Blog 2- Wise Passiveness

“Wise Passiveness”- describe a moment in your life where such a phrase might apply

Before I delve into exploring where one may experience a moment of wise passiveness, let me begin by explaining what I believe encapsulates the meaning of wise passiveness.

Firstly, Google defines wise passiveness as “a form of learning where the individual soaks in knowledge receptively, rather than aggressively to learn. It’s when one has the opportunity to receive the world.” And although wise, I believe Google’s animatronic mind and lack of emotions means that they don’t possess the best understanding of wise passiveness.

Therefore, human to human, let me share with you a bit about wise passiveness.

To me, it means that one does not have to be actively looking for things such as knowledge and understanding. Such things take time and often come to us in unexpected moments. There are in fact ways of being in touch with knowledge without pushing for it. And I believe that this knowledge can only be found when we are quiet enough and we silence our thoughts and allow the world to speak. I do love how Google defined wise passiveness as a moment when one has the opportunity to receive the world. This is rather poetic of Google, and in my opinion, true. We receive the world when we immerse ourselves in our surroundings. It’s the moments where nature teaches us things we have never thought of, lessons that perhaps no human could’ve communicated the way nature could.

A moment in my life where I experienced wise passiveness was at a park. It was a moment taught to me by nature (multiple times in fact), and it was not until I silenced myself that I was able to hear her and understand the knowledge she was imparting.

As I was walking my dog through the park, I noticed all the birds around me flying very close to the ground and often landing to eat a bug or two. As I was walking home from the park, it began to rain. At first, I did not think much of my experience at the park, nor the rain. However, a week or so later, I experienced the same thing, low flying birds eating bugs and then shortly after, rain.

I then had an epiphanic moment…

The birds were flying low because they knew the bugs would emerge to seek higher ground from the rain! I know this may not sound like much, however, I thought that this was incredible. The birds knew that when the rain was about to fall, the bugs would be searching for higher ground, and therefore it would be easier for them to find and eat them. It was not until I really paid attention to my surroundings that I was able to gain this knowledge.

This to me, defines what it means to experience wise passiveness.

Bibliography:

http://www.irelandswildlife.com

portfolio.snc.edu