Wisdom vs. knowledge.
Although knowledge and wisdom are not the same, I feel these words are often linked. Knowledge is the available facts and information that are out in the world. Wisdom is what comes from within; it is the ability to make better decisions based on archived knowledge. Knowledge improves as we seek for an improvement and we take our time to shape our wisdom when decision making. In simple way of understanding, Wisdom is an application of knowledge.
In the book Being Mortal, Atul Gawanda shares his medical knowledge of being a surgeon and how the patients, especially his father's end of life decisions shaped his wisdom. A quote from the last chapter "courage" of the book, Gawanda puts his insight about knowledge and wisdom in the following sentence. “Courage is strength in the face of knowledge of what is to be feared or hoped. Wisdom is prudent strength.”
"Medicine and what matters in the end" as the subtitle of the book, I feel this speaks a lot about Gawanda's journey of finding the wisdom which comes from within him from all the required knowledge from the medical school of becoming a surgeon doctor. At the beginning of the book, Gawanda points out life's two big unfixable; aging and dying. People living in the modern era have let new science and technology decided the fate of end of life choices and what medicine can fix. We have been lacking to see and focus on the aging, dying and end of life decisions without medicines. Throughout the research and memoir of Gawanda, he slowly guides us to see what is really important in life. He shifted the focus of the knowledge to a wisdom based on what he experience dealing with father's death and end of life choices.
No comments:
Post a Comment