Wisdom, Strength and Courage
The Critical Trifecta
How much of the problems of mankind stem from the lack of these three things in the hearts of those who are not otherwise evil? How many people are not so much bad as weak? How many good deeds are not done by people who do not have the strength, either physical or mental to accomplish them? How much trouble comes from a simple lack of wisdom? I would maintain that they are critical for maintaining a good and free country. Lacking in all three, I make it a point to every day ask God for wisdom, strength and courage. Why should Solomon have all the fun?
The point of this essay is that these three virtues are critical to maintaining our liberty, or indeed, any possibility of living in a decent place. Furthermore, these virtues interact with each other; it's easier to be courageous when you are strong, you know when to be courageous if you are wise, courage allows your thinking to take a wise path. And on and on. Many of you may feel that I am reiterating the obvious. I can live with that.
From Dictionary.com, we have:
Wisdom
noun
the quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.
scholarly knowledge or learning: the wisdom of the schools.
Strength
noun
the quality or state of being strong; bodily or muscular power.
mental power, force, or vigor.
Courage
noun
the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery.
Obsolete. the heart as the source of emotion.
People will complain that the Earth is a bad place. The Atheists will say there cannot be a God because of the way the world is. (It takes real chutzpah to criticize a being of a quadrillion or so times your own intelligence, even assuming his nonexistence.) Christian leaders may say, well, what would the world be like if everyone followed the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments, while leaders of other faiths may may make similar arguments. And therein lies the rub. Many of course think they don't need to follow those rules, but of those who do, it's easier said than done.
If you were a soldier or guard in one of the many instances of democide with which our world has been plagued in the last ten or twenty decades, what would you do? Many will have succumbed to the pre-genocidal rhetoric; polarization, tribalization and dehumanization, and be happy to proceed. They are lacking in wisdom, not to mention empathy, and if they weren't they would be in the next category, which is those who would rather not partake in the killing of innocents. If all had enough courage to refuse, things would not proceed. This would have to be enough courage to allow oneself to be tortured and/or killed, knowing that they would replace you with someone else anyway. Additionally, your family might be at risk. Virtually no one has that much courage, and I certainly don't claim it for myself.
Similarly, courage is needed in daily life. Just to survive and go about ones day it's best not to be tied up in fears. Ones religious and philosophical world view plays a roll here, not much I can add to that, but an atheistic perspective leaves people with less courage. (Atheists will no doubt argue the point.) You need another kind of courage just to deal with coercive forces at work and in the world. In fact, without courage you are more likely to even have your opinions subverted willy nilly. Without courage one cannot do many good deeds. What you do makes a difference in your state of courage; if you take the cowardly path you become cowardly, if you take the courageous path you become courageous. We become what we do.
Strength comes in at least two types, physical strength and mental strength. In your life it's good if you have a bias toward building physical strength, both in terms of muscle power and things like endurance, balance and general athletic ability. (Old saying; strong people are harder to kill, and more useful, generally.) The U.S. as a whole does not seem to me to have much of what you would call a culture of strength, though certain classes of people do. You can move yourself in the direction of strength by making decisions that move you in that direction, even if it's just deciding to park farther from the door at work. Games requiring strength can be promoted in the youth. It may seem that it's a trivial pursuit relative to all the problems you are facing in life, but it's much like a small change in the direction of a ship, after time the ship is far from where it would have been. (Originally, the U.S. had a militia system in which all healthy males of appropriate age participated, thus military training was universal, if not too in depth. A little too much strength for the comfort of the powerful, I suspect.)
Strength must not only be thought of only as ones own physical or mental strength. Things like learning martial arts, survival skills and military training, give one a type of strength. Similarly, simply doing well in school, speaking and writing well are a form of strength, as well as learning at least a little of various trade skills in which you are not directly employed. All of these things give you a type of personal strength. With increased strength comes increased courage, since certain situations are less daunting.
Wisdom, like intelligence, comes in different forms. One may be intelligent in academic things, but not in things mechanical, and it may be the reverse for a mechanic. I think of peoples intelligence much like automobiles, some people have a pickup truck, some have a sports-car, many have a family sedan or a minivan. A sports-car is a marvelous car but it makes a lousy pickup truck. Ones brain is finite, so it can't do all things well. (Some people just have a really big car, or a really small one.) Wisdom is similar, and is of course tied to ones intelligence, but many intelligent are not wise. Much wisdom comes from knowing things that have happened. Anyone charged with troubleshooting and repairing complex equipment knows that half of the battle of becoming competent is simply having seen a given problem before. Knowing what has happened in the past regarding the power-mad will give some wisdom about politics. Reading about history may give one the wisdom of how to avoid repeating it.
The point of all this is that these are crucial for having a decent country, and they are connected. We can all do our part to make the world a better and freer place by working to increase our own wisdom, our courage and our strength, and we should try to imbue that in the next generation. (Contact your school board, but good luck with that.) Let me stress that I am in need of improving in these areas as much as anyone, I just want to emphasize their importance, and show that they are linked together. Simply having an interest in and a bias toward improving will cause progress. The idea here is not that you should start some program, join a gym, take a class, or whatever. It is that you try to have a bias in yourself towards improving these things, then you will naturally be attracted to opportunities for improvement. Oh, and ask God for wisdom, strength and courage. (Even if you don't believe in God.)