--Aeschylus
It is interesting to think about what the difference is when it comes to knowledge and wisdom and how it is acquired. Some people see no direct correlation between the two, but in fact, they fail to see that they are in fact very different. Knowledge is something that everyone has. We’ve all been to school. We all know how to add two plus two and how to put one word in front of the other to form an essay about whether or not global warming is really a conflict or if it is jut a pattern of nature, but wisdom is something that comes to us only if we really truly want it. We are only as wise as we allow ourselves to become.
In this quote, Aeschylus focuses only on gaining wisdom from God, but it is impossible to discuss exactly what wisdom is until we define what it is in accordance to knowledge. According to the dictionary, wisdom is more about understanding. The answer to what knowledge is right in the word. It is knowing. We know a great many things, but do we understand them? Many people like to believe that they understand what they know, and that is when we need to start asking the questions “how do you know that?”
So, how is wisdom acquired? It most certainly isn’t something one can learn in the classroom. That is learning. Acquiring wisdom comes after learning. We must have the diligence and desire to seek out the truth of what it is we are learning in our college careers. Wisdom is taking what we have learned and applying it to our lives. For instance, in every single math class I have taken throughout high school I was promised that I would be able to take what I had learned and apply it to my life in the future. Years have passed, and I have yet to find a situation where I can use factoring polynomials into my every day activities. Maybe I am not looking hard enough, or maybe the situations have not found me yet, but needless to say, I feel cheated.
In this quote, Aeschylus focuses only on gaining wisdom from God, but it is impossible to discuss exactly what wisdom is until we define what it is in accordance to knowledge. According to the dictionary, wisdom is more about understanding. The answer to what knowledge is right in the word. It is knowing. We know a great many things, but do we understand them? Many people like to believe that they understand what they know, and that is when we need to start asking the questions “how do you know that?”
So, how is wisdom acquired? It most certainly isn’t something one can learn in the classroom. That is learning. Acquiring wisdom comes after learning. We must have the diligence and desire to seek out the truth of what it is we are learning in our college careers. Wisdom is taking what we have learned and applying it to our lives. For instance, in every single math class I have taken throughout high school I was promised that I would be able to take what I had learned and apply it to my life in the future. Years have passed, and I have yet to find a situation where I can use factoring polynomials into my every day activities. Maybe I am not looking hard enough, or maybe the situations have not found me yet, but needless to say, I feel cheated.
So, when I walked into the Math 108 class at the start of the semester and I was told with confidence by my professor that I would be able to apply what I learned in this specific class into my life, I was skeptical. But, by the time we finished our second unit, which covered finances, I realized that he was right. Of course I am going to be able to use mortgage formulas and loan payment equations later on. Maybe not now, because I am not married nor do I have children, but the day will come when I will use that and I will be grateful that Brigham Young University at Idaho forced me to take that class.
In the quote above, it mentions that wisdom can come to us by the “awful grace of God.” It’s a bit of a contradicting statement, isn’t it? Many people view the grace of God as something that is all good, the one thing that makes up for our shortcomings in our earthly lives and, if we have done all that we can do, will allow us into paradise where we will rest until the Second Coming. It is my own humble opinion that the grace of God is how we gain wisdom. We are given trials, and we learn from them, and we gain wisdom because through our trials (in my case, at least) we gain a better understanding about some aspect of life, whether it be the age old question of “why do bad things happen to good people?” or something as simple as “Is the Book of Mormon really another testament of Jesus Christ?”
“He who learns must suffer…” Aeschylus makes it seem as if learning is a painful process. And in a way, it is. It has been said that knowledge is power, and so then it comes down to us how we use that knowledge. We can let it sit in the back of our brains, never to be used again, or we can develop it even more and turn it into a weapon of mass destruction. But this can be a painful process, because we grow along with our knowledge until it becomes wisdom.
Wisdom can also be considered experience; and through trials, we gain experience. In D&C 122: 7, one of my favorite scriptures, it reads:
In the quote above, it mentions that wisdom can come to us by the “awful grace of God.” It’s a bit of a contradicting statement, isn’t it? Many people view the grace of God as something that is all good, the one thing that makes up for our shortcomings in our earthly lives and, if we have done all that we can do, will allow us into paradise where we will rest until the Second Coming. It is my own humble opinion that the grace of God is how we gain wisdom. We are given trials, and we learn from them, and we gain wisdom because through our trials (in my case, at least) we gain a better understanding about some aspect of life, whether it be the age old question of “why do bad things happen to good people?” or something as simple as “Is the Book of Mormon really another testament of Jesus Christ?”
“He who learns must suffer…” Aeschylus makes it seem as if learning is a painful process. And in a way, it is. It has been said that knowledge is power, and so then it comes down to us how we use that knowledge. We can let it sit in the back of our brains, never to be used again, or we can develop it even more and turn it into a weapon of mass destruction. But this can be a painful process, because we grow along with our knowledge until it becomes wisdom.
Wisdom can also be considered experience; and through trials, we gain experience. In D&C 122: 7, one of my favorite scriptures, it reads:
7. And if that shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the
hands of murderers, and the sentence
of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing
surge conspire against thee; if
fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and
above all, if the very jaws of hell
shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know though, my son, that all these things shall give the
experience, and shall be for thy good.
Now, setting aside the fact that any of us will end up in jail for being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, this scripture does a nice job of explaining exactly how the acquisition of wisdom can be such a hard thing, but, when it finally happens, it is a great reward. On the flipside, however, there is no end to gaining wisdom. There may come a day where everyone understands the truths we have worked so hard to comprehend, and then that wisdom is downgraded back to knowledge. And then we must be willing to take the extra step forward to pick out some other hidden truth, in order to gain more wisdom.
I am in no way, shape, or form, claiming to have more wisdom than anyone else on this planet. All I am trying to do is convey what wisdom might be based on the knowledge I had acquired of the past few years. This is just my humble view on the matter. It is easy for us to get caught up in the debate as we try to determine where exactly that line that divides knowledge and wisdom really is, whether we are aware of it or not. So, what needs to happen is that people need to stop conforming, they need to go out in the world and discover it for themselves, experience a little pain else we don’t know what life really can be. Suffer for that wisdom, and rejoice when it comes to you. We need to challenge ourselves. How else are we going to discover what are limits really are? Do not settle for plain knowledge that everyone can receive through a decent education. Teach yourself. Gain wisdom.
