What Would You Tell Her?

I wonder this evening what would happen to us if we made it a goal in life to become the kind of person younger people could turn to for wisdom.  Would we take our lives more seriously?  Would we become different people?  Would it change our priorities?

For the fun of it, let’s suppose our dearest friend, Finklethraper, woke up one morning and decided she was going to become the kind of person younger people could turn to for wisdom.  Mind you, she’s not making that her only goal in life — just one of her goals.  And, to be sure, she’s not setting out to actually counsel people younger than her.   Instead, she has decided merely to become the kind of person who could successfully counsel younger people — provided she wanted to.   How will her fateful decision change her?

Finklethraper, as you’ll certainly recall of your dearest friend, is a youthful 30 years old — which for an American, falls at least a decade short of the Age of Reason.  Like so many Americans, her goals until this morning have reflected only a rudimentary social conscience.  She has lived mainly for her own success, which she has defined sometimes in terms of wealth, and too often in terms of consumption.  Consequently, she now owns a 6,000 square foot suburban McMansion, which she has filled with consumer products, and she rents a storage shed out by the interstate to handle the overflow.  Finklethraper, by her own measure, is successful.

Indeed, Finklethraper is so successful at 30 that she wants something more than “success” now.  Hence, her fateful decision one morning to become the kind of person younger people can turn to for wisdom.  But what must she do to meet the challenge of becoming such a person?

Overall, Americans are a generous people.  I am not merely talking here of how well they fund charities, causes, churches, and so forth.  Americans are personally generous, too.  They not only fund charities, causes, and churches — they fund their friends.  For many of us, our famous American generosity is what amounts to having a social conscience.

But wealth is not wisdom.  Finklethraper, even at 30, knows that becoming the sort of person younger people can turn to for a handout is not quite the same as becoming the sort of person younger people can turn to for wisdom.  She begins to realize she’s set herself a challenge more difficult than she at first imagined.

In desperation, Finklethraper phones you, her dearest friend, for advice:

“Hello.  Finklethraper here.  Help! I decided over my second cup of coffee this morning to set myself a life goal of becoming the sort of person people younger than me can turn to for wisdom.  Be frank!  Tell me what I must do to achieve my goal!  I’ve got 12 minutes.”

What would you tell her?

Wisdom is not a category of American popular culture.  We do not have many characters, fictional or non-fictional, that represent wisdom to us. And while many Americans think the Bible contains wisdom, many fewer Americans than those who think the Bible contains wisdom have actually read the book — or even have a clear idea of what is and is not in it.  So, the bold Finklethraper has set herself on a somewhat uncharted course:  She does not have much in the way of American role models to learn from or emulate.

For Finklethraper to make herself into the sort of person who younger people can seek wisdom from, I think she must begin by learning to challenge her beliefs.  Most of us are fairly good at challenging other people’s beliefs, but many of us are not so adept at challenging our own.  Yet, it seems arguable the first step towards wisdom might be to make our beliefs pay their own way.  Dogmas, ideologies, traditions are very fine for those who have not set themselves to the task of becoming wise — but the wise cannot afford to accept any of those things on faith alone.  Finklethraper must learn to test her beliefs.

How should she test them?  Some people might suggest she should ask the Pope or some other famous politician what to believe.  But I do not think people who suggest such things often qualify as wise.  So, I think she should use critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry to test her beliefs.  None of those things come easy.  Using critical reason, seeking out and evaluating facts, and learning how to think scientifically require intellectual work and intellectual work requires intellectual discipline.  There is almost no encouragement to be found in American popular culture for becoming a good thinker.  Finklethraper has her work cut out for her, and once again, she isn’t going to find much popular support for her goal and dreams.

If Finklethraper does just those two things first — learns to challenge her beliefs and learns how to properly challenge them — then, in my opinion, she will have taken a huge step towards becoming the sort of person who younger people can seek out for wisdom.  She will, of course, have far yet to go.  She must still learn, for instance, how to be true to herself.  What value and effort to put into fulfillment, growth and creativity.  How and why to work at making the world at least a little better place.  And so forth.  But she will have taken what some people feel is the most crucial step — the step of thinking well.

At the start of this essay I asked whether anyone who adopted Finklethraper’s goal would end up taking life more seriously.  I think the answer might be a cautious “yes”.

For many of us, living only for our own success is a bit like an entertainment.  We can become deeply involved in something that is only an entertainment, but there is always — just beneath the surface of our involvement — the fact we do not in the end take the entertainment seriously.  But when we live, at least in part, for the sake of others we tend to become far more serious about our life.

When Finklethraper set herself to becoming the sort of person younger people could turn to for wisdom, she went from living only for her own success to living — at least in part — for the sake of helping others.  And in taking on that additional responsibility, I think she will discover that she takes her own life more seriously.

Now that you have my perspective on it, what would you tell your dearest friend, Finklethraper, if she phoned you for advice on how to become the sort or person younger people could look to for wisdom?