AIMARUS – Today we will talk about knowledge and wisdom.
CRITON -Oh! But they are not the same?
AIMARUS -No, dear Critón, far from each other, although close are the concepts that they have of them.
CRITON: Explain yourself better, because my understanding is eager to differentiate these two concepts that until now I thought were one.
AIMARUS: With pleasure we will find the answer to it, between the two, investigating step by step until solving this differentiation. Let’s start with the following question: Who is the one who knows?
CRITON: A wise man?
AIMARUS: Right. And who is he who knows?
CRITÓN: A connoisseur?
AIMARUS: It could be, but let’s call him a scholar. Scholar is one who knows many things, either one or several subjects. On the other hand, he is the one who knows something, whether it is much or little, but he knows.
CRITON: I see … But I still don’t quite understand what a difference there is between knowing and knowing.
AIMARUS: Do not hurry, excellent Critón, because the doubt that now lurks you is very common even among the very intelligent. Let’s keep investigating:
Knowledge comes from the mind, as does the understanding. We know what is in our mind in the form of memory, because if we do not remember it, even if we have learned it, we do not know it. The mind can collect a huge amount of data, we can know many things, have read hundreds of volumes of diverse topics and therefore believe that we know a lot. But, you will agree with me that the one who has read a lot cannot be considered wise, is it not?
CRITON: Of course not.
AIMARUS: All right. As an example, there was once a swimming scholar who “knew” everything about swimming. He had read hundreds of swimming books and had even written swimming books and given public talks about swimming. It happened that, one day, going from Izmir to Eritrea in a trireme, the poor scholar fell into the water in a sea stroke, and to everyone’s surprise, he died drowned because he could not swim. I knew everything about swimming yes, but I didn’t know how to swim. Are you getting me?
CRITON: Well, how curious! Yes, I think I’m catching you … Knowledge is only theoretical, but wisdom is experimental.
AIMARUS: That’s exactly. You can know many things, but it does not imply that you know them. To know them it is necessary to experience them, it is necessary to integrate them into one through experience. Knowledge is merely mental, wisdom instead becomes tangible, it becomes real. Knowledge comes from the mind, wisdom from the heart. It is no use knowing without knowing. How many useless knowledge do we populate our mind? How many things do we really know? Does fire burn, dear Criton?
CRITON: Hard question! Of course it burns, does everyone know that?
AIMARUS: If you believe? Have you ever burned? Have you checked in your own meats that fire burns?
CRITON: I understand where you’re going. Yes, once I was little I burned a hand with a burning blight.
AIMARUS: Then, friend, you can say that you know that fire burns. And now tell me, is it painful to lose a child?
CRITON: Surely it must be, and also very painful … I don’t think there is anything more painful in fact in this world than losing a child.
AIMARUS: And how do you know?
CRITON: Well … I guess, I understand that it must be despite the fact that fortunately I have never lost one.
AIMARUS: You said it, you don’t know, but since you are intelligent, by reflection you can deduce that it is painful. That is the difference between knowing and knowing. For this reason, wisdom is the very experience of things, and this is deposited in the heart by way of true knowledge, of living knowledge. What we have experienced becomes ours, it is no longer something that “I have heard”, that “has read” or “has told me”; It’s something that I know.
CRITON: I see…
AIMARUS: It is necessary to live experiences and integrate them so that they become the language of the heart: wisdom.
CRITON: I thought that the language of the heart was love.
AIMARUS: And what is love but neighbor-oriented wisdom? Can someone who is not wise love? How can one love what is not known? Moreover, we usually fear and hate what we don’t know. Only wisdom makes us understand and love others, because we see in them what we have lived in us. We see our own experience reflected in them. He loves a lot who knows a lot.
CRITON: This is not so clear.
AIMARUS: Wisdom gives understanding, which is the ability to put oneself in the place of the other and see your experience reflected in his, and as a result of that arises this desire in the chest to help make that person better and happier. We understand your pain because we have previously experienced a similar pain, at some point in our life, and an innate interest in helping you arises. Love is to wisdom, what perfume to the flower, when there is wisdom, love is its natural consequence, for this reason, since time immemorial love and wisdom are associated as indissoluble faces of the same coin.
CRITON: I am losing you Aimarus, your words begin to be unintelligible to me.
AIMARUS: Do not worry nothing happens. Do not believe anything, do not take anything for granted, do not give in to the assumption. Just live, live your life fully with sharp awareness. Look closely at everything that happens to you so that it can be integrated into your heart in the form of wisdom, and that with time and accumulated experiences, it can be said of you that you are a wise man.
CRITON: “I only know that I know nothing”. Is this the first step of wisdom as the wise Socrates said?
AIMARUS: Yes, being aware of your ignorance is a great step towards knowing. We really know very little compared to what we know. The other step is to remain very aware of everything that happens to us and try to learn from everything. The next thing is to give them a useful way out of this knowledge.
CRITON: Already posts, tell me: what is the most important knowledge of all?
AIMARUS: That which once known, makes it unnecessary to know anything else.
Fragment from the book El Uno sin segundo, by Aimar Rollan (Gopal).
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