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Wisdom
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All poems: copyright by
Nicholas Gordon
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1. The principles of wisdom are not only
discernible by reason but engraved upon the heart. This is because wisdom
is part of human nature, which has evolved over millennia and is in all people
the same.
2. One may ask, then, why all are not wise. The
answer is that all are wise to varying degrees, just as all are to varying
degrees intelligent, dexterous, creative, curious, and so
on.
3. Wisdom guides our behavior so as to enable
the species to survive. It does this in two ways. First, since society is
the principal means of human survival, wisdom enables us to live with one
another in relative peace. Second, since reason and will offer us uniquely
the alternative of suicide, wisdom enables us to attain happiness and survive
despair.
4. If experience were food, wisdom would be taste,
enabling us to distinguish good from bad. And although all are endowed with
taste, the education of taste enables one to make subtler distinctions and
finer judgments.
5. Similarly with wisdom: the principles are
inborn, but their application is much enhanced by upbringing, schooling,
reading, conversation, the cultivation of good habits, and the emulation
of the wise.
6. We are born with a taste for beauty and goodness,
finding in them our deepest and most lasting pleasure. This is our gift as
humans, though because of varying endowment and education we enjoy this gift
to varying degrees.
Next: The Attributes
of Wisdom: Goal of Happiness
Previous: The Attributes of Wisdom:
Rationality
On
Wisdom: Table of Contents |
