The Wisdom Gap
AI and tech dominate a lot of conversations these days. My social feed is filled with videos of tech bros* speaking on how they’ll change the world (often in slightly dystopic ways), the future of ‘longevity’, or how the world “has changed” and we’re just catching up to it.
One clip that stood out to me though was Marc Andreessen – billionaire, co-founder of Netscape (remember Netscape?!), big time venture capitalist and advisor to Donald Trump. In the interview, he speaks with great pride his desire to have “zero” or “as little as possible” introspection. He even argues, “If you go back 400 years ago, it never would have occurred to anybody to be introspective”, and suggests it’s basically a waste of time.
Taking aside the factual inaccuracies of this - a quick look the depth and history of Eastern religions, of meditation and yoga, of Greek and Roman philosophy show this isn’t true – what stuck with me, was how fascinatingly - and tragically - sad this is.
Marc Andreessen is a man with near unlimited means and immense power, and his pride is his unwillingness to look within or at the past. Looking within ourselves can be uncomfortable – painful, even – but the work of introspection is the work of life. It’s how we find meaning and purpose, deepen our connections, grow our creative capacities and develop the internal capabilities to move through life’s inevitable challenges.
How painful Marc’s inner world must be.
When I started Scintilla last year, my desire was – and is – to grow a wisdom centre. A place for us to develop the skills & capacities - in part through introspection - we need to live, work and make change in a time of meta- and polycrisis.
It’s wisdom, after all, that I believe we need in this time.
We are an incredible species; we’ve climbed the tallest mountains, travelled to the moon, taken photographs of galaxies, sequenced the genome, designed life changing medical and technological innovations with everything from penicillin to electricity to video calls to airplanes.
Our capacity for creativity, intelligence, and even cooperation, is at the heart what it is to be human.
However, somewhere in our relentless pursuits, we became uncoupled from wisdom, reciprocity, and more-than-human world. And in that uncoupling, we've also created vast pain and destruction; ecological breakdown and climate change, war, violence and genocides, resource hoarding, poverty, racism, and corruption.
And as changemakers, too often we live lives in which we are exhausted, unfulfilled, anxious about the future or disillusioned from one too many fights against the system.
If we are to transform and heal as both individuals and a collective - to create a more just, loving and regenerative world - we need not only more knowledge, more skills or more power, we need wisdom.
We can learn the “how” of a skill, but it is wisdom that tells us the “when, why and whether” to use it.
Through becoming wiser, we evolve; we grow, we reshape, we transform – often in ways that are more gracious towards both our fallibility and our shared humanity.
In becoming wiser societies, we know how to use our technology well, relate to nature, and live as a global community.
In becoming wiser individuals, we know how to use our time, talents, and skills well, how to belong to a wider whole, how inner work can sustain us, also how to be present to both the weight of this historical moment and the particular life we each are living.
Now, from what I can gather, Marc Andreessen probably doesn’t have much time for wisdom.
But we must.
Becoming wise, whole, committed and creative people is the work of this time. It’s a practice and pathway that will lead us not around the crises we’re facing, but through them, in ways that allow our social healing and collective wellbeing to become possible.
And wisdom isn’t an overnight lesson. As much as I wish sometimes it could be taught as X, Y and Z – wisdom doesn’t work like that.
It’s developed through time, relationship, practice and reflection. It’s a process, something we engage with - and importantly, something we can share.
So in countenance to Marc’s ideas of the world, I’d love to ask you a question: what’s a piece of wisdom you’ve received, discovered, learned or shared?
