Wisdom

I've been considering wisdom, actually the pursuit of wisdom. I've looked for an underlying theme to the pursuit of wisdom, and I think it can be summed up thusly: The pursuit of answers.

In the book "The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy", Adams addresses a point that I really agree with. One main theme is the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. The answer ends up being a monumentally disappointing 42. The computer that figured out that answer then explained how hard it is to understand the answer if you don't really know what the question is. The question had been so undefined that the answer was completely useless.

Yogi Berra once said "If you don't know your destination, any road will do". If we extend that logic to this situation, we might say that if you don't know your question, any answer will do. We know that that is not true though, as there is an idea of a correct answer. This being true we can say that if you don't know your question, there is no right answer.

So I think the beginning of wisdom or enlightenment is a search for good questions. Define the question that you want to ask with expectation that any answer that you do finally come to will be useful to you. I think that you will also find that if your question is really well created, it will lead to a good answer, and thusly a better understanding.