Conscious Wisdom
This is about formulating an alternative and showing ways to implement it. And this alternative has a name: conscious wisdom.
Wisdom. A seldom-used word and an even rarer practiced act or lived experience. While nearly everyone knows the term, few grasp its true meaning, and fewer still understand how to embody it. Wisdom carries an aura of the ideal, even something utopian, almost like a beautiful dream incompatible with the hard realities of life. When we think of wisdom, images of elderly men with silver hair or Indian gurus come to mind; figures like Jesus, Gandhi, or Rumi emerge in our thoughts. Yet, we rarely associate wisdom with the day-to-day living that fills our lives.
Where can we find wisdom today? In what aspects of everyday life does it manifest? How does it shape society? Is it present in politics? In our private lives? At work? In the arts?
It’s alarming how wisdom shines by its absence. One could confidently say that wisdom has become insignificant. Not that in earlier times our society was filled with it. Yet, at least back then, we didn’t confine its natural bearers to retirement homes. We’ve created a society that glorifies eternal youth, and youth, after all, is not the symbol of wisdom—that belongs to age. Since ancient times, it has been the privilege of the elderly to enrich life with wisdom.
And yet, we call ourselves “wise humans,” naming our species Homo sapiens. The Latin homo and sapiens translate to “man” and “wise.” At some point, “wise” alone wasn’t sufficient, so we added another sapiens, naming ourselves Homo sapiens sapiens[^1].
Throughout history, there have been a few truly wise individuals who serve as beacons of humanity’s potential. Yet, as a species, humanity can be many things, but wise isn’t one of them—a fact that is difficult to refute. One need only look at society or open a history book. And who, honestly, calls themselves wise twice?
In postmodern life, we are so consumed with ourselves that there is simply no room left for wisdom. Wisdom can’t be bought, and in a society where everything has a price, what is priceless logically has no place. Even though “the product of wisdom” has become increasingly desirable in the spiritual marketplace lately, which is not a bad thing, and surely it has helped many people. Yet the truly essential things in life remain priceless, just as love is. Love and money are as incompatible as a fish and a bicycle, and so it is with wisdom. You can’t buy love, and you can’t buy wisdom.
For a wise person, material things are largely insignificant and serve only practical purposes.
It’s nice to live a comfortable life, but if this becomes our life’s purpose, we are lost. And indeed, we are lost, as we measure a nation’s well-being by its Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—by what money can buy. What if, instead, we had a National Wisdom Index (NWI)? Yet, such ideas seem like mere fantasies; dreams, for we must remain grounded, right? Frankly, it’s absurd to measure the well-being of a human by their wealth. If wealth equated to happiness, the wealthiest among us should also be the happiest. But do we really believe that? Likely, we do not.
Who would exchange the grace of serenity and the joy of deep inner peace for a hefty bank account? Certainly not a wise person. And yet, money ranks light years above wisdom in our current society. It is governed by money; money is power, and power is control. Our addiction to control and security stems from a lack of wisdom.
In my view, this lack of wisdom is pathological, reflecting a society that has poisoned itself. We are constantly in motion, never truly arriving, always busy in a state of active laziness[^2]. Our worship of ego and relentless pursuit of self-optimization drive us en masse into depression, fatigue, confusion, addiction, and violence. We wage wars in the name of peace and freedom, shamelessly exploit nature to buy things we then throw away. We elect politicians who rob, lie, and restrict free speech or even strip us of freedom. By refusing to take responsibility for life, we blame others for our misfortune. We could go on with this list, but that would not be wise. It would only focus on the problem. This is about formulating an alternative and showing ways to implement it. And this alternative has a name: conscious wisdom.
Footnotes
[^1]: Homo sapiens: This term refers to the species Homo sapiens. In biological classification, Homo sapiens is the species to which all modern humans belong. Homo stands for the genus, and sapiens for the species. Homo sapiens sapiens: This is a subspecies of Homo sapiens, referring to modern humans as we know them today. The additional sapiens at the end denotes a specific subspecies within the species Homo sapiens.
[^2]: A Buddhist term that describes constantly occupying or distracting the mind to avoid confronting significant challenges. It can also be seen as continuous change so that everything stays the same.
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