Written by Nathan Vanderpool
Wisdom: A process of deepening alignment among 👁️ View, ❤️ Care, and 🤲 Action.
<aside> 🤲 Action: How should I approach this specific situation? (A process of relating)
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👁️ View models reality, directing Attention and generating Insight. ❤️ Care uses emotions to point Attention toward Values moment to moment (as long there are no Distortions). All of this plays out in 🤲 Action—solving complex problems in conditions that are often unique and full of uncertainty. Two features of Action help outline this process: Uniqueness and Regret.
🧓🏼 Fro lives on a large farm. Every summer, her nieces come to visit from Greece. The older one (Exos) is very social and loves to talk with people. The younger one (Esos) is much more bookish and likes to spend time on her own. Fro wants to make sure that her neices feel at home. The day after the girls arrive, they go down to the market. Exos enjoys meeting all the local farmers, but Esos finds the trip overwhelming. The next day, Fro teaches the girls about soil cultivation on the farm. Esos is excited and curious to learn, but Exos thinks that a day alone on the farm is boring.
Reflecting on this later, Fro realizes something interesting. Treating each of the girls well requires her to be sensitive to their Uniqueness. Each niece needs a particular context to feel at ease. While Exos has a lot of fun in large groups, Esos enjoys being with just a few people or on her own. In order to be a good host, Fro will have to keep these differences in mind.
Action is the process in which decisions based in ❤️ Care and ****👁️ View encounter the complexity of the world. There are important subtleties to Fro’s nieces, and even their basic personalities may shift over time. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Fro’s View (in this case, the model of her nieces) needs to become more profound in order to align with her Care for hospitality. When View and Care don’t align, it can lead to regret…
Fro hears her nieces playing after bedtime. Mornings on the farm start early, and Fro gets angry about the girls keeping everyone awake. She walks to the girl’s room and yells loudly, “KEEP IT DOWN IN THERE!” The girls do quiet down, but as Fro walks back to bed, she starts to feel uncomfortable about having yelled. She resolves to apologize to the girls in the morning, and explain why it’s important to go to sleep early on the farm.
Making a mistake can lead to feelings of shame—often accompanied by thoughts like “I am a bad person” or “I always get it wrong”. Shame derives from Distortions in ❤️ Care, and can steer you away from your Values. But a very useful feeling also accompanies mistakes: Regret. This is what Fro felt when thinking about having yelled at the girls. Regret arises when 🤲 Action (solving a problem) doesn’t reflect Care (what is meaningful). It is an important signal about how things are going, and allows you to update your 👁️ View (model of yourself, others, and the world) over time.
Again, Action is the process in which ❤️ Care and ****👁️ View encounter the complexity of the world. Reflecting on the girls’ Differences, and having yelled at them, Fro felt Regret. She was able to adjust her View to more accurately reflect her Care.
Well-functioning action, however, does not necessarily mean wise action. Some of the most powerful people in history have been responsible for immense suffering. That kind of action is not wise. When 🤲 Action learns to support the flourishing of yourself, others, and the world over time, it becomes more skillful—aligning profound view and mature care.
<aside> 🧙 Wisdom: A process of deepening alignment among 👁️ View, ❤️ Care, and 🤲 Action.
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Wisdom often gets confused with many other things. Click below to explore these confusions, as well as the concept of foolishness in ✨ What Is (Not) Wisdom.