Wisdom is a quiet mystery that escapes quick definition. It's a deep and enduring ability to do the right thing at the right time for another person, a group, or a culture. How does one do that? Ah, therein lies the rub.

It's clear that the accumulation of information doesn't induce wisdom. We all know lots of people whose intellect is prodigious but are as dumb as stumps outside their narrow discipline. People can be smart but not wise. People can be PhDs but make terrible social errors. People may live in academia all their lives and still not know how to act to comfort someone in emotional distress. Wisdom is different than technical mastery of a subject or mechanical grasp of physical functions; it's a form of compassionate enlightenment.

So does wisdom and its application lean more toward social and cultural acumen rather than the ability to process information and generate new ideas which time and the wise will evaluate?

The wisdom of the centuries, hmm? Our understanding of wisdom is that by some cosmic cognitive process, there are those special few who gather information and process it into a tapestry of knowledge that permits them to correctly interpret human actions and events in terms of causes and consequences that they're able to pleasantly but compellingly convey to the rest of us who are as stubborn as mules.

There are no young who are wise and not all who are old are wise, but wisdom is generally attributed to those who have been around for decades; long enough to reflect on a lifetime of failure and fame, grief and glamour, accolade and aggravation, delight and despair, and somehow learned when to keep their mouth shut.

To know when a glance or the gentle wave of a finger is worth a thousand words. To know that there is never a perfect answer to every human condition. To know that only time and experience can solve a problem. To know that work and dedication precedes a satisfactory outcome. To know that honor outweighs deceit and patience trumps anxiety and love conquers all.

Our dictionaries define it and everyone from Plato to Nietzsche has tried to describe it and still no one knows how to teach wisdom or become wise. Wisdom is a rare gift indeed. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum. For wisdom to have value, it must be active, though the wise rarely seek outlets to express their talent.

Western religions and Eastern philosophies are founded on the utterings of the wise from Moses to Uncle Remus, from Buddha to Mark Twain. Modern psychology is a vain attempt to compile information on the human adventure into discrete statistics that can be learned and expressed in somber terminology by graduates who believe they are dispensing wisdom.

As much as humans of all stripes have tried to define wisdom and break it into its components, it continues to resist analysis. It's right up there with love and God. We know it when we see it but we're hard pressed to get it and we can't teach it.

Suffice to say wisdom is the anvil of reality, the hammer of justice, and the nail of truth.

Learn more about this author, Michael Patrick.
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