# Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers Created On: 03-24-2023 09:48 am Type: #note/literature📖 #source/quote Topics: [[Wisdom]] --- ## Literature >Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity. > >— [[Calvin Coolidge]] ## Notes * Such an interesting thought here... * "It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time" * This tends to feel like the area most people spend their time - building a wealth of knowledge * As was referenced in [[Building a Second Brain (Book)]], a lot of these mental constructs are born from our educational system - we test on knowledge recall, not on understanding or, certainly more challenging, the objective analysis of practical wisdom at play * Therefore, we end up with this very "detached" understanding of wisdom. * Because of this, most people don't really understand wisdom... They have a very "Hollywood" understanding of a wise person - it is an aged Asian person who only speaks in aphorisms * Does this also innately create a gap that disarms people from truly realizing a wisdomous mindset? * I think there is even some prospective separating that could even be done on the topic, such as the difference between building knowledge and understanding even * I wonder if this is worth writing about? More or less, the evolutionary path towards wisdom looks like a progression: [[The knowledge, understanding, and wisdom funnel]] * "...but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity." * Man, such a beautiful line * He speaks to possibly the American spirit/ideal through, "severe discipline of hard work" - this is a know "trait" of what it means to be an American * This implicit American ideal that, while other countries work hard, no one works harder than Americans... * It is somewhat of a "backbone" sentiment to "who we are" as a nation. * But the final sentiment of "tempering heat of experience and maturity" is my primary focus * It overlaps so positively with this: [[To attain wisdom, remove things everyday]] * Calvin uses the word "temper", and I think that is intentional * To temper is to reduce something to a purer form: "improve the consistency or resiliency" and what is so beautiful is that the concept of wisdom, especially as it grows, plays into the metaphor of a smith so damn well... * ==We're tempered by the heat and cooling of life... What we gleam from those moments of heat, of difficulty, of challenge, to the moment where we're quenched and cooling... Do we allow the quench to cast cracks, imperfections, vulnerabilities, or are we bonded and made better by it, the rapid heating and the cooling of life?== * A stoic thought: only **we** can choose to be made better by everything around us and our experiences. * Through reflection and introspection, we become bonded and resilient, especially through the acquisition and application of wisdom * This becomes a virtuous perpetual cycle, like a [[The flywheel effect]] --- ## Reference(s) * [[03-24-2023]]'s daily quote