Wisdom
Do you wish to be wise? What would you do with your newfound wisdom? Perhaps it would be helpful to define the word “wisdom” before setting your intentions.Then again, is it necessary to define the word “swimming” when, for example, you decide to learn how to swim? Don’t you just see others moving effortlessly through the water and come to the conclusion that you want to be able to do THAT? Similarly, do you need to define the word “carrot” when you want to make a carrot salad? Don’t you just get handed a carrot with the instruction to chop into little pieces? We don’t learn to count by being taught the definition of “number”. What would such a definition even be? Not sure? But you can count, right? When is it necessary to define things? Definitions shape theories. They are often the starting point of proofs in modern mathematics and logic. Does this mean that we are talking about a theory of wisdom with which we want to prove something? Not initially. Maybe later. But rather marginally. Let’s see. Even without knowing its definition, we have an intuitive understanding of wisdom. Perhaps we know people whom we would characterize as “wise”, whom we ask for advice when we have problems. Or we know examples from stories of wisdom, such as the story of Solomon from the bible, the wise king who was visited by two women:
Then two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. The one woman said, “Pardon me, my lord: this
woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. And it happened on the third day after I gave birth, that this woman also gave birth to a child, and we were together. There was no stranger with us in the house, only the two of us in the house. Then this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him. So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your servant was asleep, and she laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead! But when I examined him closely in the morning, behold, he was not my son, whom I had borne!” Then the other woman said, “No! For the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.” But the first woman said, “No! For the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.” So they spoke before the king.Then the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son who is living, and your son is the dead one’; and the other says, ‘No! For your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’” And the king said, “Get me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, “Cut the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.” But the woman whose child was the living one spoke to the king, for she was deeply stirred over her son, and she said, “Pardon me, my lord! Give her the living child, and by no means kill him!” But the other woman was saying, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; cut him!” Then the king replied, “Give the
first woman the living child, and by no means kill him. She is his mother.” When all Israel heard about the judgment which the king had handed down, they feared the king, because they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice. (1 Kings 3:16-28)
Do you wish to be wise? What would you do with your newfound wisdom? Perhaps it would be helpful to define the word “wisdom” before setting your intentions.Then again, is it necessary to define the word “swimming” when, for example, you decide to learn how to swim? Don’t you just see others moving effortlessly through the water and come to the conclusion that you want to be able to do THAT? Similarly, do you need to define the word “carrot” when you want to make a carrot salad? Don’t you just get handed a carrot with the instruction to chop into little pieces? We don’t learn to count by being taught the definition of “number”. What would such a definition even be? Not sure? But you can count, right? When is it necessary to define things? Definitions shape theories. They are often the starting point of proofs in modern mathematics and logic. Does this mean that we are talking about a theory of wisdom with which we want to prove something? Not initially. Maybe later. But rather marginally. Let’s see. Even without knowing its definition, we have an intuitive understanding of wisdom. Perhaps we know people whom we would characterize as “wise”, whom we ask for advice when we have problems. Or we know examples from stories of wisdom, such as the story of Solomon from the bible, the wise king who was visited by two women:
Then two women who were prostitutes came to the king and stood before him. The one woman said, “Pardon me, my lord: this
woman and I live in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. And it happened on the third day after I gave birth, that this woman also gave birth to a child, and we were together. There was no stranger with us in the house, only the two of us in the house. Then this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on him. So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from beside me while your servant was asleep, and she laid him at her breast, and laid her dead son at my breast. When I got up in the morning to nurse my son, behold, he was dead! But when I examined him closely in the morning, behold, he was not my son, whom I had borne!” Then the other woman said, “No! For the living one is my son, and the dead one is your son.” But the first woman said, “No! For the dead one is your son, and the living one is my son.” So they spoke before the king.Then the king said, “The one says, ‘This is my son who is living, and your son is the dead one’; and the other says, ‘No! For your son is the dead one, and my son is the living one.’” And the king said, “Get me a sword.” So they brought a sword before the king. And the king said, “Cut the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other.” But the woman whose child was the living one spoke to the king, for she was deeply stirred over her son, and she said, “Pardon me, my lord! Give her the living child, and by no means kill him!” But the other woman was saying, “He shall be neither mine nor yours; cut him!” Then the king replied, “Give the
first woman the living child, and by no means kill him. She is his mother.” When all Israel heard about the judgment which the king had handed down, they feared the king, because they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to administer justice. (1 Kings 3:16-28)
A person who studies the wisdom literature and wisdom practices of different cultures enters into such a process of understanding. They can learn that although things are very different elsewhere, there are very similar problems. Lovesickness and fear of death seem to be omnipresent. But what happens when “love” and “death” mean different things in different cultures? What is considered an unacceptably cruel way of dealing with the dead in one culture is taken for granted in another. If someone would deposit the corpse of a relative in Berlin’s Tiergarten as animal feed, they would face criminal charges and the contempt of many fellow human beings. In Tibet, a so-called sky burial, in which the flesh of a dead person serves as food for vultures, is common. And here we can understand why Buddhist Tibetans give their corpses to animals; it is not out of contempt for the dead, but out of care for the animals.
To Change One’s Life
A person who wants to become wiser, believes they are not yet wise enough. Such a person wants to change themself and their life. Is this desire itself already a sign of wisdom? A person who constantly hurts other people and is egotistical, yet believes that they do not have to change themself and their way of life, is perhaps less wise than a considerate person who, however, constantly perceives the desire to hurt others but wants to get rid of this desire.
“Life” is an ambiguous term. It can refer to what takes place between the growth of a human being in the womb and their death: the life of a single person. There is also life “in the West” or “in Asia”, referring to large groups. “Life is different in Asia than in the West,” you hear people say. Or someone alarmed by climate change may exclaim: “Humanity is at stake! We must change our lives!”, referring to “all of us”.
The biological view on life, a process of evolution, humans with hearts and kidneys, etc., concerns only very general aspects of “life”.
How can you change your life? Do we live the way we live because we are in Taipei, in Zurich, in Los Angeles, in Lagos, or in Sidney? Or do we live in one of these cities because we as individuals want to live a certain way? Which comes first: the pattern of individual lives or the patterns of large groups and cultures? The fact that I speak German and English but not Chinese is because I was born in West Germany. It is less likely to learn Chinese there than in China.
Many traits of our individual lives are conditioned by the collective, the cultures into which we were born and to which we cannot yet relate as young people. Why are we selfish? Because we were born into a ruthlessly competitive society, or have we, as individuals, founded societies in which this is the way things are, because “we”, as individuals, are “that way”?
A person who studies the wisdom literature and wisdom practices of different cultures enters into such a process of understanding. They can learn that although things are very different elsewhere, there are very similar problems. Lovesickness and fear of death seem to be omnipresent. But what happens when “love” and “death” mean different things in different cultures? What is considered an unacceptably cruel way of dealing with the dead in one culture is taken for granted in another. If someone would deposit the corpse of a relative in Berlin’s Tiergarten as animal feed, they would face criminal charges and the contempt of many fellow human beings. In Tibet, a so-called sky burial, in which the flesh of a dead person serves as food for vultures, is common. And here we can understand why Buddhist Tibetans give their corpses to animals; it is not out of contempt for the dead, but out of care for the animals.
To Change One’s Life
A person who wants to become wiser, believes they are not yet wise enough. Such a person wants to change themself and their life. Is this desire itself already a sign of wisdom? A person who constantly hurts other people and is egotistical, yet believes that they do not have to change themself and their way of life, is perhaps less wise than a considerate person who, however, constantly perceives the desire to hurt others but wants to get rid of this desire.
“Life” is an ambiguous term. It can refer to what takes place between the growth of a human being in the womb and their death: the life of a single person. There is also life “in the West” or “in Asia”, referring to large groups. “Life is different in Asia than in the West,” you hear people say. Or someone alarmed by climate change may exclaim: “Humanity is at stake! We must change our lives!”, referring to “all of us”.
The biological view on life, a process of evolution, humans with hearts and kidneys, etc., concerns only very general aspects of “life”.
How can you change your life? Do we live the way we live because we are in Taipei, in Zurich, in Los Angeles, in Lagos, or in Sidney? Or do we live in one of these cities because we as individuals want to live a certain way? Which comes first: the pattern of individual lives or the patterns of large groups and cultures? The fact that I speak German and English but not Chinese is because I was born in West Germany. It is less likely to learn Chinese there than in China.
Many traits of our individual lives are conditioned by the collective, the cultures into which we were born and to which we cannot yet relate as young people. Why are we selfish? Because we were born into a ruthlessly competitive society, or have we, as individuals, founded societies in which this is the way things are, because “we”, as individuals, are “that way”?
This question concerns the old chicken-and-egg problem: What came first, the chicken that laid the egg or the egg from which the chicken that can lay an egg hatched? How did it all begin? And where should we start if we want to change our lives: with ourselves or with society and its institutions, if “life” is to become different?
Wisdom seems to be directed more at the individual. In western societies, one is more inclined to think that one must start “with oneself”, “with the individual”, if one wants to change the lives of many. But is this true? In the “East” or in Marxism, this is different. “Being determines consciousness”—a society with certain economic conditions produces people whose lives run in a certain way, who think and feel this way, Marx said.
Regardless of one’s position on the chicken-and-egg problem: If wisdom is to entail an “improvement” “of life”, then it must have something to say about the relationship of the lives of individuals in regard to collectives and cultures.
Perhaps wisdom does not want to “improve” life. Perhaps it is wrong to expect that things should go forward, become better, that there needs to be progress. Perhaps wisdom simply has to do with seeing things the way they are. But wouldn’t that be an improvement as well? Is a life without not better than one with illusions?
Als ich eines meiner letzten Interviews während des Luftalarms beendete, stand Natascha, deren Vater und zwei Brüder an der Front kämpfen, auf, und anstatt mir zum Abschied die Hand zu schütteln, umarmte sie mich fest und dankte mir für das Interview. Kurz nach diesem Moment fiel mir ein, dass Nathalie mich zwei Tage zuvor in Lemberg am Ende des Interviews lange ansah und mir herzlich dankte.
Danke.
Oh, gern geschehen, sagte ich lächelnd.
Nein, wirklich, ich danke dir! Du hast mir geholfen, darüber nachzudenken, was geschehen ist.
Ich war überrascht und verwirrt. War ich so etwas wie ein Therapeut? Warum waren sie so dankbar?
Hilflos angesichts dieser Fragen ging ich zu Bett.
Am nächsten Tag, in Chmelnyzkyj, kurz vor meinen letzten beiden Interviews, frühstückten Alla, Yura, die Übersetzerin und ich gemeinsam. Wie üblich bestellte Yura Vorspeise, Hauptgericht und Nachspeise und aß anschließend die Reste der anderen auf. Während er sich das Essen in den Mund schaufelte, bat ich die Übersetzerin, Yura und Alla von meiner Beobachtung zu erzählen, dass meine Gesprächspartnerinnen für die Interviews dankbar zu sein schienen.
Yuras Kopf hob sich langsam von seinem Teller, er hörte aufmerksam zu und starrte mich dabei direkt an. Sein Blick: emotionslos, konzentriert, achtsam. Dann antwortete er ruhig auf Ukrainisch, selbstbewusst, seine Stimme in einer geraden kontinuierlichen, tiefen Tonlage. Ich habe alles verstanden, auch wenn ich kein einziges Wort verstanden habe.
Er sagte: Du bist bereits Teil dieses Krieges, weil du in die Ukraine gekommen bist. Wir kämpfen alle. Die Soldaten an der Front in der Kälte, die Flüchtlinge, die vor den Bombardierungen fliehen, wir, die Helfer im Osten und im Westen, und die Ausländer, wie du und andere, die hierher kommen, um die Ukraine in ihrem Kampf zu unterstützen.
Gänsehaut. Ich habe nur genickt, sprachlos, gedankenlos, ohne etwas zu sagen. Reine Zustimmung. Es klang einfach richtig. Er musste Recht haben. Es ist Yura. Wie könnte dieser Kerl falsch liegen oder mich gar täuschen wollen?
In mich selbst versunken, spricht die tiefe Stimme weiter zu mir. Es ist Yura. Ich weiss es. Ich kann ihn vor mir sehen.
Deshalb danken sie dir, weil du in dein Land zurückkehren und die Wahrheit darüber sagen wirst, was hier geschieht, und dass die Unterstützung für die Ukraine nicht abbrechen darf. Du bist jetzt Teil dieses Kampfes und gibst diesen Frauen Hoffnung.
Yuras Worte waren pure Weisheit. Dieser junge Mann, 24 Jahre alt und ohne Hochschulabschluss, lieh der Wahrheit seine Stimme und machte mir, dem Muttersöhnchen aus einem der reichsten Länder der Welt, klar, warum meine Reise in die Ukraine nicht bedeutungslos war. Er hatte Recht, ich war jetzt ein Teil dieses Krieges. Das war alles, was ich wollte, aber ich musste es von einem anderen Geist hören, und es war Yura, der diesen Geist verkörperte.
Auf dem Weg zurück nach Czernowitz rief mich Volodymyr an. Er ist Zahnarzt und spricht Deutsch, weil er eine Weile in München und Leipzig gelebt hat. Er entschuldigte sich dafür, dass er sich nicht mit mir treffen konnte. Wegen des Luftalarms und der damit verbundenen Stromausfälle muss er an den Wochenenden arbeiten, um seine Patienten zu behandeln. Wir unterhalten uns ein wenig und dann sagt er:
Sie müssen die Wahrheit darüber sagen, was hier passiert. Sie müssen sie erzählen, damit die Welt die Aggression sieht, glaubt, dass sie geschieht.
Ja, natürlich, sage ich. Wir reden noch ein wenig, dann legen wir auf.
Ich schaue aus dem Fenster und sehe schmutzige Straßen und unendlich weite Felder. Ich denke:
Was ist das für eine Besessenheit von der Wahrheit? Wen kümmert das schon! Ich habe gerade den Kriegsgott gespürt. Wahrheit ist relativ, sie ist nicht wichtig. Sie ist ein unbedeutender Aspekt im Vergleich zu der Wahrnehmung des Kriegsgottes.
Dann, Wochen nach meinem Besuch in der Ukraine, wird mir klar, was Wahrheit ist.
Sie ist Harmonie.
Wahrheit ist in der Tat die Anpassung der Erscheinung an die Realität, wie Whitehead sagen würde. Etwas ist wahr, wenn die Art und Weise, wie es uns erscheint, mit seiner Realität übereinstimmt, sich ihr anpasst. Die wahre Geschichte stellt dar, wie sie sich tatsächlich entfaltet hat, einschließlich der realen Ereignisse und Möglichkeiten.
Diese Geschichte ist eine Tragödie und auch eine Geschichte der Schönheit, des Abenteuers und des Friedens.
Freude und Unbehagen, Vergnügen und Schmerz, Lachen und Tränen, Mut und Angst.
Doch unterhalb der Geschichte liegt eine Harmonie, eine Harmonie der Verbindungen und Übergänge.
Die Geschichte zu erzählen, bedeutet, die Wahrheit zu sagen. Die Wahrheit der Harmonie, einschließlich aller Verbindungen und Übergänge.
Mangelnde Wahrheit ist eine Einschränkung der Harmonie, wie Whitehead sagt. Wahrheit und Harmonie gehen Hand in Hand.
Im Geschichtenerzählen kann eine Harmonie der vielen Harmonien erreicht werden, die alles zusammenbringt. Frieden kann entstehen. Ruhe. Etwas zu Ende bringen. Bewältigung. Einen Punkt setzen.
Die Geschichte wird erzählt. Wir erzählen unsere Geschichte uns selbst und anderen.
Eure Geschichte, meine Geschichte, die Geschichte dieser Frauen, von Yura und Alla und meiner Übersetzerin. Alle Geschichten überschneiden sich.
Der Gott des Krieges betrifft uns alle.
Yura war der Weise, der mich all das verstehen liess.
ODF, Zürich 2023
