About Wisdom And How to Develop It
One of David Attenbourough’s last thoughts in his new film Life on Our Planet is that humanity lacks the wisdom that is so important to the survival of planet Earth and our civilization. We understand wisdom in general as an understanding of the world and man, the ability to make the right decision, not to be hurried and to have a certain insight. But how can wisdom be classified more accurately and how can it be developed?
Leonardo Da Vinci considered wisdom to be the daughter of experience, Socrates out of respect for the ideal of wisdom said that he had no wisdom, neither great nor small, out of the same respect Plato chose the name philosopher for himself, the one who longed for wisdom. In history, in short, wisdom has its privileged position as a kind of spiritual climax, which a mortal is able to reach. In Christianity we find wisdom as one of the cardinal virtues, in Buddhism we find it, for example, as the highest degree of the six Perfections (in Mayayan Buddhism), or in the Theravada tradition it belongs among the ten virtues. Although wisdom does not have a precise definition, it appears as the most worthy quality in both sacred and profane thoughts. Concepts such as age, tree or owl (and what about a hat!) are also associated with wisdom. It is a life-giving skill that develops with age, thus gaining experience. From this note we can move on to a more precise definition.
