The time of wisdom
Personal development. A broad concept, too broad, where everything fits and almost everything fits. Always aiming at progress, with more and better skills, which are arranged in models that are sometimes simple and pragmatic, sometimes complex and sophisticated. They seek states as disparate as productivity, efficiency, tranquillity, happiness, balance, success. The list could go on and on until the character limit of this article is reached.
You can call me old-fashioned or elastic-booted, but when everyone is looking to the future, I like to look to the past for answers. After all, about the future I know nothing and I can't know anything. In the past, when people wanted to become good, they were not as concerned about their skills (know-how) as they are today. They were concerned with their qualities or virtues (know-how). And, in an apparent paradox, the only way they could think of to achieve these virtues and qualities was through their consistent and constant application. Take one of the classical dimensions, which today is fashionable for unfortunate reasons: ethics.
At the time of the famous Aristotle, ethics was about carrying out certain good social practices. What he called prudence was actually a kind of wisdom. He is said to have arrived at this idea by observing the stonemasons on the island of Lesbos. In order to measure the diameter of the stone columns decorating the entrances to temples, they had to "bend the ruler", inventing what we know today as a tape measure. It was in action, in practice, that this kind of wisdom was revealed. Linking this idea with ethics, we find a possible definition: wisdom in human relations means knowing how to respond and react in a way that is correct and adapted to circumstances, adapting commonly used standards. Ethics and wisdom, rather than being disciplines, were and should be practical.
Centuries later, a French scholar of the famous Greek philosopher, Félix Ravaisson, obtained a doctoral degree with his study on the importance of habit. In his reassessment of the concept, going against the heritage of Kant's autonomous rationalism, he returned the concepts of freedom and intelligence to nature, removing them from the exclusive presence of the pretentious human being. For the Frenchman, habit was in itself a virtue and not just a mechanical effect. It was a mechanism that depended on time. To install and recognise itself, a habit implied that something that provoked an effect on something had a duration, a recurrence and a persistence. In short, habit was not the result of a lack of intelligence or laziness. It was its opposite, it was a hidden form of intelligence: a hidden wisdom.
Now, we know that virtue can be found in the middle, as the popular saying goes. To take the right action, for a given person, with his circumstances and in his time, a recipe that resides in some pre-made model is not enough. It is not enough to act according to some external guideline. It will be necessary to find a middle way between reflection and action; between attention and concentration; between selfishness and altruism; between leisure and business; between boredom and production; between pleasure and frustration. To know what one can do best, one must first do it. Then, think about what one has done, about what one has felt and try to know the effect of one's actions on others and on the context.
Wisdom does not come embedded in our DNA. As with habit, wisdom also depends on time. That is why the image of a wise person often coincides with the image of an elderly person - a person who has spent more time alive than other non-aged people. In our relationship with others, with regard to our responses and reactions, we can all be wise if we manage to find the time and resources - especially the internal ones - that are necessary. On the other hand, true wisdom implies learning to respond and react correctly in less and less time and with fewer resources. So, to attain wisdom, we have to make it a habit. It will not be found only in books or in models thought up by others. The search for wisdom must be made in practice: by doing.
