Loss of Wisdom

Interesting talk on "Loss of Wisdom" by Barry Schwartz in TED.

Man's Search for Meaning

This book, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl is perhaps one of the most influential works in my life. I stumbled upon it in the polytechnic's library during my final semester (there is a reason for this...)

In it, Viktor discusses his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, and his later development of logotherapy. In a very humanist perspective, Viktor espouses that every person has the freedom of choice even in the most stressful and depressing situations.

In my mind after so many years after reading this book was that Viktor made an observation that the death rate between Christmas 1944 and New Year 1945 was highest in the concentration camp. The reason he concluded was that the prisoners would lose all the naive hope of ever been liberated from the concentration camp and return home. As the time came closer, they would then be so disappointed and and also lose their courage to continue living. He says "The prisoner who has lost faith in the future - his future was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay".

He also cited Nietzsche's words " He who has the why to live for can bear to live with almost any how".

Perhaps, I felt the paragraph in page 98 below reflected some philosophical thoughts by him on the meaning of life:

"What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves, We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."

There you are...

Santiago's journey

I do not usually read fiction, but this time I decided I would give Paul Coelho a try as I happen to keep chancing upon his books again and again. I had a glimpse of his name in one of the book reviews in The Straits Times, saw a girl reading it while waiting to register for my masters course and lastly, in a bookshop that stock piles and piles of his titles.

So, I chose The Alchemist, in which the main character Santiago, a Spanish shepherd boy whom left his comfort zone of tending his sheep to go to the Pyramids of Eqypt in search of a treasure that he had dreamt during one of his one night stays in a broken down church.

From then on, he makes the journey to the pyramids and thus starting the spiritual adventure of his lifetime. If you in for a spoiler, click on the link to Wikipedia and the full story will be there.

Its was splendid light reading for me as I could feel being Santiago being caught in a dilemma on whether to pursue his Personal Legend or stay in his comfort zone as a shephard, and also after falling in love with the girl in the oasis.

Maybe, we all hope we are Santiagos as we live in our everyday routine, with dreams of our own which we want to fulfill. But yet we have fears and contradictory thoughts of pursuing the very dreams we so really wish we can. Or maybe most of us just want to be the like crystal glass merchent who is so afraid to fufill his dream of going to Mecca as it would mean he would then have nothing to live for.

In it, Santiago struggles after leaving, and it says clearly with his conversation with the alchemist:

"Why do we have to listen to our hearts" the boy asked, when they had made camp that day.

"Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you'll find your treasure."

"But my heart is agitated." the boy said, "It has its dreams, it gets emotional, and its become passionate over a woman of the desert. It asks things of me, and it keeps me from sleeping many nights, when I'm thinking about her."

"Well, thats good. Your heart is alive. Keep listening to what it has to say."

The story at the end was a pleasant surprise for me, and I smiled to myself how this simple tale could actually lift my spirits up. I must say I did not regret reading this fiction book on a late Sunday afternoon rather than the two other books I normally juggle with. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi and Critical Mass: How one thing leads to another by Philip Ball was just too heavy for me after a long tiring week of work in the office.

I guess, in terms of pursuing our dreams, we may have our doubts over whether to give up our existing safe and contented state of life to uncertainty, but as always there is a price to pay in such situations.

But what is important that as what the alchemist had said. Listen to your heart it is alive. It may prove to be a satisfying end result as what Santiago had experienced. I will be looking to continue some of other Coelho books. Good light reading that lifts your soul on a lazy weekend yeah.

True Wisdom - Researched Characteristics

Referenced an article by Stephen S.Hall entitled "Wisdom comes with age? Not True" published in The Straits Times on 8 May 2007.

True wisdom it seems is associated by academic literature with the following attributes:

• A clear-eyed view of human nature
• Emotional resilience
• Ability to cope in the face of adversity
• Forgiveness
• Humility
• Knack of learning from lifetime of experiences

Formal studies on wisdom can be traced back to a young girl named Vivian Clayton. Apparently, She had observed that her father and maternal grandmother were different from other people she know. Despite their limited education, they had possessed an uncanny ability to remain in the midst of crisis and make good decision . She proceeded to tell the story of his father and his dying grandmother during World War Two, after the bombs had completely been dropped, she would just just say "Now we can have a cup of tea" nonchalantly.

Clayton, went to do her dissertation during the 1970s and 1980s, publishing groundbreaking papers on wisdom. She identified three general aspects of human activity that were central to wisdom

• Acquisition of Knowledge (Cognitive)
• Analysis of that Information (Reflective)
• Filtered through the emotions (affective)

I tried searching for her papers in Google Scholar but found only abstracts of them.

Anyway, moving along, there was another Berlin Wisdom Project that started research on wisdom. The "Berlin Paradigm" defined wisdom as an expert knowledge system concerning the fundamental pragmatics of life". In essence, it is the following:

• Expert knowledge of both "facts" of human nature
• "How" to deal with decisions and dilemmas
• An appreciation of one's historical, cultural and biological circumstances during an arc of lifespan
• An understanding of the "relativism" of values and priorities; and acknowledgement, at the level of both thought and action, of uncertainty.

The study by the Berlin group was on expertise and performance and not on inherent personality traits.

Now, another scientist, Laura Carstensen also identified the following:

• Ability to focus on emotional control is tightly linked to a persons sense of time
• Older people in general seem to have a better feel for keeping their emotions in balance.

My post does not do justice to Hall's article, but what I have done is to actually highlight the key points in bullets by the various researchers mentioned.

So, in summary, Hall ended by saying the following:

"Where does wisdom come from, and how does one acquire it? Surprisingly, a good deal of evidence suggests that the seeds of wisdom are planted earlier than old age, often earlier than middle age and possibly even earlier than young adulthood. And there are strong hints that wisdom is associated with an earlier exposure to adversity or failure. That certainly seems to be the case with emotional regulation and is consistent with Carstensen's ideas about shifting time horizons."

Interestingly, this means that we would need to have setbacks early in life to be able to become a wise man in the future. Of course, the person must be resilient enough to overcome these obstacles in their lives in order to move on.

Great article, deep in meaning and should be used by all as guidelines to true wisdom.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Alfred Lord Tennyson English poet (1809 - 1892)