Wisdom, like humility, is difficult to grasp because we generally have different perspectives when we talk about it. For example, we sometimes think of wisdom being personified in an old man in a dim library with a cigar, or it could be in a young person who is careful with their finances and saves a lot.
One thing is clear, often when we talk about wisdom we emphasise things that we do.
But the wisdom I explore here primarily is a way of being. It overflows out of character, habit and ethics.
From my reading and thinking about this, the most helpful way to think about someone who is wise is that they are in sync with reality.
An area where wisdom shines brightly is in interpersonal relationships. In fact, the wisdom I’m talking about here could not be gained in isolation. A bit like love, it requires relationship with others to be able to grow and to test whether it’s genuine.
The ability to know what’s really going on
Aren’t we funny as human beings? We say one thing, but our tight lips say another. We leave out important information which, if it were the other way round, we’d really want to know. We say we’re okay, when deep down we’d really love for someone to see that we’re not. The wise person understands human relationships and has the ability to properly assess what is going on beneath the surface. Wise people have this superpower which enables them to sift through interpersonal data and make sense of things as they truly are.
This is so key in the creative arts and it’s especially needed when it comes to creative community engagement, precisely because we as arts practitioners hit deeper realities of human existence quicker than other types of work. We work with people who bear their souls, recreate their lived experience and use their voice to drive forward political ideals in a way that those working in the transport engineering sector don’t. We get to issues of ethics and values quicker and have the privilege and responsibility to hold those precious things in honour.
So if we’re going to have success in creativity, we’re going have to get clued up on how people are wired, both in the sense of how they are as individuals and also common human experience. And we do this by being attentive, curious and by asking good questions.
Wait, aren’t these inherently creative acts, don’t they by necessity require us to engage our imaginations? Yes they are - so let’s leverage them.
The ability to move in the direction of good ethics
Wisdom in interpersonal relationships also involves the ability to know what to do or say next, if anything. But this is all in the context of moving towards good ethics, which can be challenging to figure out. Without getting too philosophical and meta, there’s a sense in which the wise person keeps their eye on the macro as well as the micro. This of course is a big task - but from my experience the wisest people in this sense have the ability to intuitively keep the bigger picture in perspective.
When it comes to creative work relationships, wisdom involves sensitivity to peoples’ quirks, but also keeps the vision of what needs to happen to get things done, and in a way that as much as possible, everyone involved is satisfied.
This is why, in my experience, producers are the wisest people in the sector. They’re on the ground, relating to many different kinds of people, they are often very emotionally attuned, but are grounded enough to keep their eye on the end goal. They’re the ones diplomatically managing expectations, reminding people of deadlines and budget limits, all whilst maintaining an approachability that masks just how stressed and overloaded they really are. If you’re on a project with a producer and they’re doing a great job - tell them!