In this age of science and reason, the idea of wisdom appears to be losing significance.
Flowering Scoparia, Central Highlands. 2019, Pentax MX, Portra 400.
Wisdom is a difficult quality to pin down, and it takes a long time to acquire. One might say that wisdom is an accumulation of knowledge and experience. Being wise implies understanding the nuances of the world we inhabit. A wise teacher is one who teaches us what we need to know, rather than what we want to know.
Humanity has acquired a considerable amount of accumulated knowledge over the aeons, most of which has been forgotten. The burning down of the great library of Alexandria in ancient times and the disappearing of our languages and traditional cultures in the current time are both testaments to this. We learn stuff, and then we forget stuff. That’s kind of how it goes.
Our collective understanding of the world we live in has grown. This doesn’t mean that we should confuse information with understanding. Having access to more data and supercomputers doesn’t make us any wiser. But it does equip us with some powerful tools. Which if used wisely, could be to our great benefit, and alternatively, if used foolishly, to our great detriment.
Lichen colony on dolerite boulder, Central Highlands. 2019, Pentax MX, Portra 400.
While we may perceive wisdom as an inherently human quality, it can also be found in nature. Each living being has its own accumulated experience which has been passed down to it from its ancestors.
How does a plant know when to flower? How do the welcome swallows find their way back to the same nest each year, and always in the first week of September? How do the cicadas know to rise out of the ground at the same time to overwhelm predators with their numbers?
Unnamed lake in Central Highlands. 2019, Pentax MX Portra 400
Collective wisdom isn’t merely human; it is the accumulated experience and knowledge all around us. We can learn from a tree, we can learn from a rock, from a river and from a bird. It takes careful observation, and stillness. If we madly dash from one event to the next, knowledge has no way to accumulate. If we rush, wisdom is exiled to the fringes, to the peripheries.
Wisdom is all around us, waiting to be discovered.