There is a difference between wisdom and knowledge that is quite apparent when both are examined. To most people, they are one and the same or at least go together. If you are wise you also have knowledge and if you have knowledge then you must also be wise. Here is where the fault lies and a line of distinction must be drawn. Wisdom and knowledge are not the same and do no necessarily have to go together. It is arguably agreeable that to be wise, you must possess some extent of knowledge, but you can have a great amount of knowledge and no wisdom. It becomes necessary to define each of them in order to draw that line of distinction. Knowledge is something that you obtain from reading, studying, and speaking to others who can educate you on the field in question. It is the memorization of facts, concepts, formulas, and figures. Wisdom is something obtained about the mannerisms, styles, and ways of thinking of people. Wisdom is that understanding of people that you can not learn from books and is acquired only through experience.

The quest for knowledge is never far out of the reach of normal people. Wherever you may need it you can find a teacher, a book, or a website that can unload on someone a great store of facts. The job of the individual becomes merely to memorize this vast store of facts or to understand how a certain concept works in order to achieve the solution to the problem. Even critical thinking merely involves manipulating concepts already memorized in order to reach the solution. In fact, when the solution is reached, any person is inclined to feel really smart and not wise. Any subject that requires knowledge demands a smart person, but it is only a nice addition if that person is also wise. Knowledge and intelligence go together and become a rule for mastery of the subject. It is quite honorable to seek knowledge, but it is another thing altogether to seek wisdom since its location is not so easily discernable.

Wisdom is a far greater prize to achieve, but it also comes with a much heavier cost. Acquiring wisdom is a difficult and generally painful endeavor that will span the course of a lifetime if allowed. Although people as a whole do no change, no two people are exactly alike for no two minds work the same way. Wisdom is acquired through experience and interactions with people. Wisdom is painfully earned through mistakes. Possibly the worst mistake, yet most repeated, is to assume anything. Very little in this world hits as hard as assuming something as true and discovering that you were wrong. To assume and to err is human; it is also human to hurt from damaging errors. However, if we are inclined to take command of our lives, we must teach ourselves to move on; to get up and shoulder our cross once more. That is the definition of wisdom in its purest form; we must teach ourselves to move on. Wisdom is painfully obtained from experience, that is from our interactions with people and from the errors we make. Wisdom is understanding people (their thoughts, their mannerisms, their way of living) and it requires true experience to obtain. On the journey for wisdom, we learn about ourselves and our way of thinking from our responses to our own errors, and we learn about others from their reactions both to us and to their own errors.

The goal of obtaining wisdom is to develop an understanding of people and to develop a greater insight into the lives of others. To strive to obtain wisdom is to be willing to undergo severe trials and to attempt to meet each and every situation with that sense of fairness and equality that can only come from an understanding of the entire circumstance and not merely the event (understanding the motives). The path to wisdom involves learning to see the world in so many shades of gray. A person who sees the world as black or white, right or wrong will never obtain wisdom. As an understanding of people begins to develop, it is easy to realize that humans are ruled by emotions. Although we are rational beings by design, emotions have a way of clouding our judgment against our will. Emotions, in fact, are vital to humans since they form the basis for our morals and values. The struggling we must do for wisdom is to try and make sense of the emotions of humans and to try to create a philosophy (this is why the ideal sage must be a philosopher) that will satisfy most interactions and circumstances among people. No single philosophy will cover every circumstance since there are always exceptions, but the philosophy should try to contain as much as possible.

A person that has acquired wisdom has no distinct features and could not be picked out from among a crowd. The fact is that everyone acquires some wisdom during the course of their life for it is truly inevitable. Through daily living we interact with others (unless you are a shut-in) and therefore obtain some wisdom. However one who desires great wisdom will learn to quell certain human fallacies that prevent real wisdom from being achieved. This fallacy is a persons generalization of another person based on a first impression. The problem of assuming takes flight again like a phoenix arising reborn from a fire. The attainment of wisdom involves being willing to look for the reasons that a bad first impression occurred. Perhaps the reason was that the person was having a bad day or certain circumstances were preventing a true show of colors. The quest for wisdom would require not making generalizations about anybody and consistently remembering that situations can alter emotions and thus personalities. Keeping to the belief in the best in people, the one who would seek to be a sage must rise above conventional thinking and desire to understand people on the metaphysical level. As long as the desire to obtain wisdom is goaded on by a deeper desire to use this understanding to aid others, then the quest for wisdom is noble and worth striving for.

.....that's about it for now, i'm not quite done with it

~Ichrider

There are two types of wisdom
Earthly Wisdom
and Wisdom that comes from God
Knowledge is something learned by yourself
Wisdom leans more toward experience and unique observations

Whoah. that is a large intro!

Let it die already...

*confusion*
*nervous laughter*

*doesn't know what is happening so joins in the nervous laughter*

Whoa, haha. Ahem. *nervous laughter*

Please go here cocomoe http://boards.youthnoise.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/693295355/m/55410582

Welcome to YN cocomoe.

Please do not revive 3 year old threads, especially when the maker of the thread probably doesn't even come here anymore.

Dear Mr Ichrider,

I will begin by saying that your blog compelled me to join this program simply to comment. That being, I found much of what you had to say very interesting. I do think that you were quite right in much of your substantiation.

A major point that I would disagree with, though, is this qualification of God as wisdom. In my eyes, God is an oversimplification of that which unites as a human race. Its existence is testament not to some ethereal being, but to our belief in humanity; in love, life, emotion, thought, being...the whole human experience, all rolled up into one.

I am not saying that there is no such thing as a power that keeps things going-keeps our world moving-but I certainly don't think it is any god found in any religion on earth. Religion is simply humanity's attempt to emulate god; to find him in ourselves.

The same point substantiates exactly why it is that there are so many religions...because there are so many cultures. Religion and culture influence other so infinitely that is blind to tear one from the other. This is why you see African Americans considered a negative force in the Mormon religion, because they were supposedly given the sign of the devil. A belief which has no better origin than the racism of the time period in which the religion was birthed. It would seem then that most of all religions circumstance is simply a product of cultural and temporal circumstance; they are all the same thing, simply different versions.

I am sorry, I think I have gone off on a tangent. Either ways, I think all of what I said to be at least somewhat, though not completely, relevant to the topic at hand. I would like to hear what you have to think...you should so send me an email.

-cocomoe

Knowledge comes from a book.
Wisdom comes from life.

knowledge comes learning. wisdom is knowledge put to use.

that was hella long and just so you know, i didnt read a bit of it.

quote:

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Wisdom comes from God, and knowledge is when you are learning.

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i dont quite agree. wisdom comes with age and experience, learning from one experience and applying it to another. it is being able to give and receive advice in any situation. thats what wisdom is. it doesnt nessesarily come from god. enleightenment, maybe, but not god.

umm.spelling??

Thanks J for putting it on here. Sorry, I couldn't see it before when you send it to me.

Bye N have a nice day

Well, here's what I know.

Wisdom comes from God, and knowledge is when you are learning.

When you're wise you know what is right and wrong in your spiritual life in God's eyes, and knowledge is when you know what is right and wrong in the world (Meaning: in your education, life, and etc.)

I hope I helped...?