This website covers knowledge management, personal effectiveness, theory of constraints, amongst other topics. Opinions expressed here are strictly those of the owner, Jack Vinson, and those of the commenters.

I'm wiser than I've ever been

They Might Be Giants have an entertaining song, Older, in which the primary lyric is "You're older than you've ever been, and now your even older."  By the end of the song, you are about two minutes older.  We sang it to both of our children when they were born.  This applies to wisdom too, right?

Wisdom is generally believed to increase with age, up to a point.  Paolina Martin at Green Chameleon gives us some wisdom-related research with  Wisdom - The Question for Every 64-Year Old.   Here is a quote from the middle of the article:

So no one really knows for sure what wisdom is but it has been closely linked emotional and cognitive traits such as resilience, positivity, expert knowledge systems, cognitive processing and especially the regulation of emotion. These closely overlap with qualities that have been consistently identified by social scientists as crucial to wisdom.

Paolina Martin builds the discussion up to a point that really suggests wisdom has a lot to do with emotions and the ability to understand and reflect has a lot to do with what we consider to be the outward signs of wisdom.  But the key to this article is the connection to emotions and emotional intelligence.

So, if you want wisdom after acquiring all that knowledge in your lifetime, control your emotions!

Given this deeper understanding of the idea of wisdom as heavily linked to emotional stability, one might think that arguing for a dispassionate computer to manage wisdom would be the way to go.  That will give you the perfect wisdom management tool, wouldn't it?  Ha. 

All the data, information, knowledge and wisdom we have in various locations (including you and me) come together to help us make decisions and choices in life.  Our understanding of the context, the history; our experiences, skills, and knowledge help us make those decisions.  "Wise" people make better decisions because they can see beyond their attachment to the idea and look more dispassionately at the impact of the choice.  What are the negative (and positive) outcomes of this action?  What might get in the way?  Heavy emotional investment in the decision tends to cloud the ability to think it through.

Blogs in relation to communities

Avast ye scurvy hierarchies