Thursday, September 21

Wisdom

 According to an online dictionary, WISDOM is defined as:

the ability or result of an ability to think and act utilizing knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight. accumulated knowledge, erudition, or enlightenment.

Before I begin my comments, I believe a couple more definitions are required.

ERUDITION - is the quality of having or showing great knowledge or learning; scholarship.

ENLIGHTENMENT - is the action of enlightening or the state of being enlightened.

Let's just say that enlightenment is another word for wisdom and leave it at that while erudition is that fact that one has wisdom.

WISDOM is predicated upon THINKING AND ACTING based upon one's:
  • accumulated knowledge
  • accumulated experiences
  • accumulated understanding
  • accumulated insights
  • accumulated common sense

The key word here is accumulated which is why I have repeated it several times.  In order to have anything accumulated, one must have lived a bunch of years...
  • more than 10
  • more than 20
  • more than 30
  • more than 40
  • more than 50
  • more than 60
  • more than 70
I am looking at age 70 as the time when people retire and most of one's accumulation has already taken place.

NOW...  just because you have accumulation does not mean you automatically have wisdom...
Why not?
Because, if you recall, wisdom is also predicated upon COMMON SENSE.
Without common sense, it is doubtful that you will ever have TRUE WISDOM.
Common sense can be acquired for some but most of the time, one is either born with it or one is not born with it.
Without common sense, your end-of-life wisdom is TAINTED and could even be false.

How do you acquire common sense?
That will be the subject of my next post...

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