This is an edited blog post based on a service I delivered a couple of months ago at the Unitarian Chapel in Norwich, UK. For those of you who know nothing about the Unitarians, they are like a ‘philosophy club with a touch of spirituality’. They welcome and ‘address’ everyone: agnostics, Buddhists, atheists, Christians, anyone who is just curious and there are a fair number of ex-Quakers. In fact, the few times any reference is made to formal religion of any kind, there’s nearly always an acknowledgement along the lines of, ‘I know some of you might not believe this but…’ The whole philosophy of the Unitarians is of acceptance of all beliefs and encouragement of questioning – which is refreshing. I have attended some incredibly thought-provoking services, including some loaded with humour.
I based my service on the book: Wise Eyes and the Wild Things – written by me and illustrated by Jane Stuart. This book explores how the owl became so wise.
The book describes the global journey of an owl. In each country she visits, she witnesses indigenous animals having a conversation or – more realistically – making declarations. Each scene delivers something to ponder as it unfolds, the consideration of which could result in greater wisdom. I didn’t read all of the book, nor did I read it in order.
Here is an much edited version of what I delivered…
Whatever IS wisdom?!
When I wrote ‘Welcome everyone’ at the top of my plan for the service, and then did my usual procrastinatory staring into space before getting started, I found myself considering: what do we mean by welcome? So I considered it and here’s what I thought:
We feel welcome when there’s:
- Acceptance and respect for us – whoever we are (so there’s no place for prejudice or discrimination)
- There’s a sense of openness, connection and inclusion as opposed to any guardedness, segregation or judgement
- We are made to feel quickly that we belong
- There are gestures of kindness – smiles, deliberate efforts to connect, be curious and show interest, help if it’s needed as well as empathy and understanding.
- When we feel welcome – it’s easy and comfortable
In this post/service I consider wisdom, what it might be and why it might be helpful. I also consider: what does wisdom actually do?
Next in the service, I described the book (as above) and some of the story behind it. I read the start of the book, to introduce the story, and then flew quickly to South Africa ….
(Please note, I shoddily put the text and picture together here – it’s not a photo from the book!)
Opinions
I doubt anyone here would refute the right for people to hold different viewpoints – that is unwise. But I remember at school being encouraged to not only have opinions, but at the same time welcome other viewpoints. I remember being confused. What’s the point of going to the bother of forming an opinion if you don’t stand by it and defend how right it is and how wrong others are? I guess children are allowed to be unwise – but still – how many heated debates do we still see in adulthood where people are so attached to, and identified with their opinions, they become defensive when they are challenged, and forceful – sometimes to the point of aggression and hostility – in persuading others that they’re right?
As long as viewpoints respect the rights of others, surely people can get on and hold any opinions they like. The problems only seem to arise when we impose our opinions on what others can do or not do. Using our opinions to guide our own behaviour is one thing, using them to tell others what they should or should not do is another thing.
I think these animals illustrate the point that we arrive at our opinions because of our experiences and a wise thing to do is to try and understand the journey that took someone to arrive at their viewpoint rather than ever brutally declare what they arrived at, is simply wrong.
It always seems wiser to prioritise the relationship with another person, more than any need to be right but I don’t always see that wisdom everywhere – or indeed – did I always have it! As a hot-headed young feminist, I used to jump down the throat of anyone I deemed sexist. It took me a while to realise that I certainly wasn’t changing anyone’s mind and the only person I was impacting on was myself – and not in a good way.
Now when I hear a blatantly hostile, ignorant or prejudiced opinion- I try hard to only say, ‘that’s an interesting viewpoint, how did you come to think that?’ If you listen attentively, they sometimes work something slightly less prejudiced out.
Opting for curiosity over any need to be right seems wise to me.
I have to admit that this page was loosely inspired by the poem: The Blind Men and the Elephant,” by John Godfrey Saxe, based on an Indian parable.
There’s another page dedicated to a slightly different aspect of forming opinions
The metaphor obviously delivers the idea that the more effort we put in to find out information, the more considered our opinion will be. However, human thinking is known to be fallible and one of its fallibilities is confirmation bias: our tendency to only accept information that already aligns with what we believe – which sounds obviously very unwise to me. Confirmation bias causes us to dismiss information before it even lands, without so much as a whiff of questioning the idea that there’s a possibility we might not have the full story.
To avoid confirmation bias necessitates a truly open mind and they take quite an effort to maintain because they require incessant curiosity. To be able to receive new data or information and change our minds as a result of it – seems a wise manoeuvre that can allude many of us.
And really, whatever our opinion is, however well-considered or informed it is or how adept we are at weaving in new information when we encounter it; it’s actually what we choose to do with any opinion that might indicate wisdom, or lack of!
The owl is just warming up! Here’s what happened in Norway…
Conforming
This page is based on one of my favourite sayings, ‘just because everyone else is doing something, doesn’t make it automatically right’. There are plenty of things humanity does – especially in the ‘west’ – that we could question the integrity of: driving cars everywhere, over-consumption, status anxiety and the need to impress others, spending loads of money at Christmas, eating junk food, checking our phone every second, over-use of social media, putting self-interest above all – to name a few. We are herding animals and it takes guts to go against the grain because of our principles. When everyone is doing something. It’s easier to shrug and simply join in.
A personal example that comes to mind was when I once caused a stir at work when I said I wasn’t going to take part in Secret Santa. When, eventually asked why, I described all of us traipsing around the already really busy shops, wracking our brains to try and find something someone might want, to then later spend 30 seconds opening our allocated present, thanking our anonymous gift-giver and realising what we got would probably end up in landfill anyway (unless it was consumable. I am a big fan of consumable gifts!) I stuck to my guns but I was still made to feel like Scrooge though. The following year I suggested: secret best friend: for the week leading up the Christmas we did a few anonymous acts of kindness for our SBF. This felt more authentically and thoughtfully kind.
I will add though that as a rebellious type in my youth, I had to eventually question my tendency to always go against the grain. It took me a long while to realise that just because everyone was doing something, it didn’t automatically make it wrong either!
The Buddhist Middle Way, comes to mind here- representing a path of moderation. In Buddhism it might refer to avoiding the extremes of self-indulgence (hedonism) on one side and self-mortification (asceticism) on the other. Buddha realised that a balanced approach leads to enlightenment. But maybe a balanced approach is wisely applied to many things. The black and white thinking of my non-conforming youth was extreme and certainly didn’t seem wise.
Questioning everything we hold to be certain, or questioning everything most people assume to be right or OK, although incredibly hard work, and needs awareness in any moment, might be part of becoming wise! It requires incessant curiosity!
The owl continues…
Making choices
How these different animals go looking for what they want can be a metaphor for our general approach in life – not just about how we go looking for something we want.
Again, I appreciate how we choose an ice-cream has different stakes to how we approach major life decisions but:
- Are you most like the yellow-throated marten who perpetually searches but is never satisfied?
- Or like the giant panda – a sufficer – someone who just puts up with whatever there is even if it’s not quite fit for purpose?
- Are you someone who always sticks with what you know you like – much like the snow leopard?
- Are you like the pragmatic snub-nosed monkey who assesses the situation and if it can find something better, it will?
- And/or are you like the red panda and you make the best of whatever is on offer?
I guess that how we approach being given choice depends on how many options we’re given. We tend to live under the impression that the more choice we have, the happier we will be. There is no denying that absolutely no choice can create a miserable existence, we do need to feel we have some control over our lives and be able to manoeuvre within it, but too much choice can overload us.
The psychology of making choices is giant and provides a lot for us to be unwise about.
For example:
- The more choice we’re given, the more effort we have to invest in making a decision and the more chance we have of being agitated by making a perceived ‘mistake’.
- Greater choice, raises our expectations of the outcome and makes us more prone to disappointment and it makes us more likely to ‘kick’ ourselves’ for not making a better choice. Lots of choice can make the grass seem even greener on the other side of the fence.
- Also, another approach is we can be so determined to hold on to the idea that our decision was right after we have invested so much time in it, that we won’t ever revisit or question it. We therefore always make the same choice should we need to again- resisting the risk of trying something new that might possibly lead us to better things.
- And strangely, how we feel about the decision we made, can overshadow the actual experience the choice gave us! In other words, we can be more upset about what we missed out on than what we actually got. I guess that’s the agitation of the yellow-throated martin who is perpetually looking for better.
But in looking for what we want and making choices, in part of the poem “If’ by Rudyard Kipling
He says:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss..
I think he’s saying wise choice-making is perhaps not so much about emotional investment in the choice (why not just jump in!?) but about facing the consequences of any decision with complete acceptance, letting go of what might have been and making the best of, and embracing what follows! If we do that, we’re less likely to torture ourselves by investing incredible time and emotional energy always searching for the illusive best. Perhaps it’s better to put some effort into considering any choice, certainly make improvements when possible, and then get on and simply accept and make the most of whatever choice was made. That sounds like a wise approach to life in general too.
So be a mix of red panda and a bit of snub-nosed monkey.
Uncertainty
Well which animal are you when it comes to uncertainty?
When you encounter uncertainty…
- Are you like the shrew – with a cripplingly small comfort zone that makes you fearful and prone to inaction?
- Or do you become all controlling and bossy like badger in an attempt to create the illusion of certainty?
- Or like partridge, do you tend to wait and see what everyone else is doing before you decide how to manage something that’s uncertain?
- Are you like red deer and content to take your chances and leap into the unknown?
- Or are you like the cautious snail and gather up lots of info, before taking the plunge, possibly so much that you miss some opportunities?
Difficulties with uncertainty can be why we can struggle to make choices of course; we can never be certain about how things are going to turn out when faced with different options.
I suggest how we deal with uncertainty is linked to a mindset that might be more or less likely to make us wise, as how well we tolerate uncertainty can lead us to either an open or a closed mind.
Understandably we all feel safer with certainty. As hunter-gatherers the anxiety that came with uncertainty served us well. When a scarcity of food necessitated that we wandered into new territory, we were wise to be on high alert until we knew where the potential dangers could be found. We’re left with hunter-gather wiring but we live differently now and uncertainty is not generally the life-or-death thing it once more often was.
Uncertainty, or perhaps more realistically -striving for certainty – I would argue can make us think and behave unwisely. In striving for certainty…
- We might make judgements too quickly to stay certain, based on past experiences only.
- We might miss opportunities (and opportunities to grow) because we want to stay safely in the arena of as much certainty as we can muster.
- We don’t allow for nuance, grey areas, healthy debate or remain humble to the idea we might not actually know or be wrong.
- And ironically we can become incredibly anxious – because being absolutely certain is unachievable of course and therefore striving for it is stressful! And the more anxious we become, the more certainty we’ll try to establish, the more anxious we’ll become and so on!
But the main danger of wielding certainty is when we present our own truths as certain and refuse to let them be challenged. There are many examples where bold certainty has caused horrific happenings in history: the certainty that slavery was justifiable, an abhorrent Nazi ideology that carried out the holocaust, colonialism and the resulting genocide of indigenous populations, the belief women could be witches, that people deserved to be burned for their religious beliefs etc.
Friedrich Nietzsche believed that embracing uncertainty and chaos was essential for personal growth.
He famously said: “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.” He suggested that wisdom emerges not from avoiding discomfort but from confronting and overcoming it. I see that as being brave enough to tolerate the wobbly ground of uncertainty.
Of course Bertrand Russell had something to say on certainty – in ‘The Use of Doubt’
(From his essay collection: “Unpopular Essays,” 1950)
The demand for certainty is one which is natural to humans, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues. To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralysed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy in our age, can still do for those who engage with it. We ought to realize at the outset that the business of life must be carried on in the face of the unknown, and we must take our chance that our actions will bear fruit in the best possible way.
Socrates famously and quite simply declared, “I know that I know nothing.”
This insight exudes the idea that for all of humanity’s knowledge and achievements, maybe the best wisdom of all is to humbly realise we can actually know very little. That’s a bit of a blow to the ego! Socrates – like Nietzche – believed that the discomfort of not knowing was a necessary condition for seeking truth and developing wisdom. As not knowing makes us humble, open-minded and curious. I’d call those three pretty good virtues.
If we ever delude ourselves that we have arrived at some kind of pinnacle of ‘all knowing’ or even within any realm, I wonder where would we take ourselves next? We would be denying ourselves the idea that there was anywhere left to go.
There is no such pinnacle or arrival, there’s only ever the continuous journey. I’d say life is far too complex and nuanced to ever be comfortable holding on to ‘certain’.
Trying to hold on to non-existent certainty only backfires on our willingness to venture out into the chaotic, unpredictable, multifaceted world. The pursuit of certainty inhibits the adventure that is ever-available in life.
And here I have to make a confession. I used Artificial Intelligence to try and find a relevant piece of prose about uncertainty as fertile ground for growing wisdom, but I forgot to clarify that I wanted an existing piece written by a real person, so it composed a piece for me. I had to admit it nailed my remit rather well and so here it is…
The Path Between Knowing and Not Knowing – AI
In the quiet hours before dawn, when shadows stretch long, and the world feels suspended, uncertainty whispers its loudest truths. It’s a voice many fear, for it offers no answers, only questions that refuse to sit still. Yet, those who lean into its murmur begin to notice something remarkable: wisdom does not reside in the clarity of answers but in the courage to dwell within the unknown.
The wise are not those who claim certainty, but those who stand steady in the shifting sands, their roots deep in curiosity, their branches open to change. They do not rush to close the door on doubt, for they understand that every unasked question is a locked door to growth. Uncertainty, they realize, is not a void to be feared but a landscape to be explored—where every step forward illuminates a little more of the path.
In embracing uncertainty, we shed the armour of false confidence and step into the vulnerability of learning. And it is there, in that raw space between knowing and not knowing, that wisdom takes root—patient, enduring, and quietly profound.
I have a feeling AI is to be something we’ll need to be wise about. I suspect it’s yet another example of where technology runs away with itself, embraced by many, before the ethics has time to catch up.
Clever AI aside, in my words…
I do think wisdom is developed beyond the frontier of certainty, beyond science, beyond empirical knowledge and rationality – those things that can make us arrogantly certain. In order to be wise we need to step into the arenas of stories, imaginings, open explorations, creativity, things open to interpretation (e.g. art and poetry), have a little trust in faith so we can embrace doubt: all the things that don’t offer certainty, and therefore force us to be small and humble in the face of the vastness of the many, many things we can’t possibly know. By buying into the idea we can’t ever really know, I think we’re more likely to stumble upon wisdom.
In a nutshell – I could have just said: stop being so certain but that sounds a little too directive…. and certain!
And then I read the closing page…
…the hedgehog is a metaphor for wisdom falling on deaf ears, leading a horse to water and it not drinking, casting pearls before swine, whistling in the wind, in one ear out the other, a fool learns nothing from a wise man’s words – seems to be a common thing.
I think it’s interesting that most attempts to teach wisdom come from parables, fables, myths and proverbs. I suspect it’s because you can’t just tell someone how to be wise: they are unlikely to truly receive whatever you might have worked out anyway. I think the beauty of allegory is it leaves you to puzzle over what the meaning might be. The effort of ‘working out’ makes us far more likely to receive its wisdom. The pleasure of exploring something that’s not obvious makes it far less like we’ve just been told. We’re not very good at just being told – for oh-so-many reasons!
I also think a fascinating aspect of wisdom is that it doesn’t tend to be particularly cumulative within humanity. Each of us seems to have to develop our individual wisdom from close-to-scratch and usually wait until we’re reasonably old before we have much chance of getting any. This might initially seem frustrating as it’s probably why humanity goes through the same old rubbish like wars, over-consumption, looking for happiness in the wrong places, holding on to petty grievances, maintaining extreme inequality, harm etc. on repeat, over and over, ad infinitum. (Sigh)
But perhaps it’s really a blessing that we all start from close-to-scratch – as it makes life the rich, testing, interesting learning journey it is for each of us: full of colourful twists and turns and opportunities with many paths. It is the journey and not the arrival that’s the important bit in many ancient wisdoms after all.
I also see a close relationship between spirituality and wisdom – as like the process of gaining wisdom, spirituality often involves being introspective, reflecting on one’s experiences, emotions, and thoughts. Spirituality frequently encourages seeing beyond personal ego and understanding the interconnectedness of everything. – again no small matter. And both spirituality and wisdom involve a search for deeper meaning in life, seeking answers to profound questions like “Why are we here?” or “What truly matters?”
But finally, for me, an important question is: wisdom might well be a virtue, but what does it actually do? Wisdom might create a beneficial outlook, but it’s what we do with it, that impacts on the world.
So if I was wisely helpful in any situation I think I would be:
- without pre-conceived ideas, certainties or jarring judgements skewed by my personal prejudices,
- showing an interest and curiosity: asking questions more than offering answers
- presenting an open, and not a closed, mind
- without any defensiveness or rigid responses concerned with protecting myself emotionally
- with consideration and acceptance for the feelings and viewpoints of others
I conclude, rather cheekily and neatly therefore that employing wisdom is not entirely unlike making someone feel genuinely welcome.
But if I were to really try to sum up wisdom as quickly as possible, I’d say: Wisdom is about staying curious: in situations, in interactions and in any given moment.
***
And recently, I came across this poem. It seems to sit nicely here.
