QUOTE 1

Heart – Peter Max. Wikioo

“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”

Charles Dickens

Dickens’ words are eternally relevant, in that they remind us of that fact that wisdom is very close to love. Why is this?

There needs to be a large presence of wisdom when we love, in order for us to have a constructive relationship. Lack of wisdom, making the wrong decisions or being unkind, will spoil a relationship. Love is about understanding another person, and we need to be wise in order to do that.

With wisdom and love, we will have balance in our lives- the balance between thought and feeling. This means that our emotions will be checked and controlled by our wisdom, so that we do not ruin our lives and relationships.

Having ‘a loving heart’ means that we will be kind, caring and thoughtful. Those are wise things to be, and they will go a long way towards helping us to have a rewarding life.

QUOTE 2

Book of Wisdom – Nicholas Roerich. 1924. Wikioo

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Both knowledge and wisdom are important to us in our lives, but the poet Tennyson is drawing our attention to the importance of wisdom, even above knowledge. The two can overlap, but, in general, wisdom comes to us as we go through our everyday life, having experiences that teach us how to live well. We may forget some of the facts that we once learned, but wisdom will remain with us.

Even if some snippets of knowledge may not be retained by us, what we have learned from all the information we have gathered will eventually become part of our store of wisdom; we will gain insight from experience. For example we may go to university and, in later years, remember only some of the facts we have learned.

What we are likely to remember for life is the wisdom we gained from organising, sorting, classifying and discussing with peers and university staff all the various facts. In addition, we learn about coping with a large amount of work.

Estimating, discerning, evaluating and assessing situations and people will depend on how much wisdom we have gathered in our lives. We utilise our wisdom and thinking processes to judge whether a person appears to be trustworthy, and we also use our instincts and intuitive powers.

Trusting another person could make us vulnerable; it is important to be able to develop an ability to, as far as is possible, judge whether others are trustworthy. Foresight and perspective are also parts of wisdom and having these qualities will likely help us in terms of relating to others and in making decisions in life.

QUOTE 3

Mystical Head: Closed Eyes . 1917– (Alexej Georgewitsch Von Jawlensky)

“The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.” 

William James

This is, indeed, a wise quotation, with several applications. In any relationship, there will be aspects of the other person that feel difficult and are hard to cope with. None of us is perfect. Sometimes, if the other’s behaviour is just manageable, it may be wise to overlook or ignore it.

I have slipped in an extra quote here which feels highly relevant to the theme:

“What I cannot love, I overlook. Is that real friendship?”

Anais Nin.

If we cannot change the other person, sometimes we might have to change our own attitude. If someone says something that offends us, our wisdom may tell us that, at times, we might want to overlook it. Perhaps we might also have the wisdom to delay our response until we have cooled down and considered the situation and decided the best way of handling it. The advice to ‘turn a blind eye and, perhaps  ‘choose our battles’ comes to mind.

Not Looking. Truth.org. 2012.Jared Rodriguez / Truthout. Flickr.

On occasion, we may indeed have to overlook the more minor issues that irritate us at home or at work, and perhaps put aside some smaller tasks in our lives in favour of the major ones. We cannot do it all and we do not have to give our full attention to everything that comes our way. We need to know what we can safely overlook and decide when to move on, and our wisdom can guide us in this.

QUOTE 4

Man’s Incredible Journey – Walt Owen, 1971. Wikioo.

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”

 Marcel Proust

The metaphor of life as a journey is an age-old one. It is a helpful concept, in that it links our lives to experiences of discovery, growth and learning, which are characteristic features of many journeys. This is also related to the psychological journey into the self, into finding out who we are, and discovering what may be happening in our inner world, that is, in the depths of our unconscious.

“The only journey is the one within.”

Rainer Maria Rilke

We are sometimes told to ‘follow the right path,’ yet there is no one path. We must each find our own unique direction to move through life, a way that is right for us and us alone. Attempting to ‘advise’ another to follow one’s own chosen path is an imposition and an intrusion into the other person’s life; furthermore, we simply cannot know what is right for another human being.

We can only be there to try and facilitate that other person’s journey, if asked and required. Proust was right when he said ‘We don’t receive wisdom,’ we have to find it inside ourselves, for it does not come from the outside.

Many times, we need to find our own way, to discover our personal paths through life, even when things are tough. There are periods when this journey into the self is full of pain and suffering, for facing oneself is no mean feat.

Ultimately we are alone, finding our individual way. It is important to have the wisdom to respect the different paths that others may take and to value difference and diversity.

Path – Claude Monet. Wikioo.

“The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated. It isn’t true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth.”

Ram Dass

There will, inevitably, be meeting points along the road. We will come across other travellers, some who will pass us by, others who will give us a rough ride, and yet others who will clear the way, showing us their wisdom, calming and healing us. Ram Dass described life as a journey, on which “We’re all just walking each other home.” Each person we meet has some influence on us, leaving an impression on our minds and, at times, in our hearts.

This is a journey of self-discovery, one in which we will hope to get to know ourselves; it is a journey inwards into wisdom and authenticity.

QUOTE 5

Fiercely the Red Sun Descending, Burned His Way across the Heavens. 1875. Thomas Moran. Wikioo.

“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Seeing ‘the miraculous in the common’ is, as Emerson tells us, very much related to being wise. For example, accepting the commonplace, the ordinary days, people and places, and the ordinariness within ourselves and our lives, will, paradoxically, free us to be extraordinary. We may become relaxed enough to be increasingly creative and productive.

If we always associate ordinariness with the uninteresting, boring, mundane or dull, we will miss the fact that, on an ordinary day, in an ordinary house, with ordinary people, we can be happy and contented. Further, in such a situation, the extraordinary can emerge, as in the wonderful painting above. Artists are often very aware of what beauty there can be in the most mundane of objects. They have the wisdom of truly seeing ‘the miraculous in the common.’

Matches – Claes Oldenburg. Wikioo.

Can we, likewise, appreciate even the small things, the most fleeting of moments, whilst being aware that such moments do not return? They are lost in time, as one day we ourselves will be.

From common everyday experiences, we can discover the very special. In order to do so, we need to take time to pause, to smell the roses, and to stand and stare. We need to use our wisdom to the full, making space to look, absorbing what is around us. If we can achieve this, our lives will inevitably be vastly enriched by the experience.

© Linda Berman