Wisdom in the Age of Information: Maria Popova (Future of StoryTelling 2014)

We live in a world
awash with information,

but we seem to face
a growing scarcity of wisdom

And what is worth we confuse the two.

We believe that have access
to more information

produces more knowledge
which results in more wisdom.

but if anything the opposite is true.

More and more information

without the proper context and interpretation

only more are understanding from the world
rather than enriching it.

This barrage of readily available information

has created an environment
where one of the worst social sins

is to appear uninformed.

Ours is a culture where
it is enormously embarrassing

not to have an opinion on something

And in order to seem informed

we form our so called opinions hastily

based on fragmentary bits of information
and superficial impressions

rather than true understanding.

Knowledge, Emerson wrote, is the knowing
that we can not know.

To grasp the importance of this

we first need to define these concepts
as a ladder of understanding.

At its base,
there is a piece of information

which simply tells us
basis fact about the world

Above that is knowledge

the understanding of how different
bits of information fit together

to reveal some truth about the world.

knowledge hinges on an active
correlation and interpretation.

At the top is Wisdom

which has a moral components.

It is the application of information
worth remembering

and knowledge that matters

to understanding not only
how the world works

but also how it should work.

And that requires a moral framework
of what should and should not matter

As well as an ideal of the world
which is highest potentiality.

This is why the storytellers are the more
urgently valuable today.

A great storyteller whether a journalist
or editor or film maker or creator

help people figure out not only
what matters in the world

but also WHY it matters.

A great storyteller dances up
the ladder of understanding

from information

to knowledge

to wisdom.

Through symbol, metaphor
and association,

storyteller helps interpreting information

integrated with our existing knowledge

and transmute that into wisdom.

Susan Sontag has once said that
reading set standards.

Storytelling not only sets standards

but adds its best makes one to live up
to them to transcend them.

A great story then is not about
providing information,

though it can certainly inform.

A great story invites
an expansion of understanding

a self transcendence

More than that, it plants to seed for it

and makes it impossible to do anything
but growing your understanding

of the world, of place in it

of ourselves, of some subtle
or monumental aspect of existence.

At a time when information
is increasingly cheap

and wisdom increasingly expensive.

This is the gap is where modern
storytellers value lives.

I think of it this way..

Information is having a library of books
and ship building

Knowledge applies that to building a ship

Access to the information...to the books

is a perquisite for the knowledge

but not a guarantee of it.

Once you build your ship,

wisdom is what allow you to sail it
without sinking

to protect it from the storm
that groups up from the horizon

in the dead of the night

to point just so that the wind
breathes life into its sails.

Moral wisdom helps to
tell the difference between the

right direction and the wrong direction
in steering the ship

A great storyteller is the kindly captain

who sails her ship with tremendous
wisdom and boundless courage

who points its nose in the direction
of horizons and world chosen

with unflinching idealism and integrity

who brings a somewhat closer to the answer

to our particular answer
to that grand question

By Dina Mohamed