might text, OMG! It’s almost as if in every moment in which I am conscious, that consciousness must do something, that it moves, that it goes somewhere. Attentiveness explodes the difficulties involved in identity politics or moves through and beyond them. We struggle against time by trying to hold onto those problems as important, as who we are, as how we know ourselves. The next generation, in many places, will not have to be apathetic of these historic problems; those problems will simply not make it onto their radar at all.
It is so nice to age, a real luxury. I keep moving beyond the agitation and psychological pushing that occurred so consistently when I was younger. I see all these people my age and older trying to hold onto so many of these identity ossifications, as if it is their duty to the past to carry these problems into the future. When I do this with my own past difficulties, I simply maintain problems, I wait for something else to happen while stubbornly refusing that nothing new happen in these areas. In this mode, “Where will I go?” is much less of a problem for me than, “What will I refuse to let go of?”.
Sometimes I don’t realize that about my past until I look around and realize that no one else cares, that there is too much going on right now for other people to pick up those problems or that weight, and I have to ask myself what I have to offer that is valuable. It’s like asking what I owe to the future, what I can show younger people about our common past that is worthy of their aspirations and potential, worthy of the unique possibilities that stand out there somewhere in front of them. I think wisdom has something to do with that as well. Sometimes it is intelligent to navigate directly to some goal, but it can also be wise to not navigate but stay alert, to take moments to just drift and enjoy the drift. Maybe we hone our intelligence but clarify our wisdom. I like being sharp and feeling intelligent, I like being alive and relaxed, bright but not always sharp. Curling up on the couch with my girl when I feel bright but soft feels right.
As much as I like alertness and liveliness over waiting and “delayed gratification”, it seems that the next generation may be in danger of something as old as time. Mao’s expression was to call America a “paper tiger”. Lots of flash but not much significance. That seems to happen, especially with technological change, when culture, personality, and reality aren’t brought into all that technological change. How does the next generation feel solid and right about what they do? Adolescents’ criticism may be somewhat more developed than their ability to sustain, and that’s as it should be. That imbalance doesn’t discredit the criticism. The critique is infinitely valuable if the older adults are able to sustain it without overly personalizing some of what needs to change, some of what seems revolutionary. Youth is lavished on the young, but hubris, at least from adolescents, is nowhere near the problem that hubris and ignorance from older folks (the established crowd) is. It’s a pain in the ass sometimes but that rub concerning social progress needs to occur. The question really seems to be, “How does idealistic adolescent hubris become engaged wisdom?” I’d say my parents’ generation is not the paragon of answers to this question, but neither will I be, nor is my generation. I don’t think this is a question we can work on without connecting to one another.
This is the point where wisdom includes mistakes. I haven’t made as many mistakes as my parents have, but give me time:)! We learn a lot about what to do by learning what not to do. My parents have learned more about what not to do than I have, and I see my friends who are parents starting to learn some of the same or similar lessons. My generation isn’t ready to dive into raising kids and leading the world without any support. And we have no idea yet how to answer the political questions concerning DNA and drugs that our kids will have to face, let alone the political questions that remain unanswered from yesteryear. We can’t even know what those questions will be before they arise.
Here is what I contend. On an individual level, wisdom involves alertness along with the ability to receive and respond. If we don’t do this at least, our “wisdom” won’t even be alive, let alone be worthwhile. On a group level, wisdom involves collective memory as well as vision for the future, adaptation to the present, and appreciation of an imperfect but valuable past. On a global level especially, wisdom involves humility. My generation may never know what global wisdom may look like. (Gee, Wally, it could be real big!) It seems that every generation either emphasizes the greatness of a present or past, or on the other hand, they recognize that they become a foundation for some future that they are not equipped to predict but can no less feel responsible for.
So wisdom as I see it involves alertness to (awareness of) humility. But not some backing-away-from-what-must-be-done humility. If my parents overdid or under-did their sense of humility, that serves as a warning to me. I can’t back away or pretend to be more important than I am. If my generation doesn’t get involved or stay involved, we may be on a slippery slope. But if we pretend to know more than we do, pretend to be more balanced or wise than we are, we’ll be putting effort into confusing our kids about what works ecologically, economically, politically, and at a family level too. I’m not Machiavellian enough to believe that princes or old folks know that much, and I’m not interested in taking on that much responsibility although I’m willing to do my part.
There are more people bumping around the planet than there were when a lot of my parents ideals were set. Accountability is more diffuse than ever before, but we’re also more connected than ever before and more aware of global connections than ever before. What does wisdom look like, then? I think it involves a recognition of how important equanimity is. I have not seen this recognition advertised anywhere, which makes me wonder what media organizations think they add to society. It makes me wonder what lawmakers think they add to society. There’s a lot of noise, certainly. We’re producing noise. Somewhere, in the middle of waiting, preparing, learning, practicing, living, attending, navigating, wisdom, balance, hows and whats, knowledge, intelligence, etc., there is a silent majority that is not coherently spoken for in recognizable forms. You feel this as an individual when you have the feeling that something isn’t right but you don’t have the words to say exactly what or what to do about it. I have that feeling too. I see a Muslim majority that is wise but often silent, an older majority that is silent but not always cohesive or outspoken, an American willingness that is strong but obscured, a general humility that is hard to advertise.
What have your parents, your culture, your beliefs taught you about attention? I don’t know enough about attention in a personal way. But I know enough to be sure of a vast, untapped potential. My parents and culture and beliefs didn’t teach me enough to live on, but they might have taught me enough. The rest comes from a sense of curious attention, a Yes! to life, a diversity of people and approaches I don’t fully understand and never will, a receptivity and responsiveness to this moment right now and the possibility that Yes! the sun may come up again tomorrow. If it does, I want every kid on the planet to feel at least the opportunities I’ve been given. We may not know what wisdom is, but we know some of the things it is not. And we can work towards a sense of alert curiosity and the ability to navigate.
Copyright 2007 Todd Mertz