Young, Wise, and Bold
Is it possible to be all three at the same time?
Is it possible to be all three at the same time?
Does one need to be old to be wise?
Only the other day, I came across the following quote from Shakespeare’s “King Lear”, where his Fool addresses the ageing Monarch:
“Thou should’st not have been old till thou had’st been wise.”
It immediately took me back to my High School days, where we’d read the Bard’s “Merchant of Venice” with much relish. In particular, I was reminded of the scroll in the Golden Casket, which had been chosen by a vain and arrogant suitor of Portia who, however, failed to win the hand of the fair lady. It read:
“Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been inscrolled.”
It set me thinking. Shakespeare, in these two quotations culled from two of his two different plays and in entirely different contexts, had juggled with three seemingly independent variables: Age (or Youth), Wisdom and Boldness.
The Fool was perhaps hinting that the Old King was acting old and foolish, whereas he ought to have been wise and old. On the other hand, the parting message for Portia’s failed suitor was that it was indeed possible for a man to be both wise and bold and that even a young man could cultivate a mature judgement (read wisdom).
Is it possible to be wise and bold?
This set me thinking. Could one be both wise and young as well as bold, simultaneously? If so, this could really be an ideal combination. Or, is it that the nature has created built-in constraints and that there are inexorable trade-offs in real life, in the sense that one cannot maximise all of these three attributes. I gave the matter considerable thought. One could be born intelligent, but apparently wisdom is something that dawns only with age and experience. On the other hand, being bold could bring out the dimension of the being reckless, wanton and impetuous, qualities that are antithetical to wisdom. After further rumination, I propose the following linear equation, as a hypothesis.
W+Y+B= Constant k
Where, W=wisdom; Y is a measure of youth and is equal to (120 years- age in years); B is the boldness quotient. “k” is constant for every individual but may vary from person to person.
A word about Y. Y is not age; rather it is 120 years minus one’s current age in years. 120 years had been chosen since as per the ancient Indian Astrology and Vedic Sciences, man’s ideal life-span is 120 years. Thus, any horoscope prepared by the ancient Hindu system presents planetary constellations spanning for exactly 120 years from birth. Y is the measure of your “youth” or “youthfulness” in the chronological sense. Accordingly, a new born child has a maximum youthfulness of 120, whereas the same reduces linearly as she grows in age.
Built-in constraints of nature
In this equation, Y is a most deterministic entity. Moreover, you have no control over it. At a given point in your life, you can neither increase it or decrease it; it is simply a measure of your youth at that time. This (Y) then being fixed, the sum of wisdom (W) and boldness (B) must be constant. In other words, the wiser you get, the less bold you are likely to be. Conversely, a bolder person, even a reckless person, may be regarded as less wise. This seems to be intuitively correct, too. It may, however, be instructive to point out at this stage that no causality of direction is being indicated or implied here. All that we are suggesting is that there is an inverse relationship, rather co-relationship, betwixt the two. In other words, you could say since a person is extraordinarily bold, he is likely to be less wise.
We notice from our rudimentary equation that as we age, the sum of our wisdom and boldness progressively reduces. Of course, this must be seen through the prism of our age. This sum may be the maximum for a new-born child but then his basic mental-cum-physical ability is effectively zero. Thus one could introduce a caveat that our equation would work best only for a person over eighteen years of age, although it could work pretty well for child prodigies and geniuses in their teens who are endowed with extraordinary talent.
There are trade-offs — one cannot have everything
What it then boils down to is that at any stage a person needs to have a balance or trade-off between wisdom and boldness, or rather risk and discretion. No doubt higher boldness may lead to higher rewards or gains, but then it could also be fraught with concomitant risk of loss and damage. Conversely, when we choose to apply a higher wisdom, we consciously choose a safer or more conservative path to tread, which accordingly will give but modest rewards.
Is Intelligence (IQ) useful?
So, what is this constant, k. We further hypothesize that this “k” is nothing but your IQ, the Intelligence Quotient. Thus, a person with an IQ of, say, 160 has higher elbow space by about 40 points, vis-à-vis a person with 120 IQ. We may also express it to mean that a relatively more intelligent person may have a “mature head on young shoulders”. It also gives him those extra points (40 in our simple example) to add to his wisdom or boldness, depending on the analysis of a given situation at any stage of his life. Some may argue that IQ is not sufficient in this analysis and that we need to add and consider factors like Emotional Intelligence, Luck, Opportunity, Family Background, personal wealth and liabilities for a more complete and accurate picture. While there is surely some merit in this contention, we wanted to keep the analysis simple. Hence, we have avoided this complexity.
The individual has to choose to optimise
So, the essence of our argument is that for any person, at a given point in his life, sum of wisdom and boldness is the same. It is for him to take a call, as to what proportion he has apply to his action or decision. Secondly, the sum for a person is higher IQ is proportionately higher.
Feedback is welcome
I would love you hear from you, especially those who do not agree with me.
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K.B.S. Sidhu. The author is an IAS officer of 1984 batch of Punjab cadre. The views expressed are his own.
He can be reached on kbs.sidhu@gmail.com or @kbssidhu1961 or https://www.facebook.com/kbs.sidhu
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