The Other Path

In 1950, the year of my birth, a wide-ranging Gallup poll in America asked high school seniors the simple question: “Do you consider yourself to be a very important person?” Only 12% of the respondents answered in the affirmative.  Gallup asked senior students the same question in 1990 and that number had risen to 80%.  Three years ago (2016), it had risen to a staggering 94%.

Clearly how people see themselves has been going through a not-so-subtle transformation.  Much of this is due to the phenomenal rise in the youth culture and its ability to capture the attention of the corporate world and the selling of products.  The entertainment industry has mastered the market on superheroes, iconic rebel figures and music celebrities with entire worlds built around their talent.  The growing pantheon of sports titans adds to the illusion that the individual easily transcends the collective.    Even young teens, through the advent of social algorithms and platforms, can built complete communication flows around themselves and their own interests.  The desire for fame and to be seen as special is now epidemic.

But there is another path, an alternative way forward, that some pursue that enjoys deep historical roots and practices.  Most refuse to pursue it or even forget that it exists, yet our society is still infused with the quiet influencers who seek the road to humility instead of greatness. To each their own, of course, but frequently when people encounter those taking such a course they give a grudging respect, a nod to the greater good, where one person is merely a part of something larger, more mystical, called humanity.

You encounter such people frequently in public service, in fighting for this historical cause or that pressing issue, yet there is no show, little ego-centrism, and an overall life of sacrifice.  Though their ranks are thinning, such individuals leave a quiet but powerful trace of their presence in their actions instead of mere words or Facebook posts.

In an age of information overload, there is a pressing deification of knowledge above most other pursuits.  In part, that is because it is so easy to come by.  The Google Age is the era of countless bits of information coming onto your screen instantly upon our simply typing a question in a search box.  It is an amazing development that brings incredible amounts of information to the average person, all for the asking, and, financially at least, at no cost.

The problem is that the possession of such mountains of facts is that it leads us to think we’re smart. All this leads to more opinions and a kind of braggadocio, which Webster’s defines as, “empty boasting” or “arrogant pretension.”  None of us serious about life wish this for ourselves, naturally, but it becomes inevitable when the world becomes more about us and knowledge becomes more about our opinion.

Philosopher Michel Montaigne once noted that, “We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge, but we can’t be wise with other men’s wisdom.”  It’s understandable.  Knowledge is a body of information, but wisdom is how that information is filtered through one’s personality, set of values, experience and insights.  In this sense, wisdom contains a moral or ethical quality since it is filtered through humanity.

The important, the vital, distinction between knowledge and wisdom is that the latter deeply understands that it doesn’t know everything and is humbled by that awareness, whereas with the former one simply wishes to acquire more knowledge and gains a sense of superiority because of it.  This is what results in what might be called the “hypocrisy of knowing.”  It is easily possible to thirst for information and facts that eventually do little to affect the personality.  We all know people like this – always flaunting their smarts while also exuding a certain arrogance about the things they know. Sometimes we, too, fall into the same trap.

Along with the “hypocrisy of knowing” comes a tried and true habit of “intellectual humility” – using what is learned to apply objectively to oneself instead or to others.  It is rare in human relationships these days, but when it is revealed, it elevates the spirits, and minds, of those around that person.

There are those who only wish to know new things – the old stuff bores them.  But it is precisely the “old” wisdoms pertaining to humanity, to respect for others, of forgiveness, willingly learning from others who are mentors.  Such lessons survive for millennia largely because they are enduring principles of human behaviour and learning.

Every generation develops its own methods for self-examination as a way of dealing with life’s many challenges, and our present world merely continues on with that practice.  But along with the desire to find how special each of us are, how we are unique and worthy, must come the recognition of how we are prone to failure and flawed just like every other person throughout history.  The path towards that realization is rarely taken because so few have an inclination in that direction and have developed a deep distrust of those institutions that call for it.  The truly meaningful life is the one that permits an individual’s uniqueness to emerge at the same time as it focuses on the path to deeper wisdom of the precarities of humanity and to deal with them through humility and a growing respect for those things we don’t know but need to understand if we are to grow and find our place in the broader world.  

Both paths are important components of our journey; it’s just that one is overcrowded while the other is nearly empty.