Humans certainly seem to have developed a need to express their abstract thoughts quite early on if the prevalence of ancient cave drawings is anything to go by. Genesis tells us "In the beginning there was the word", but you can't have a word without first conceiving it and its meaning, and while we may have had the rudiments of a basic communication - similar to animals - at the same time as early cave paintings, complex language appears to have developed later. Prehistoric mans brain certainly overshot its needs by a quantum leap, as my sig used to say, and we don't understand why that curious & apparently unique feature in biology arose. Standing upright also altered our necks & voicebox enabling a greater range of sounds and yet this happened
long before complex language.
On Animals, my opinion is they have the intelligence to do what they are specialised for, and animals
are more specialised than us, whose greatest ability is adaptation. While primarily driven by instinct, I believe many species are capable of simple - shallower than ours - emotions, unlike us they are never ruled by them, and certainly feel pain, which some people would still insist is rubbish (due to their own inability to accept the reality of nature i.e. death as a part of the lifecycle, and we should respect what we kill when we have to, and not treat them as worthless chattel. We should learn from the Native Americans in this). I feel if we respected the life of animals more, we would unavoidably develop a greater respect for human life.
@Black Leopard; For the Gaels - the Irish Celts at least - the
Salmon was a symbol of Wisdom, along with its associated Deep Water Well (Archetype Alert!), and curiously the Hazel tree, worth having a look at.
I'm surprised in so many posts on Wisdom the eminently ugly, troublesome, and cantankerous Socrates hasn't come up. It may seem pithy but when it comes to Wisdom there simply is
no other guide than Socs and his paraphrased reply to being told the Oracle had declared him the wisest man: "All I know is that I know nothing", his recognition that there was
not one single thing he - or anyone - could understand in its
entirety, except his own ignorance. See anyone get their head surrounding that entirely and you notice the difference alright, it is the key to the door of
personal wisdom. Room for doubt, embrace uncertainty, that's Wisdom, however it arises... whether innate, or through experience, it breeds tolerance and empathy.
For Practical Wisdom, everyone should take 20 minutes with their favourite hot beverage and check out this TED talk:
[video=youtube;lA-zdh_bQBo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA-zdh_bQBo[/video]
As for Enlightenment... its a
process for me, not a state. I don't know if this is the East - West cultural discrepancy, but I sometimes feel "Nirvana" has been confused with "Paradise", and "Enlightenment" has replaced Nirvana. But "
The Enlightenment" in the West was driven more by Reason & Logic than Wisdom. It was a word of its time very much felt to signify a grand illumination across humanity, and all its spheres & endeavours. Rampant Enquiry bringing the light of knowledge to chase away the dark of the ages. Its even usual to preface with Spiritual or Musical or whatever -enlightenment, to specify where exactly there's sparks. Even if in it's
state form there's something transitory about it, like a potential energy, ready to change again.
But then, I favour the whole
Lightbringer motif, and it is connected to Wisdom of course - knowing you don't know it all leaves room for acquiring more knowledge - just as in the words of the great
Renaissance Poet Leonard O' Cohen (see my next post in the now playing music thread):
There's a Crack... a Crack in Everything... that's how the Light gets in
Which now makes me think of Brain Talbots intriguing attempt at a Theory of Everything -
The Holographic Universe.
There was a brief tangent on this thread about what we receive genetically, and I have a particularly curious experience to tell in this sphere, one which I do not know what to make of myself. My Great*4 Grandfather on my mothers side played an admirable role in local history such that an autobiography was written that has become one of the chief sources for historians investigating those times. The editor provides a description of the man and when my friends read it they say "that's you, that is", and humbly & mystifyingly they are mostly correct, the greatest difference being I have an extra few inches of height. Even though our situations - separated by 200 years - are quite different in most respects. It is odd, and keeps my mind open to the various theories of genetic memory that sporadically arise (and are shot down, due to that old how the hell do you quantify it problem).
Still, there are many mysteries of existence out there, and sure isn't it the wise thing to do to keep an open mind, perfectly safe when you avoid belief.
