dichotomies

our brains contain an old brain and a new brain. the old brain is a lot older...it evolved first, and it's associated with emotion. The new brain is more associated with reason. interestingly, there aren't that many neural networks connecting the two, at least by default. that's why, when we react to things emotionally, we can have very strong thoughts and feelings that make sense to us and are very convincing, but we're not actually being reasonable. we're operating within the old brain and it's not really talking to the new brain. 

with practice we can develop connections between the two brains. some psychologists call this engagement of both minds, the 'wise mind'. usually the old brain kicks in first and you feel very strongly that you have to take a certain course. your feelings can be mixed...part of you regrets that things have to be this way, but you're certain that that is the case. but then, because you don't really want to go that way, you begin to question it, and it's then that you can make a decision, or come to a realisation, that you don't actually have to go that way - you can apply reason to the situation.  

so, we generally start with the old brain - it kind of kicks in instinctually - but to think wisely, we need to get the old brain and the new brain to talk to each other. the challenge is that the old brain won't initiate that conversation. 

interesting that wisdom is wrought by the tension between emotion and reason. 

when I looked up the etymology of wisdom and wise in the online etymology dictionary, the results weren't that satisfying: Old English wis "learned, sagacious, cunning; sane; prudent, discreet; experienced; having the power of discerning and judging rightly,"

so, it's like, the word 'wise' developed from the old English word 'wis' which meant...and then they give you all these synonyms of wisdom

i did find something very interesting though, looking through all the words that have 'wise' in them - like clockwise, otherwise, etc /// the word righteous developed from 'rightwise'. it would have been really interesting if the 'wise' in that word was the wise that relates to wisdom, but it isn't - it's the wise that we see in clockwise and otherwise, meaning way or manner. it's still interesting. it makes an interesting link between righteousness and the way we live - our manner of engaging with the world. 

and something else interesting - the word 'wizard' developed out of the word 'wise' || and even more interesting, it wasn't originally associated with magic. in the early 1400's, a wizard was a philosopher or sage. it wasn't until 1550 that it came to mean someone with magical or occult powers, because, before that - in the middle ages, according to the online etymological dictionary, 'the distinction between magic and philosophy was blurred'. \\\ this reminds me of the way that to spell (as in words) comes from the same root as the magic spell cast by witches, and the word 'grammar' is related to the word 'grimoire' which is a kind of manual used by witches.