From Knowing To Understanding

Knowledge is no great feat in and of itself, especially if that knowledge can’t be transformed into understanding.

If anything, knowledge alone could easily be rendered futile.

It's worthwhile to note, you are now living in the age of information.

Where knowledge is literally at your fingertips, a push of a button away.

So the skill is not in the consumption of that information

But in your ability to make good sense of it

In your ability to not only distinguish fact from fiction,

But view it in the broader context of the system that produced it.

In synthesising information and seeing how it relates to your actual lived experience.

How it measures up against or challenges your values

Your beliefs about right and wrong

What’s good and what's not

And how these often competing values translate to the priorities you set

And the decisions you ultimately make.

It’s not good enough anymore to just read the head lines, clickbait is a thing.

It’s also not good enough to take a single fact or source of information at face value

Because in this way, you're easily manipulated and lead astray.

You're easily distracted, taking your focus away from the things that really matter.

In this hyper age of knowledge, information (and misinformation),

What we’re really missing is truth.

What we’re really seeking is not knowledge at all, but wisdom.

A practical reality that cuts to the heart of what it means to be human.

We too often take for granted the depth of what that entails.

And the only way to really transform knowledge into understanding is not to read about it,

But through your lived experience.

Not in merely thinking, but also in doing.

Not only in your ability to recite facts about things, people or places

But in your ability to commune and relate with these things in meaningful ways

In ways that allows knowledge to be revealed during the unfolding of life itself

In ways that allow you to stumble and fall.

Because if you truly want to understand life, you don't dwell on it, but rather, plunge yourself into it.

This has always been how we best learn, it's time tested and still true.

This is also the way of nature and nature is wise.

#knowledge #wisdom #understanding