Smart or Wise??

There was at an event recently where a small group of designers presented their work. One of the presentations really caught my attention as the young professional started talking about his philosophy or point of view on some of the things that we as a society do.  It was a brief comment and I cannot remember the exact wording but it was along the lines of this: that our generation is quite happy to show everyone else how smart we are, perhaps at the loss of a bit of generational wisdom. I could be wrong but it seems that our generation has a lot of smart people, but not a lot of wise people.

It is probably quite obvious why this sparked something in me, made me take a second look at this young freelance designer who was only a little older than myself.

And it got me thinking. We are a very smart generation of people. But are we losing touch with the wisdom of previous generations? There has been very many changes in the world over the last hundred years in the way information is stored and passed on. Writing has been around since 1800 BC and since then civilizations have been recording experiences, knowledge and  wisdom down in a myriad of materials from papyrus to vellum to books. The ability to record sounds and then capture moving pictures on film and combine the two together have created a medium which utilizes most of the senses so that you are fully immersed in that experience. But this information, these experiences conveyed are not always that easy to access and interpret.

Then the Internet came into being and the world changed yet again. What has it meant to our societies now that almost unlimited amounts of information is available at our fingertips? The sharing phenomenon and storage of information in such social ventures of knowledge such as Wikipedia (which I have used as a reference *slaps his hand) has changed the way that we respond to spontaneous questions that pop up in our daily conversations. Well I find that I reply to questions with an attempted answer followed by “…just Google it.” or “…but what does Wikipedia say?” Its not that I don’t have confidence in my replies (which sometimes I don’t…) but I find it easier to just to ask them to check out what the Web says. And this is the thing – it is more convenient to let the information stay on the Web and I’ll look it up when I need to. Our society is definitely about convenience, from the number of fast food outlets around us and their drive-throughs.

How we learn has changed a lot too. A lot of eminence is given to University degrees and acadmic courses, while other types of education such as Polytechnic courses and trade apprenticeships are seen as somehow inferior. I know I used to think that way but I wonder about that. There is a lot that you learn with your hands – by trying things and learning from your mistakes. Coming from a design background we were encouraged to try wierd things and experiment and to make mistakes. This is something that I firmly believe in doing and try to practise it as much as I can on design projects, but in general there seems to be a bit of a taboo on trying something that you know will probably not work. But I think this is changing especially as design becomes more understood as a creative practise.

But I wonder, what does it mean to be wise? I always think of old men with long flowing beards… but is that just an image that Hollywood has taken and embedded in our image of society? Is wisdom something that comes with age? Do you have to know a lot to  be wise? Or is it more about knowing who you are, your values and living them out in such a way that they are attractive to other people? Hmmmm.

No answers on this one but I would definitely enjoy hearing anyone’s take on wisdom. So speak!