Written by Nathan Vanderpool

🧙 Wisdom: A process of deepening alignment among 👁️ View, ❤️ Care, and 🤲 Action.

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<aside> 👁️ View: How do I see myself, others, and the world? (A process of framing)

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<aside> ❤️ Care: What do I sense to be good, true, and beautiful? (A process of attunement)

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<aside> 🤲 Action: How should I approach this specific situation? (A process of relating)

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As you seek to deepen wisdom, your 👁️ View becomes more profound—generating more useful frames (models of yourself, others and the world) for the problems you face. Your ❤️ Care becomes more mature—creating a deeper attunement with what people and things mean to you, and what you mean to the others and the world. And your 🤲 Action becomes more skillful—eleganty solving complex problems in unique and uncertain situations. These three aspects of wisdom create a participatory feedback loop that enables you to update your view, express your care, and refine your action.

Note: These three aspects of wisdom are not separate. They come bundled together, and inform each other. Importantly, the model presented here is not meant to be comprehensive. Its modest hope is to develop a clear way to talk about wisdom, and to awaken your curiosity.

What Is Not Wisdom?

The framework of 👁️ View, ❤️ Care, and 🤲 Action outlined in the previous articles ****addresses some common misconceptions about wisdom.

Wisdom is not…

• scientific knowledge — The scientific method provides information about the material world. These facts can support wisdom. But wisdom is a process that supports living a good and meaningful life, not a theory of the material world.
• a list of “good traits” — Wisdom is rooted in individual experience. While there are traits that often run counter to flourishing, there are ultimately as many ways to be wise as there are human beings.
• an ideology (religious, political, or otherwise) — Seeking wisdom in a society does not mean enforcing a set of strict moral rules. The diversity of wisdom comes with a humility toward knowing what would be best for everyone.
• technical expertise — Excellence in particular fields (e.g., psychotherapy, mediation, or argumentation) is not the equivalent of wisdom. A guru, for example, may or may not support flourishing in her personal relationships.

Each of these things that are not wisdom (scientific knowledge, good traits, ideologies, technical expertise) can reinforce wisdom in some contexts. But wisdom is something else: a process that supports the flourishing of yourself, others, and the world.

✨ Foolishness