There is knowledge that comes from study, and knowledge that comes from having lived.
There is wisdom carried forward by hand, and knowledge carried farther by invention.
One teaches us how to write our name.
another gives us a keyboard
and sends our words across the world.
One teaches us how numbers work.
another calculates in an instant
what once took a page to solve.
We need both.
For what happens when the circuits go dark and we have forgotten what our hands know?
And what happens when we trust only
what our hands have always done,
never reaching beyond the boundaries
of what we already know?
Perhaps the danger is not in the old
or in the new.
It is believing either one
has nothing left to learn.
Knowledge can tell us what is visible.
Experience may ask us to look underneath.
Experience can tell us what has been.
New knowledge may reveal what could be.
Neither diminishes the other
by listening.
They enlarge each other.
And perhaps that is how we grow,
not by replacing what came before,
nor by refusing what comes next.
But by bringing both to the table
with enough humility to listen.
Wisdom may not be knowing more.
It may be knowing there is always more to know.
— a Torchbearer Wisdom by Corvalya