KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM

Knowledge and wisdom. Just like 2 sides of the same coin. 

Some feel knowledge is more important while for a few others, wisdom goes a long way. In my opinion, though, they both contribute more or less equally to a person's life. Yes, there are exceptions; a lot of exceptions. Still, I believe, with growth, with new generations coming in, both will play equal roles. During the beginning, knowledge surely has a greater role to play, but with age, wisdom and experiences are things that shall also matter a lot. 

Now, knowledge and wisdom both grow with every new generation that impends on this planet. While the baggage of knowledge grows more as compared to wisdom because of the sheer amount of new technologies and inventions/discoveries that add up to the existing knowledge tree, wisdom is more subtle. Wisdom cannot be gained by surfing the internet, reading news articles, or on google. To develop wisdom, more creative approaches are required. Wisdom gets transferred from one generation to another through some able people of both generations, one set of people who are ready to share their experiences and wisdom gained during their lifetime and from their ancestors/teachers/gurus/idols, etc., and another set of people who are eager to listen to them and receive them. Without these 2 sets, wisdom dissipation is not possible. 

But what happens if wisdom is not transferred and only knowledge gets accumulated in the next generation? If we go back to the roots of history, knowledge, and wisdom have always worked side by side. Someone tried rubbing 2 stones and it led to the discovery of fire. That person shared this knowledge with others and then it came down to succeeding generations. However, if we observe keenly, the discovery of fire was accidental. The person may not have shared this discovery just to share. It might be because he would have wanted to know is this a universal fact or just happens sometimes. When everybody confirmed that person's discovery to be true, it got added to the knowledge pool. But with generations now, that is just a pearl of wisdom. Knowledge is why or how that fire emerged when 2 stones were rubbed. Knowledge is what are the reactions that lead to fire when 2 stones are rubbed. In short, without the transfer of wisdom, new knowledge cannot accumulate. Further, wisdom not only lies in technical know-how. It is related to things that we don't find anywhere; like how to live life peacefully, how to be spiritual, how to act in any stressful situations, how to deal with certain people, etc. And only with the transfer of these experiences and wisdom, we actually equip our next generations to start from where we stopped, to scale greater heights, to be at a point where they don't need to go through our learning phase once again. It's because lifespan is short and constant. If the coming generations again start learning everything from scratch, how can they achieve more, unless we deliver them our wisdom?

At least as human beings, and living in a society, this should be the least we should do for our coming generations. Help them achieve more by equipping them with all the required knowledge and wisdom.