There was a time, in the not so distant past, when a child would ask a question and the standard parental answer was “Go look it up.”  Not on the world wide web of course, but in an encyclopedia.  Twenty six volumes of information starting with A and ending with Z.  If you wanted to know how much of Antarctica was year around ice and how much was land – you could find it there.  If you wanted to know about the average full-gallop speed of a Zebra – you could find it there.  The whole world, it seemed, was there in those books.  As a young boy I would sit and read through a letter at a time.  Thumbing through volume D, I would be amazed by the dolphin’s sonar, dinasaur skeletons and medeival dentistry.  And if what I was looking for wasn’t within those 26 volumes, it probably didn’t exist.

Today, I’m not even sure if they make encyclopedias anymore.  When a child asks a question “Go look it up” can only mean one thing:  find it among the 26 billion web pages on the internet.  We have more information at our fingertips now then at any other time in history.   Any kid with a library card has access to what used to be only available to royalty and scholars and those who were rich enough to travel, or just simply, rich enough to be able to read. With a simple google search, that takes .28 seconds, you have access to close to a million results for medieval dentistry.  More knowledge than you could possibly use.  We face the dilemma that famed biologist Edward O. Wilson, described as “drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.”

How will we be remembered?  What word will remain to describe our age?  Information.  This is the “information age”. Those who can’t keep up with the constant onslaught of new information are left in the dust.  Technology is king in our economy.  The centers of power and expertise become younger and younger as the information accelerates more and more quickly.  Where is the wisdom of the elders?  What can they possibly offer to a future that turns on a dime?  In ages past, wisdom was desirable, valuable, power.  Wisdom was supreme.  And who had wisdom?  Those who went around the sun the most times – the elders.  Even “fashion” valued the wisdom of the elders.  Even the style of haircuts!  You know the spots of hair that monks shaved off their heads?  The holy haircut differed depending on where you lived based on the type of male pattern baldness that was common in that region.  The haircuts were meant to make young monks look distinguished and wise beyond their years.  It was intended to make them look old.  But in an information age, where the wisdom of the elders is scorned, you wont find Gentlemen’s Quarterly suggesting, “To land that new job guys, try to look as old as possible.”  Truly, we are “drowning in information, but starving for wisdom.”

Read “Wisdom Pt. 2 : A Brush with the Wise”.

Read wisdom from the “Wisdom Potluck”.