There is a book that I was forced to read during my university time - The Pedagogy Of The Oppressed by Paulo Freire. This was very ironic, given that one of the main points of the book is that our current educational systems create a dichotomy between educators (oppressors) and students (the oppressed). It’s like Hitler publishing and distributing the book “The Dangers of Hitler and Nazism”. I am not sure I should bring up Hitler so soon, or whether it was a good idea to compare him to our educational system. If I should not have, ignore this sentence or go ahead, log in to this book’s secret wiki, and delete it.

One other point in the book was that any true form of learning comes from Dialogue and Praxis. That is to say, if you base your ‘learning process’ on what Freire called the ‘banking concept of education’ - where the educators or tools such as books simply fill the void that is your brain with facts and data - you are not going to get very far.

Freire also argues that education must be two-sided, and hence, a dialogue. One must engage with the information provided by educators, discuss it, share his or her opinions, and see how it fits in the world. Not only that, but learning must also possess an element of praxis - a strange word that tries to encompass within its meaning a mixture between reflection and action.

Side-note. Entirely irrelevant to this chapter. Why do we even have complicated words? Do they make our lives better, or are they only a form of increasing and complicating our egos? How many words do we truly need for clear communication? Some cultures can hold village-wide meetings without uttering a single word. You should give it a go in your family, company, or organization. Have a meeting without uttering a single word for an hour, and see what happens.

Translating all of this into plain English, one must actually think critically about the information one receives, one must also take some real action based on the information, and one must add something of his or her own to the information.

Voilà, and just like that, it seems to me that we are going to attempt to create and transfer wisdom between the covers of this book. Now that is a challenge indeed, for I have always been of the opinion that wisdom can not be transferred. You see, knowledge is a collection of facts - they can easily be listed on a piece of paper, which you can study and memorize. Easy. Wisdom is a different beast entirely - I can’t just transfer it to another. Sure, I can say something smart, like: “True learning happens when you engulf yourself with the search for the principles of the thing, not when you try to copy someone else doing it.”

However, this would be far too complex, and would probably not lead to any meaningful change within you either internally or externally, and this won’t do.

Wisdom, the way I understand it, is something that is born entirely within your own consciousness. It is something that is true to you beyond any shadow of doubt. It is yours to possess, it is yours to own, and most importantly, it is something within you that allows you to act in ways that are true to what it means to be you. In other words, wisdom is what you have created inside of yourself that allows you to act in certain ways.

However, we must make a small clarification here. There are many other things that can make you act in certain, but potentially detrimental ways - such as your upbringing, social influences, your own fears, etc. Wisdom is different - wisdom is when you get rid of these barriers, and see the “truth”, but it must be your truth, otherwise you simply won’t act on it.

Now, this seems like a fun project to embark upon - to help you own a unique set of new wisdom statements, which appear as a result of reading this book, and also lead to new actions that you would not have otherwise taken. To do this, the first thing that comes to mind is for us to make a set of agreements. These agreements will be listed, elaborated upon, and hopefully accepted by you, the reader, and me, the author.

Don’t worry, I am going to do my best to make them fun to read and practical in your life, even if you don’t accept them.

Think of them as certain principles that I have uncovered in my search for understanding how wisdom is generated and applied. They can, and probably should, be applied to this book - but more generally, any other book or activity from which you want to extract wisdom and action that can change your day-to-day activities.