Are you wise?

It is important to answer this question, because…

• You need to realize that having a doctorate does not make you <ttip:wise>Having the power of discerning and judging properly as to what is true or right; possessing discernment, judgment or discretion, which are characterized by or showing or applying such power. Thus, having knowledge, information, experience and specialist knowledge.</ttip> and <ttip:intellectual>Appealing to or engaging the intellect: intellectual pursuits. Of or relating to the intellect or its use: intellectual powers. Possessing or showing intellect or mental capacity, especially to a high degree: an intellectual person. Guided or developed by or relying on the intellect rather than upon emotions or feelings; rational. Characterized by or suggesting a predominance of intellect: an intellectual way of speaking and the more complex forms and fields of knowledge, as aesthetic or philosophical matters, especially on an abstract and general level.</ttip>.
• Being a professor does not make you wise and intellectual.
• Working in a research lab does not make you wise and intellectual.
• Just as there is MD's that ain't really healers, just as there are reverends that aren't close to being a spiritual leader, there is also the knowledgeable idiots.

No doctorate degree is required to join the ranks of being intellectual. Being intellectual is inclusive and consists of people coming from all kinds of backgrounds. There is people with only matric, There are incarcerated people. There are homeless people. There are poor people, rich people, first world, second world, …etc.

Being an intellectual do not refer to or imply someone who knows a wealth of information. In modern times, many people knows a lot. Being intellectual isn't based on how much a person knows. How much you know has no bearing at all on how much you are an intellectual.

An intellectual is someone that is curious with a tremendous desire to understand, the capacity to change their minds on matters, to self-reflect, to self-critique. Being governed by one special and specific interest, that is rarely self-serving and which is to find and reveal the truth. How many of us…

• have the authentic desire to understand?
• have minds that are wide open new ideas and opinions?
• are searching for ideas that challenge how we see the world?
• are willing to look differently at the world in light of new evidence sufacing?
• are critiquing our own ideas as intensely as we critique the ideas of others?

Intellectuals are a nomadic people, constantly changing their conceptual location, constantly in search of a better conceptual space. Just as there is workout worrier of the body - pumping iron - to break down old muscles to allow newer and bigger and better muscles to develop in their place. So intellectuals are workout worriers of the mind, regularly breaking down old ideas to allow new, better and bigger ideas to evolve in their place.