Wisdom: Humanity’s Oldest Survival Tool

I found this short article fascinating about a world-wide study of "What is Wisdom?" written by Igor Grossman, co-author of an international study on wisdom, University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

https://wisdomcenter.uchicago.edu/.../sage-against-machine

A large-scale study conducted across 2,600 people from 12 countries (including the US, Peru, Japan, India, Morocco, Slovakia and South Korea) indicates that perceptions of wisdom are more or less universal, no matter who you ask.

"People perceive a wise person as essentially a mix of Spock from Star Trek and Yoda from Star Wars. No matter where in the world one is, this appears to largely hold true..

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But the truth is that defining, understanding and seeking out wisdom have helped us survive.

Who is smarter? Who would make a good ally? Who would hold the group together?...Be it in hunter-gatherer societies or agricultural systems, humans have survived by forming alliances. And to do that successfully, we have historically tracked competencies — such as wisdom — and learnt to figure out whom one can lean on,” Grossmann says

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And what I found even more interesting was the following:

"The findings made waves in academic circles because the traits selected tended to fall into the same two subsets of wisdom perception: reflective orientation (which includes logical thinking, control over one’s emotions etc) and socio-emotional competencies (humility, the ability to cooperate, etc)."

And I ask myself- how do we cultivate more wisdom in a world that is obssessed with data, amassing knowledge, totally focused on the "algorithm" at the expense of "deeper understanding"?

I am proud, encouraged and ever-so excited to continue and expand the group and the concept I designed, have lead and facilitated nearly 5 years now- "Harvesting your Wisdom". It was more of an intuitive choice in the "early days" but now it is more grounded in knowing that "wisdom is not knowledge"- we need both, but as Grossman wrote: "“Wisdom now requires the ability to chart a path through dramatically unknown unknowns.”

Let's start with our own wisdom and take responsibilty to enhance, deepen and thrive from that...

https://www.wisdom-opportunity.com/harvesting-your-wisdom...