title: Finding Wisdom: Learning from Those Who Are Wise
author: Merriam Fields Bleyl PhD
description: Merriam Bleyl is fascinated by the phenomenon of human wisdom. She spent the last fifteen years investigating wisdom and interviewing wise individuals in western and non-western cultures. During this time she earned a Ph.D. degree from The University of New Mexico in Organizational Learning and Instructional Technology in 2000. Her real interest is in the adult learner and in how humans acquire wisdom. She has an appreciation for the "wise ones" in all cultures. After receiving her undergraduate degree from the University of Utah in 1962, she embarked on a long hiatus from formal education, during which she married, mothered four children, taught piano and creativity workshops, and served as a community volunteer. With thirty years of life experiences and a passion for learning more about how adults function in the world, in 2001 she started her own educational research company, Wisdom in Life and Learning. She is an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where she occasionally teaches a course on wisdom, She presented two papers and an experiential session at the 2004 and 2007 Transformational Learning Conferences, one of which, "Transformative Rungs on Wisdom's Ladder," was subsequently included as a chapter in Edmund O'Sullivan and Marilyn Taylor's, Learning Toward an Ecological Consciousness: Selected Transformative Practices, published in 2004 by Palgrave Macmillan. She served as a panelist at the Conference on World Affairs at The University of Colorado at Boulder in 2004. Dr. Bleyl lives with her husband in "God's country"-the mountain town of Star Valley, Arizona- amidst magnificent Ponderosa Pines, marauding javelinas, and occasional herds of visiting elk. The grandmother of twelve, she is also a musician-playing the piano, the organ, and directing choirs and musical plays. Music is her hobby; the topic of wisdom remains her passion.
zlib_text: KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM 
   
  1
   
   
  Knowledge and Wisdom 
   
  By Bertrand Russell 
   
   
   
  
  KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM 
   
  2
  Knowledge and Wisdom 
  Bertrand Russell 
   
   
  Most people would agree that, although our age far surpasses all previous ages in 
  knowledge, there has been no correlative increase in wisdom. But agreement ceases as 
  soon as we attempt to define `wisdom' and consider means of promoting it. I want to ask 
  first what wisdom is, and then what can be done to teach it.  
  There are, I think, several factors that contribute to wisdom. Of these I should put first a 
  sense of proportion: the capacity to take account of all the important factors in a problem 
  and to attach to each its due weight. This has become more difficult than it used to be 
  owing to the extent and complexity fo the specialized knowledge required of various 
  kinds of technicians. Suppose, for example, that you are engaged in research in scientific 
  medicine. The work is difficult and is likely to absorb the whole of your 