WHAT WISDOM REQUIRES

There is no more imperative question for humanity to answer adequately than how to regulate our behavior sanely and rationally.

Irrational and insane human behaviors, individually and collectively, now threaten the viability of Earth’s ecosystems, causing immense and wanton damage to the habitats of countless species, even extinguishing thousands of plant and animal species entirely.

We humans have become too numerous and too powerful not to become more conscious, careful and committed to changing our minds and behaviors as wisdom requires.

Wisdom requires relevant knowledge.  We need to know how our behaviors affect each other positively and negatively, comprehending the consequences of our decisions and customs.

Wisdom requires kindness toward others who are similarly struggling to thrive.  Although predation is a fact of nature, humane behavior can transcend the brute instinct to conquer and dominate.  Our intellect can comprehend the higher principle of kinship and reciprocity, of treating others as one wishes to be treated in turn, a principle of cooperation and partnership surpassing conquest.

Wisdom requires honoring and cultivating the higher-order intellectual potential that human beings possess, distinguishing us from other earthly organisms, giving us the possibility of creating a heaven on Earth.

That "heaven” is the grandest efflorescence of truth, beauty and goodness that we can manifest.

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