Wisdom is Knowing... What to Ignore

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

—William James

Everything in the worlds, inner and outer, is vying for our attention. Which means what we choose to ignore is as important as what we decide to focus on. As a spiritual truth this involves emotional intelligence. Crudely put, wisdom picks its battles, and knows when to look away from what might exhaust its time and energy, to no avail.

In Arabic, we have a saying when someone gets caught up in the details; we say something that literally translates to 'make your head bigger'. I think the James quote, above, is such a mind-expanding dictum.

Of course, one picks battles precisely after having fought in a variety of them - thus measuring them from a distance against one's resources.

Wisdom, as I understand it, is more than the sum of knowledge. There's an element of selection of information, and transformation (dare I say it, goodness, too). So, in this prescription for overlooking I do not see James as neglecting close study, but rather turning it upon himself and making himself the subject of his study.

Recognizing our powers as well as our limitations is another definition of wisdom, I think. Ultimately, we define for ourselves the limits of our engagement with stimuli. Not ignorance, but the right to ignore is liberating.

Again, on a spiritual level, it's like the parable of the two wolves, where an old American-Indian chief explains to his grandson about inner conflicts and how to overcome them in this vivid way:

Bird photograph by Kent Burgess