Wisdom and Pain

  • Thread starter Thread starter Shai Gar
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Wisdom comes from experience. Experiences aren't always painful, but they can be.
 
Minerva said:
Wisdom comes from experience. Experiences aren't always painful, but they can be.
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While this is true, a long period of experience isnt required. Somethign that is gained from a non-painful expereience will take longer. But if something is painful, that time period of aquiring wisdome will be shorter. Pain that precipitates wisdom, is usually more profound. It is like anything in life. If you have something very traumatic happen to you (something painful), it sticks with you for a long time. People gain some of their greatest insights during painful periods in their life. This doesn't make the wisdom any different then it would have been if it were achived through normal states of mind. What is different, is it's staying power. Because the events that would precipitate it were so strong, the wisdom acheived from it has a strong emotional link to it, and it holds much stronger weight and meaning to it. As such, people will rely more heavily on that tidbit of wisdome because it came from such a strong experience.
 
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My most profound epiphanies come at the times when I'm in deep emotional pain; the death of my grandfather, my step-dad almost dying from Pancreatitis, a close friend being raped...
 
TaylorS said:
My most profound epiphanies come at the times when I'm in deep emotional pain; the death of my grandfather, my step-dad almost dying from Pancreatitis, a close friend being raped...
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mine as well
 
It's odd I was thinking about this the other day about how our parents and elders always tell us to not do certain things such as "don't touch the stove because you'll get burned" or "Don't be outside in the dark by yourself" or things of that sort, and what do we as kids do...we do the contrary and I don't think to act rebellious but just because we want to experience pain in the first place and learn from that first hand. YOu could tell millions of teenagers that sex,drugs and alcohol are bad for them but why should they trust people who have done it in the first place? They want to know what makes a restriction so damn evil. I think unconciously we want to suffer because that's the only way we can learn from our mistakes when we experience them ourselves which can also include seeing someone you love die from drug overdose or suicide because you still feel a sort of pain and that's when you will learn that doing certain things can be harmful. Should we listen to our elders and parents...absolutely, but also test for ourselves that what they are saying is true.
 
actually, that's a very good point relaxingmelody. Also, I thought of something. I cut, I do it with a knife, and I'm Australian. He he. Ironic.
 
This discussion about wisdom and pain reminds me of a story I read in a book about Taoism a long time ago, where a young man climbs a mountain to talk to a hermit sage about the meaning of life:

Seeker: "What is the most important aspect of one's life?"
Sage: "Experience."
Seeker: "How do you get experience?"
Sage: "Good judgment."
Seeker: "How do you get good judgment?"
Sage: "Bad judgment."
 
Why does wisdom need to come from Pain?

I just jabbed myself in the palm with a Cobra Knife that I bought to put in my utility belt I was making yesterday. Now my hand is throbbing with pain and I'm thanking god I didn't coat the knife in concentrated nicotine poison like I was thinking about doing earlier.

Why couldn't I have just been matured and left the damn knife on my belt
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well, wisdom doesn't have to come from pain. if you're stupid, and you don't want to learn from your pain, then you won't grow in wisdom... you're bound to repeat the same mistake again. so, wisdom doesn't "need" to come from pain.... you're not stupid though, and you chose to grow in wisdom. kudos to you.

if i had to pick, i would say that wisdom comes from fear, fear of consequence, both real, experienced, and imagined. i'm not talking about utter terror, but just the fear of what could possibly happen. that, more than anything else, i think, causes wisdom.

bad consequences are what we want to avoid, and fear is simply the awareness of possible bad consequences.
 
Shai Gar said:
Why does wisdom need to come from Pain?
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I think, because when you are hurted, there are many ways to act that you would be able to avoid your pain. Then you are creating your own and safe world. The steps that you've left make many roads, and when there are too man of them, you need a map. Map needs wisdom.
 
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