The Utter Failure of This Enterprise

If you've been checking in (here or your Reader), you will have noticed WoW has been AWOL since July. For not explaining my absence, I apologize.

My time away has afforded me a chance to reflect on life and blogging and the blogging life. Call it: Reculer pour mieux sauter.

WoW is closing in on its fifth anniversary. Five years I've been spewing this crap! WOW! And in that time I've attracted close to a dozen readers. Thanks and greetings to all of you.

Looking back, I see that the nature of my posting has changed over the years. And I'm not sure that's a good thing. I've lost sight of my original purpose. I've been too caught up in the noise and paid too little attention to the signal.

This is the dawning, still (I believe), of the Information Age. Despite all our advances from, say, ENIAC to, say, iPhone 5, as a civilization we are just getting our feet wet in this new era. We are the early adopters, the pioneers. Our kids and grandkids, etc., will look back at us and think how primitive all this stuff—computers, internet—seems to them. Kinda' the way we look back at AM radio or even telegraph today.

To repeat, I've been awash in all the information, call it the knowledge, so newly readily available to us all and lost sight of the Wisdom, or understanding, there to be gained.

(Really, I did have a vision for this joint. Just go back and read some of those early posts.)

So. Going forward, I'm going to try to refocus. Repurpose. To reclaim that original vision. To be worthy of my Russellian title.

Best,
Jim H.

P.S. To all my blog buddies out there: Not only have I been neglecting my blog, I've been neglecting yours as well. I haven't forgotten you. I've just needed some time away from the 'Net noise. Some silence, if you will. I hope to reappear soon—ready or not, for good or ill—in your Comments. Forewarned, etc., etc.

Witt and Wisdom

“I believe that one of the things Christianity says is that sound doctrines are all useless. That you have to change your life. (Or the direction or your life)

It says that wisdom is all cold; and that you can no more use it for setting your life to rights than you can forge iron when it is cold.

The point is that a sound doctrine need not take hold of you; you can follow it as you would a doctor’s prescription. – But here you need something to move you and turn you in a new direction. – (I.e. this is how I understand it.) Once you have been turned round, you must stay turned round.

Wisdom is passionless. But faith by contrast is what Kierkegaard calls a passion.

Religion is, as it were, the calm bottom of the sea at its deepest point, which remains calm however high the waves on the surface may be.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value

----------

"If a person tells me he has been to the worst places I have no reason to judge him; but if he tells me it was his superior wisdom that enabled him to go there, then I know he is a fraud." Conversation with Rush Rhees

----------

'Wisdom is grey.' Life, on the other hand, and religion are full of color."  Culture and Value.

----------

"Wisdom is something I never would expect from Freud. Cleverness, certainly; but not wisdom" (Lectures and Conversations, p. 41).

----------

"It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed 'Wisdom.' And then I know exactly what is going to follow: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'" Conversation with Rush Rhees

Back at it, sort of

I didn't really ponder the question I said I would over my break. Did anyone? I did find this interesting link. I hope to explore it more during the coming days and possibly comment there.

The problem, I think, is that the idea (first principles vs. change) as stated was simply too abstract for meaningful consideration. It didn't have any traction with day-to-day reality. That, in a nutshell, is also the problem with the concept of 'wisdom' and something I hope to avoid in this blog.

I suppose when we think of someone who is wise, we think of someone who has good judgment, someone who gives us good advice in response to a specific problem we might be experiencing.

Sometimes, it is someone who helps us see the principle on the basis of which we should act when dealing with our problems. For example, love your neighbor as yourself. That, at first glance, seems like a wise thing.

But even if we know the principle according to which we should act, we often don't know how to put it into practice. That is a matter of judgment. Judgment, to me, is making a decision after taking into account all the relevant factors and weighing them with respect to whatever consequences we can reasonably expect might flow from that decision.

So, maybe wisdom has something to do with understanding some basic principles and exercising good judgment. That feels like a start.

Any comments?

Where, then, is wisdom to be found?

I think it's safe to say our perceptions of the world and our place in it have undergone remarkable changes in recent times. The pace of change and the growth of knowledge at times seems overwhelming. Our evolving understanding of the extent and duration of the physical universe, our growing recognition of the building blocks of life, our awareness of our environment and our impact on it, our sense of ourselves as one species among many sharing the same space and limited resources: all these are fresh. And though these observations might seem obvious, these changes have impacted us in ways we can't begin to fathom. Where, then, is wisdom to be found?