---
title: "When Knowledge Becomes a Low-Value Consumable, Move Toward Wisdom"
description: "When knowledge becomes a low-value consumable, we must move toward wisdom. This article, based on a record from a wisdom sprint class, tells the story of a diligent learner who always lagged behind the times, illustrating that merely learning knowledge is insufficient; we need to develop the ability to create knowledge systems and solve real problems, which is wisdom."
author: "雾满拦江"
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published: "2016-05-15"
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---

# When Knowledge Becomes a Low-Value Consumable, Move Toward Wisdom

> When knowledge becomes a low-value consumable, we must move toward wisdom. This article, based on a record from a wisdom sprint class, tells the story of a diligent learner who always lagged behind the times, illustrating that merely learning knowledge is insufficient; we need to develop the ability to create knowledge systems and solve real problems, which is wisdom.

**When Knowledge Becomes a Low-Value Consumable, Move Toward Wisdom**
**By: Wu Man Lan Jiang**
(This is a record from the wisdom sprint class the day before yesterday and yesterday, shared with everyone.)
**(01)**
I have a friend across generations, a wise elder, who once told me a story.
It was about an early friend of his, who hadn't read many books but was diligent, hardworking, and willing to learn. He was originally a farmer, but he was determined to make a career. He observed that the most technically skilled job in the village was driving horse-drawn carriages. So he spent every day in the stable, learning from other carriage drivers, enduring much hardship, and eventually became the most skilled carriage driver in the area.
After becoming a carriage driver, the locals didn't ride his carriage or ask him to deliver things. They preferred riding hand tractors, which ran with black smoke and were much more exciting than carriages.
He panicked and went to learn to drive a hand tractor. After two years, he was happily driving the tractor on country roads, but then he heard a terrifying sound behind him—a green iron-shelled turtle (a jeep) sped past him, leaving dust behind.
What was that?
A jeep.
The automobile era had arrived. He quickly went to learn to drive a car. The instructor told him: "Be serious, learn well, and you can become a driver for a leader, enjoying a comfortable life."
The instructor was right. At that time, there was a sensational news story about a highly skilled teacher in a school who taught well and cultivated many excellent students. So the county decided to reward this teacher heavily.
How to reward him to match his outstanding contribution?
Rumor had it that the leaders decided to promote this teacher to be a car driver.
...Don't laugh; these were rumors of the time. Although it caused controversy, the status of drivers was evident then.
He quickly learned to drive, but becoming skilled required experience. He wasn't in a hurry; he had patience. After all, old drivers would retire, and leaders couldn't be without a driver... In this calm, he suddenly discovered, "Hey, the leader can drive too... and drives better than me..."
The era of private cars turned the once-valuable driving skill into a bargain.
The person who told me this said that this man, who studied tirelessly and worked hard, is now a gloomy, taciturn, and resentful taxi driver.
He studied hard all his life but remained in the same place.
**(02)**
In an egalitarian era, being a taxi driver is also respected—besides, one story doesn't prove anything. I also knew an old department head who started by learning to drive horse carriages in the countryside, then learned to drive cars. Then he discovered: **Technology is superficial; being a person is the key.** He resolutely entered the government, and his life changed from then on.
But the point of my friend's story was to say that this taxi driver was a learning-oriented person. He learned to drive carriages, hand tractors, and taxis; he never stopped learning his whole life. But what puzzled him was that the technologies or knowledge that were highly valued became worthless once he mastered them.
He did his best.
But the times were too unfair; what could he do?
**(03)**
Scholar Xue Yong once calculated for international students: studying abroad for four years costs parents 1.2 million yuan. After returning, finding a job that pays 4,000 yuan a month, without eating, drinking, buying a house, marrying, or having children, it would take 30 years—if not starving to death—to earn back that money. By then, they'd be 50-year-old men. Isn't that a miserable life?
What Mr. Xue described is comparable to that man who studied hard but always lagged behind the times.
—In the current job market, it's common for bosses to complain about not finding employees, constantly emphasizing ability. Meanwhile, many job seekers outside the company hold diplomas but look confused.
Learning knowledge costs a lot.
When the knowledge you've learned depreciates, many people feel inexplicable resentment.
A learning-oriented life?
Don't talk about that; aren't all the people mentioned above learning-oriented?
But no matter how fast you learn, you can't keep up with the explosion of knowledge. There's a huge amount of knowledge now; even if you spent ten lifetimes, you couldn't learn it all, let alone apply it.
So where's the problem?
**(04)**
Everyone knows the story of "marking the boat to find the sword."
A man from Chu was crossing a river when his sword fell into the water. He quickly marked the spot on the boat, and when the boat stopped, he jumped in to search—but the boat had moved, while the sword hadn't. Searching for the sword this way was futile.
The knowledge many of us learn is like that.
Knowledge is often created in response to the problems of its time. But as times change rapidly, those problems may become exercises in textbooks, and even if they reappear, the environment is different.
For example, when 19-year-old Hu Shi first arrived in the U.S. and studied agriculture at Cornell, the curriculum included how to feed horses, harness carts, and drive carts. Fortunately, Hu Shi made a decisive decision and switched fields; otherwise, even if he learned those skills, the horses in China might not understand English, so it would be useless.
So it's difficult. You say much knowledge is outdated, but for children entering school, how can they know which knowledge is outdated and which has prospects?
The answer is: **In this era, learning knowledge alone is not enough.**
**What you need to learn is the ability to create knowledge systems and solve real problems.**
**That is wisdom!**
**(05)**
Chinese people have a bad habit of taking a good word and using it carelessly until it's ruined.
For example, "zhongyong" (moderation) originally meant a balanced and peaceful mindset, but people have used it to mean slickness and worldliness, completely ruining the word.
Another example is Zheng Banqiao's "hard to be糊涂" (hard to be confused), which originally meant a quiet understanding of human nature and the world, but some have twisted it to mean foolishness, making the word unusable.
Another example is "wisdom," which originally meant ultimate truth, the ultimate function of human intelligence, the root of all modern knowledge systems and thought. But after thousands of years of misuse, this word is also half-dead.
—Wisdom being half-dead marks the widespread confusion and perplexity of this era.
Since the Milesian school in ancient Greece and Confucius teaching at the apricot altar, the goal of education has always been wisdom, the ultimate development of human intelligence. But who knows what's wrong with the world; nowadays, universities are everywhere, but teaching remains at the most superficial level of knowledge transmission. Those who haven't mastered wisdom are destined to learn only superficialities, falling into a terrifying cycle of working harder but falling further behind, or being eliminated if they don't work hard.
To escape this cycle that has troubled countless people, we must return to the original purpose of education, return to wisdom, and make our minds clear and sharp. We must move from merely using knowledge to creating knowledge in response to real needs.
**(06)**
In ancient, outdated terms, wisdom is the Way, the high-level thinking that creates knowledge.
Knowledge is just technique, the superficial end.
What is above form is called the Way; what is below form is called the tool.
Confucius said: "A gentleman is not a vessel."
—Confucius meant: Don't become a pitiful creature trapped by narrow knowledge. **A person with a hammer sees every problem as a nail.** Once trapped by narrow knowledge, you become dependent on it, and it only works in a fixed scenario. But society is unpredictable, and a fixed scenario suitable for you may never appear. Even if it does, you might not be in that position.
Knowledge is used to solve problems. Even a tiny problem in life requires a lot of time to learn. This is like marking the boat to find the sword: the problem moves forward, but knowledge stays in place. Following ancient methods to solve modern problems not only makes life tiring but also leads to embarrassing difficulties.
To escape life's difficulties, knowledge alone is not enough.
We must seek the help of wisdom.
**(07)**
Wisdom is different from knowledge.
Knowledge solves problems, but wisdom solves no problems.
If there is anything in this world that is completely useless, it is wisdom.
Then why do we need wisdom? Are we crazy?
—Wisdom doesn't solve any problems; it's a high-level thinking that looks down on human nature and the world.
Enter the sea to know water, enter the world to see human hearts. People live in the world like fish in the sea; fish know water and can swim freely. But those who lack understanding of human nature are like land ducks falling into water, only gulping until they turn their eyes up.
A wise person is like a sighted person among the blind, able to avoid human traps, so they don't—or rarely—encounter human confusion.
Laozi said: "Act without action."
A wise person doesn't encounter the strange difficulties that those lacking wisdom face. The wise can stay in the most dangerous environments without being harmed.
The only thing that troubles the wise is how to achieve a higher level of thinking. Compared to this, any other so-called difficulty or problem is too trivial and meaningless.
**(08)**
In the past, the Fifth Patriarch of Zen, Hongren, secretly taught the Sixth Patriarch Huineng: "My nature is inherently complete."
Plato said: "Wisdom is in your heart."
If any of us always encounter obstacles, it must be due to insufficient wisdom.
It must be that the brain's idle rate is high.
Insufficient wisdom means insufficient intellectual development; you have a brain but don't use it. Or you think you use it, but you remain in a childish state, speaking and acting foolishly, so of course you stumble.
I have a lecturer friend who was asked: "You should teach for free; making money from knowledge is unethical."
The lecturer replied: "As you wish, I never charge for my lectures—but the venue costs money, the equipment costs money, and my assistants need to support their families. Every word you hear here is the result of the entire social production process. Every link costs money. If your thinking remains in the mindset of getting things for free, you will overlook things you shouldn't, and these will eventually make your life difficult."
—This is why many people feel strong survival pressure.
These friends don't hope to develop their own thinking to create a space for themselves, but fantasize that the world will unconditionally yield to them. When they act on this, they encounter obstacles everywhere.
Wisdom lets you understand the laws of the world, so your thoughts, words, and actions align with those laws.
**If you think right and act right, life won't have serious problems.**
**(09)**
The Buddha said: "All 84,000 Dharma doors are but one mind."
Acquiring wisdom and developing self-thinking is just three steps.
**First, shift your focus from the outside world back to yourself.**
Our living environment is certainly unsatisfactory. This dissatisfaction has both external and internal causes. For thousands of years, human history has been a process of removing obstacles from others at all costs—but no matter how much blood is shed or tears are shed, it doesn't change our intellectual inadequacy. "Pitiful are the bones by the Wuding River, yet they are still the dream lovers of spring boudoirs." On the contrary, in ancient times, many people in worse situations were able to turn inward and gain wisdom from their own minds.
This is why we turn our attention inward; compared to the great realm of wisdom, all worldly disputes lose value.
**Second, look at others with compassion.**
The world is like this: the less developed one's intelligence, the more one thinks oneself clever and tries to take advantage of others, the easier life falls into difficulties, and the more one does shameful things to survive. Online, we often see articles like "If you're stupid, don't be bad," but behind such stupidity and badness lies the misery of not finding a direction in life. Knowing others' suffering and understanding their difficulties makes our thinking clear and open, avoiding anxiety caused by hatred, and gaining a peaceful state of wisdom.
**Third, follow the wise and seek ultimate value.**
There are both living and dead wise people. Dead wise people left their words, such as Confucius, Socrates, Plato, and Master Yangming. When reading those ancient classics, be careful not to be fooled by later arbitrary interpretations. Remember that wisdom is just a way of thinking, a clarity of mind that leads to a state of emptiness. Any guidance that deviates from this should not be taken to heart.
Anyone smarter than us is our teacher. Listen to their words and follow their actions. Real-life wise people, like ancient sages, exist for us to surpass. If we dare not surpass the wise and instead prostrate ourselves in worship, we are far from wisdom itself.


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