essay on the `wisdom of head and the wisdom of heart
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There is Wisdom of Head, and a Wisdom of the Heart
Wisdom of the head as well as wisdom of the heart are most sought after rarities in the world. Both types of wisdom can be likened to divine maturity that is gained after lots of experience. The wisdom of the head can be likened to super intelligence, whereas the wisdom of the head can be likened to super emotional intelligence guided by intuition. We can not say which wisdom is better? Wisdom is ultimate possession; either of the two types is sufficient to make the possessor contented and successful.
When God asked Solomon what blessings He should shower on him, Solomon supplicated, “Give me wisdom and knowledge.” He is considered the wisest of kings of all times. If the wisest king asked wisdom from God, there must be something unique about wisdom. Wisdom is the magic lamp of Aladdin. If you have it, you have everything. Wisdom actually is the ability to stay positive even in the most negative situations. If you have wisdom, you can achieve anything in life.
Success is a highly elusive thing! But those with right efforts, right thoughts, and right action catch the ever elusive snitch-like( Harry Potter's Quidditch winning ball) golden ball of success. So one must not aim for success, rather one must aim for acquiring the right thoughts. Once thoughts are right, action and efforts automatically align themselves accordingly. This is not a simple process! One really has to work very hard to get the grail of wisdom. One must read a lot of books full of wisdom. There is no dearth of such books. Actually beginning to read books is the beginning of wisdom. Books actually are nothing but the recorded thoughts and experience of great wise men. So when we read a book, we actually read the thoughts and arduously collected life experiences. Once the thoughts become wise through reading, introspection, pondering, and reflection, one's actions become wiser; and success for a truly wise man is a cinch.
Confucius, a great Chinese philosopher and teacher wisely said “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
“There is a Wisdom of the Head and a Wisdom of the Heart “
- Charles Dickens
Imagine that you had been walking in a forest and had no idea of where to go. Suddenly you decided to explore things and learn more about the nature. As you traveled you had met two different personalities. The first person seemed to be a hard worker and was doing his job just for himself and his family. He was quite content with what he earned and lived happily. The second was a rich person who had arrived to the forest for mining some precious metals. He was also sad that he had only mined little amount of precious stones.
Now if we try to look into the above situation we seemingly get a doubt on deciding whom to be a wiser person. The man who earned only for him or the rich who had more but felt bad for earning less. This is the place where wisdom is required.
Wisdom is the skill developed by a person which enables him to judge the person by his visible qualities expressed. It is achieved only out of sheer hard work, faith, dedication and utmost concentration along with some experience. Everyone in this world are not wise and are said to possess wisdom. People who use their intellect for moral and truthful purposes are considered to be wise and people with wisdom.
In many cases, people often confuse between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is nothing but the know - how of things while wisdom is the knowledge of knowing where to apply the learnt knowledge. From this one can infer that wisdom is only associated with mind and not with anything else. But one must know that Wisdom is not selective to head but also for heart as well.
Wisdom of Head can be considered as the minimum level of complicated intelligence needed for dealing even the toughest situation in a proper way also favoring yourself into the succeeding side. Wisdom of heart refers to the dealing of situation in such a way that it doesn’t guarantee success for your side, but it makes you inspirational to others.
Consider the following example to understand the words of Dickens even better.
Wisdom of Heart:
Gandhiji was humiliated a large number of times in various places since he was a black by birth. But he, filled with confidence, had withstood the humiliations he faced and emerged as the greatest leader through his famous experiment called Ahimsa towards Mankind. This is the place where his Wisdom of heart played a role. Even though he suppressed himself from humiliating, he had made the Britishers get humiliated by themselves. Thereby he gained success as well as he emerged as an inspiration to the whole nation.
Wisdom of Mind:
A national level football team when competing with a state team can clearly emerge as winner with no doubt. But if the coach and the captain of the State team use their wisdom at the right moment and direction, they can emerge as the winner as well. This technique used for emerging as the winner is associated with the Wisdom of Mind.
In the Wisdom of Heart, we apply emotions to achieve success but on the other hand, Wisdom of Mind, uses one’s intellect to emerge as a successful person. Both the terms are treated separately in common. Only a person with wisdom can know that both these forms are essential for attaining wisdom.
Power of wisdom can be described in endless words. Wisdom can be considered to that of the lamp of Aladdin which gives ideas and intellect excluding materialistic pleasures. Even when god had emerged before Kalidasa, he demanded wisdom rather than speech. This tells us the importance of wisdom and also enables to know that wisdom is the greatest thing even required by the greatest personalities.
Thus, we can say that, Wisdom regardless of its types are required in all forms. Wisdom of Head and Wisdom of Heart are not two different coins but two different faces of the same coin.
By Kalpesh :)
Hope it helps :)