Wisdom comes from learning, not teaching.
We all have lessons to teach. We all have gone through things, faced troubles, faced challenges, survived the worst we could imagine at that moment, and want to share it with those coming up. Teach the youngest among us.
But the thing is, in this era of hyper-connectivity and super-exposure, it seems we’ve forgotten that wisdom is from learning, not teaching; and the best learning is from other’s experiences.
There is a proverb:
A scholar came to ask a wise-one for advice. “I have come to ask you about Zen,” the scholar pleaded.
“Let us begin,” the Master said, but quickly it became obvious the scholar was full of his own opinions and knowledge. He interrupted the Master and failed to listen or follow instructions.
Frustrated, the master suggested they take a break and have tea.
The master poured his student’s cup until the cup was filled, and yet he kept pouring. He poured until the cup overflowed onto the table, and onto the scholar’s robes. The scholar cried “Stop! The cup is spilling over! Stop, stop, I insist! You cannot put more into it!”
“Exactly,” said the Zen master.
“You are like this cup — so full of yourself that nothing more will fit. You are full and cannot learn a thing. Leave me now and do not come back until you have emptied your cup.”
Take heed.
Next time, when you are in a vexed discussion with some person over some troubling thing; listen.
Listen with your full person.
Don’t just hear their words, but apply them, as best you can imagine, with the experiences they express. Empathize with their perspective, learn their opinion, see from where it developed.
Very few of us, us human beings, are truly vile and evil. There have been but a handful of Hitlers in our history. Most of us, mostly are like you, and me, and all of us, just trying to find a way, find a meaning in our lives in the existence of time and space.
But we all have limited time, and live in a limited space.
Listen.
Listen to those who have experienced what you haven’t. Listen to those who have experienced what you cannot.
True knowledge, true wisdom, doesn’t come from a book — it comes from life itself. Talk to your great-grandparent about their youth. Listen to their experiences, their life, their joys and pains.
Therein lies our future.
As was said in Orwell’s, 1984:
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
Don’t conflate learning with knowledge. Knowledge is more than facts and figures… it encompasses experience.
And experience comes from experiences, and only our mature, aged brethren have been there.
Listen.