Wisdom Hasn’t Made Me Smarter
January 8, 2009, by Carine Fabius
Untitled by Edouard Duval-Carrie
I’m 52, so by all rights I should be wise, right? I thought wisdom came with the growing old package, right alongside gracefully. But something got messed up on my order form, because it turns out the gracefully part is a day-to-day challenge that gets harder, not easier, as time goes by!
And, for some reason, I thought by now I would have figured out the answer to the question that’s been nagging at me for years. Are human beings violent by nature, or is our essence the stuff of love? In other words, if love (aka God) is what we are under this physical shell—which is what I believe in my heart and is my experience when I go deep in meditation—then, why, as a friend put it the other day, are people so mean to each other? Why have humans been killing each other with gusto since the dawn of time? Why do violent movies make so much money? And why do most people fail the compassion test when given the choice (in laboratory settings) to choose kindness and forgiveness over ruthlessness?
Years ago I read about a study which found that when men were offered the opportunity to rape without legal consequences, they said, yes, please. I’m telling you, the love stuff doesn’t add up. This is why atheists sound so smart and sensible (even though their reasoning is often tinged with a mocking and aggressive ring, like they really, really want people to join their club). I personally don’t care whether people agree with me on the existence of God, or of love as the foundation of our being. I just want answers, and I don’t feel like waiting until I die to figure it out. Which brings me back to the place I always end up. Deciding that this thing called life is too big a mystery for me to explain away with ease.
Maybe God is not love; maybe God is something altogether different. Perhaps it’s an energy that encompasses love and all its opposites, and that we must choose which part of us we want to embrace. Maybe there’s no such thing as one definitive human nature. See what I mean? The questions are endless. So, rather than continue to rack my brain on the seemingly violent penchant of human beings (which often leaves me feeling sad an helpless—all you need to do is read your morning paper), what I’ve decided to do is to try to be kinder and more compassionate and more loving myself. I think that’s as good a start as any.
Soon after writing this blog, I came upon this quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.”
Hey, maybe this wisdom thing isn’t a bunch of BS, after all.
January 8th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Carine, thanks for writing this and for your insight. Frankly I have come to a similar conclusion, being positive, kinder and more compassionate and loving. Good advice!
ps i love the Haitian art above the article.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Jane Goodall came to much the same conclusion 40 years ago when she witnessed what she thought were her social and friendly chimps rip apart a neighboring chimp colony with their bare hands and fangs. Yes, violence is part of the primate make-up. But we, the top primate, are evolving creatures; the challenge is that we are evolving intermittantly and unevenly. That is why the human race counts among its 7 billion members greedy pigs like Bernard Madoff, violent goons like Richard Allen Davis (who murdered Polly Klaas), the peaceful intellectual Tenzin Gyatso(the Dalai Llama), and home-builder and ex-POTUS Jimmy Carter. I think the world is in a crisis now which is why your quote from Dr. King is especially prescient. It’s all very well to be kinder and more compassionate, but I think the times call for enlightened individuals to act as bodhisattvas, going out amongst the people who need them the most, much as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did, teaching peace, spreading positivity, justice and hope. Somehow that message, at the core of every major religion, has become lost. Thanks for bringing it home, Carine. I’ll be thinking of this blog entry on January 20th!
January 8th, 2009 at 11:06 am
One does not need to believe in the existence of God to hope for, ache for, work for, and believe in, a better earth. The good, large and small, we start and finish counts for us all, though we may never see it. The pebble in the pond….
As to wisdom, I love what Cher said on turning 50. Barbara Walters, I think, asked her if wisdom was the prize for getting older. Cher said, “No. It all just sucks.” I paraphrase, but you get the gist.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
There is a biblical (Luke) quote that was posted above the bulletin board in my daughter’s 6th grade classroom: “To Whom Much is Given, Much is Expected.” Clearly, the teacher was admonishing her rich, spoiled, private school students (not to mention their parents). Americans have been given a great deal and it’s time for us to come out of this crisis — it’s less about money and much more about values — and do something positive for the world.
I think that you’re in the same funk we all are but it seems rather obvious that you’re remarkably wise: without love, education and compassion humans are not really that far removed from their caveman ancestors. All we can do about our predicament, is to rise above it and try to take the high road. Martin Luther King’s legacy brought about the change we’re seeing now. Keep your eye on the prize.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
I think our essence as humans is both. Like the white blood cells in the body that can either adapt to become the disease or fight the disease. It’s like we have to choose which way to orient ourselves, aligning our habits and practices in accord with our values. and I find i have to do this EVERY day. some days it’s easier to be a compassionate person in the world, and some days its really really hard (especially with the hormone fluctuations of perimenopause I’m currently experiencing!)but something about acknowledging that under certain conditions–lack of adequate food and water, in a refugee camp–all my values and ideals might go right out the window. there’s a story told about Rumi, the Persian sufi poet, that his father was a great man who’d written all his wisdom down in a book. And Rumi poured over this book, day after day. then one day the man who was to be his greatest friend and teacher came along, and the first thing he did was throw the book in the river. His point being: stop reading. now live it. I feel that this middle of life period–the experience of the body aging and all that entails–is akin to the book of wisdom getting thrown in the water, and now I’m forced to see what I can actually embody and live of the teachings I was pouring over. And it’s a very very small percentage!Quite shocking actually.
January 8th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
I struggle with these issues myself but I do feel that each of us as individuals must start by treating ourselves with love and kindness and from that loving place, we’ll treat those around us more lovingly and hopefully those loved ones will share love thing too… it starts with each individual.
January 8th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
In my own backyard, here in Oakland over the last two days, there have been protests: violent protests against violence. How does that make sense? A BART cop killed a young black man, seemingly for no reason. People are angry about this man being shot and rightly so. We see this again and again. What started out as a peaceful protest was infiltrated by a group that went ballistic—burning cars and breaking storefront windows, inflicting their rage without direction against innocent storeowners who are economically hurting at this time. The cops, of course, reacted with force and there were over 100 arrests.
If we fight injustice with fists, it gets us nowhere. I’ve been listening to a lecture by the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron, where she talks about refraining from our urge to “scratch the itch” and the peace and happiness that is available in going beyond this reactive state. Something to strive for, sitting with what is and finding out what can be. This part of the MLK quote says it all, “Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.”
January 11th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
These are good questions.
I don’t mean to proselytize, but since you mention love, wisdom, and God, I’ve found the Bible to have a lot to say about this, so I hope you’re not offended when I reference it here.
In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus talks about the wide and narrow gateway. There is a wide gateway with a wide path, and a narrow gateway with a narrow (difficult) path that few people find. And the way into God’s Kingdom is through the narrow gateway. So I’m not surprised when I hear about atrocities in the world; there are very few people who actually love God — and loving God means obeying Him to the best of one’s ability. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve veered off the the narrow path (or was never on it), but I try my best.
In Genesis 1:27, God made humans in “his image”, which I interpret to mean “the essence of God is in all of us” and that this isn’t a literal physical description of God. But when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we have what we see today: people capable of amazing love but also evil. God is love and we strive to be like Him. But humans have been corrupted and a lot of that human energy is misdirected towards evil.
About the study you read a few years ago about men, if given the opportunity to rape with no consequences… as a man and someone who takes Christianity seriously, that is simply counter to everything I believe and value. It seems so wrong, the idea is utterly unappealing to me if I were ever given that opportunity. And there are many other men who think the way I do, but unfortunately a lot more men who do not. But like I said before, there’s a narrow gateway and there are few that are on that path.
January 13th, 2009 at 3:09 am
i was myself thinking about the same thing and my conclusion is that humans had to be cruel in order to stay alive…that’s a long time ago, yes, but this instincts are still in our genes, right? so now that we do have, most of us, what we need in order to survive and i say we can survive like kings,this instincts turn somehow falsely to wanting power over others…and…money. money is power.ok what can be done? what distinguish us from other animals is the brain, that we can, and will in some years, use for the better of mankind and nature. we will meet this god, one god in us, with different names, in different religions, but as you said and this is important, all talk about love.
so in some years from now it will be written in our dna and our brain will not be able to do different than to be kind to each other and live for that. we need a new point of view and it will happen! soon!