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Justin Lind's avatar

Beautiful piece Jeff. I actually looked into joining the faculty of Deep Springs when I lived in the Owens Valley. Seems like an incredible place.

I think you're right that "wisdom" is only becoming increasingly more valuable in the coming tech era. Unfortunately, it seems to be growing increasingly rare as well. I've also thought a lot about how we gain wisdom and agree that we need to define it. Digging up an old note, I found my definition of wisdom is very aligned with yours. Here's what I came up with:

1. Wisdom is Self-Consistency - Alignment between your beliefs, values, and actions.

2. Wisdom is Causal Control - both the ability and propensity to consider the complex situation that you are in. Then, through your understanding if yourself, the world, other people, produce what is *on average* better outcomes. You can actually produce good outcomes.

3. Wisdom = Action x Knowledge x Good - its a multiplication so if any factor is zero or very low, the outcome is still low. We need to act, in an informed way, with good intentions toward good outcomes.

Good is so nebulous but I suppose there's an element of benevolence.

Finally, this makes me think of one of my favorite articles called "What Do You Want to Want?"

https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/advice/what-do-you-want-to-want/

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Rick Lewis's avatar

Your writing is always so good and cogent Jeff. I'd guess that the wisdom you have to offer comes from life experience, which I believe is the real key to gaining wisdom. Real life engagement with nature, physical endeavors (ala Deep Springs), face to face relationships and hands on experiments and service. Those are the foundations of wisdom. Which leaves the question, how is wisdom shared or passed along. Storytelling. So I agree with your assessment of what is missing in the world. Wisdom. And add my vote for more personal experience storytelling.

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