“Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.” – Herman Hesse

​

The Cambridge Dictionary defines knowledge as, “understanding of, or information about, a subject that is obtained by experience or study, either known by one person or by people generally,” and wisdom as, “the ability to use knowledge and experience to make good decisions and judgments.” We need knowledge to be wise, but we don’t need wisdom to be knowledgeable.

​

One of the precepts of CKW LUXE Magazine, along with encouraging us to “Care for others” and “Treat everyone with Kindness” is to be “Wise in our understanding of all.” Wisdom, like caring and kindness, is a quality. Knowledge is not. It is tangible and can be taught, learned, and measured. We cannot teach, learn, or measure wisdom, but we can achieve it by putting knowledge to the right use through observation and understanding. We can have all the knowledge in the world, but that doesn’t guarantee we will do the right thing with it. Without wisdom, we will not.

​

If we are to be wise in our understanding of all, as our precept encourages us to be, we must first obtain facts about others: their circumstances, their lives, and their aspirations. We must then also look inside ourselves with honesty to discover any prejudices we may have and  remove them. By doing so, we will be seeing others from the proper perspective. Once we have removed prejudice and misinformation, and gained the right perspective, only then can we achieve the wisdom necessary to understand others.

​

Knowledge is important. Through study and observation we gain information or knowledge about people and the world around us. Having knowledge is having the right facts we require to know the truth about things. Having wisdom is to use those truths to make the right decisions, and once we have wisdom, we can be Wise in our understanding of others.