Bruce Tow

Wise Bruce Tow

A common goal in education, training, and professional development is to gain and retain relevant knowledge. This specific goal has the positive attributes of being easy to articulate and easy to measure (testing shows that the student now knows the material whereas they likely didn't beforehand), and in many cases of immediate utility to the student (who can now more-effectively solve meaningful and in many cases job-related problems they couldn't solve before). However, knowledge alone has two major disadvantages. One, knowledge's utility over time can degrade (how many need\ to know how to repair the carburetor on a 1953 Ford F250?). Two, knowledge alone isn't enough to enable the knowledgeable person to solve novel problems where applicable knowledge doesn't yet exist. What's beyond knowledge, preferably with a longer applicable useful lifespan and utility in helping address novel problems? The answer, the author argues, is "wisdom". This book discusses the topic of wisdom, its relationship to knowledge, its relative utility in problem solving, and how a person can gain, retain, and make personal and long-term career and personal-life use of gained wisdom.